Nomography: A renewed pedagogical tool to sciences and engineering high-education studies

Abstract

Nomography is defined as a branch of mathematics in which methods of graphical representation of functional dependencies are studied. The resulting graphs are called nomograms, alignment charts, or abacs. Along the past century, this science branch experienced extensive development and use in many contexts to support scientists and engineers with accurate and fast calculations of complex formulas to a practical precision. However, nomography declined by the end of the twentieth century with the development and popularisation of more capable and powerful personal computers and handheld calculators. Despite this context, nomography remains attractive due to its potential for rapid and accurate graphical calculations contributing to a better understanding of complex formulas. Thus, this work defines the alignment charts and their capabilities to justify their importance as graphical tools in sciences and engineering studies. Also, PyNomo software is introduced to build vector-based and scalable nomograms. Then, this work emphasizes the importance of including nomography as a valuable and renewed computational tool, in conjunction with PyNomo software, in an academic context. In line with that, several nomograms, which have been obtained with PyNomo software, are examined to grasp the true importance of this science branch and its capabilities in an educational context.