Cartography of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Cartography of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: A review of wireless visualizations and its consequences.
Christian Sandvig, University of Illinois at Urbana Campaign, 2006

This paper reports on an archival survey spectrum visualizations (visual metaphors) used in policy proceedings in the US over the past 80 years, and compares these pictures with current cartography practices. Amongst other issues it describes the use of visual metaphor to tell more about human behaviour than the actual “spectrum” – which is in itself a metaphor used by scientists to group together radiation ranges, from the cosmic to radio.

URL: http://web.si.umich.edu/tprc/papers/2006/655/SandvigCartogSpectrum.pdf

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