A Czech Mystery

Some years ago, we went to Prague for a few days and visited the Národní technické muzeum v Praze (National Technical Museum in Prague). Among the displays were some beautifully restored classical cars.

But something was wrong. The Czech Republic is a landlocked country situated in the middle of Europe but these cars had right hand steering wheels. They were designed for driving on the left hand side of the road.

Sherlock and Doctor Watson immediately investigated. Little grey cells went into overdrive, Kojak sucked a lollipop – sorry, I got carried away there.

We asked a museum attendant. This was more difficult than it sounds.  Our Czech was limited to the few phrases needed to get around. His English was nearly as non-existent. It took some time, a little German, some pointing at our phrase book, and a lot of gesticulation to get the answer. 

According to him, after the Nazis invaded in 1939, Hitler decreed that Czechoslovakia should drive on the right – NOW!  That made sense and we knew that the same thing had happened in Austria.

There the matter rested till last Saturday when The Guardian published a review of a book about China. To illustrate the book, a picture of the Caiyunba Bridge over the Yangtze was shown, with one, lonely car in view – definitely driving on the left, though China drives on the right. Closer examination (and a flurry of googling) showed that the car was on a slip road and the photo was probably taken in 2007 when the bridge was opened.

That led us back to the Czech issue of changing the flow of traffic from left to right. We discovered an article on Wikipedia which claimed that the Czech government had planned to change to driving on the right‘within a reasonable time’ as early as 1925 and had just not got around to it.  H’mm!  No sources given. In fact the article had a header saying that citations were needed.

More searches revealed quotes from the Wikipedia article, often lifted verbatim (plagiarism is rife on the web) and nothing with authoritative sources.

Short of contacting the Czech Embassy, who may not know as the Czech Republic was part of Czechoslovakia in the period we are talking about, it remains one of the many little niggling mysteries which constantly plague our inquisitive minds.

Unless you know the answer?

Statistics can be Beautiful

OK. That probably put off half my audience – I don’t care. We are all subjected to a constant stream of statistics, whether we like it or not, unless we opt to ignore the outside world, which is increasingly hard to do.

In the course of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name – spelt Eyjafjallajoekull - I came across Information is Beautiful a site by David Candless. What impressed most is that the graph shown is version 3. On the Home Page is an apology for getting the original numbers wrong. He corrected them.

Even if you have no time for statistics, take a few minutes to look at the various visualisations (also known as graphs). They have a beauty which transcends the data. I’m impressed enough to put his book on my Amazon Wishlist.

In particular, try The Solar System  Music Box.  If you click on the graph, you will get an inkling as to why mathematics and music are so tightly intertwined.

The key benefit is that the data is made available. Even if you don’t have the skills to make use of it, it is there for those who have and that gives it authority.

Trust me, if there was any doubt, someone would have brought down the site in flames by now. Statisticians are as prone to confrontation as anyone else!

The second site is one which is a spin-off from a print UK newspaper.

Scroll down to ‘Tax receipts since 1963’. Note that beneath the pretty – though worrying – illustration there is an invitation to ‘Download the data’. If you see this offered, you should be able to trust the graphics.

As Lawrence Lowell, the President of Harvard University wrote in 1909, “Statistics are like veal pies, good if you know the person who made them and are sure of the ingredients”.