Maths/logic people, please could you help me? Venn Diagrams and alternatives.

[fuzzpig]

Not really school related but this seemed like the best place to post.

I'm trying to come up with a visual representation of my disability (long story) and basically I have 4 symptom 'groups' which all vary unpredictably, and therefore I can have any combination of them at any time. I would like to have something where I can just show immediately what combination of issues I have at a particular time.

The way I see it in my head is like a Venn diagram, but I don't think that will work for 4 (or more) issues, will it?

As say I have the following 4 symptoms, A B C and D

A B

C D

There's no way of overlapping the circles so that there's an area representing B and C without A or D. Whereas if it was just 3 groups it would be easy.

I know this is a ridiculous post but does anyone have any suggestions please for a good way of representing 4 groups with all the possible combinations?!

Use squares instead of circles? Place them asymetrically?

More creative shapes if you need?

Hmm that's true thanks, I don't have to stick to circles! :o

I'm struggling to think of a way to have overlapping spaces for pairs and also have spaces for triples like ABD etc.

Would be much simpler if I had 3 instead of 4!

Hmm, no I don't think you can every combo with squares. But you can do most.

Of course, if you went 3D...

I may need to settle!
Is there maybe another way of representing it, I remember doing other diagrams like Carroll tables and stuff but my mind is blank.

Oooh 3D...

Thanks for your help :)

I think it is possible but probably not easily with identical regular shapes...

Not possible to do cleanly in 3d. You can make a c shape around the back of a maybe?

Could you d it like a web?
So circles for each element, and then lines joining them each up?

I'm running out the door, but would this ] word?

You could try googling euler circles to see if that helps.
I'm not really thinking deeply about this because I'm watching the rugby but would it work if instead of A, B, C and D you have B, C, not-A and not-D (the area outside not-A being A. ditto not-D).

Does it need to be represented on a 2d display?
Because if not there is the option of over laying circles, eg A represented by an opaque red circle of paper, B on green and so on, with you interchanging them as applicable.
Alternatively if the symptom groups break down in to further groups, eg A1, A2 etc you could use something similar to a scatter graph. So each lettered symptom group has a graph, and within that graph each mark represents one of the numbered symptoms. Again with all graphs on tracing paper so they can be combined to represent the different combinations of symptoms. That would possibly work as a 2d fixed display depending on your audience. And if you wanted to be very specific, each individual symptom could have its own paper, so you could visibly show that eg today you had A1,A5, A8 and B2 and B5.

What about doing it with colours?

So you could have CYMK, or whatever you want, representing each of the symptoms and the colour you get from combining the relevant colours for each of the possible combinations of symptoms?

Wiki has some interesting options

Those are cool!!!

Suddenly rekindled my interest in Venn Diagrams . I would have just done a list

Edwards' Venn diagrams highly recommended - they easily allow you to go to 4,5, 6+ sets with all cases without getting in a mess. They are on the Wiki lougle pointed out and there are several examples of piccies on the web. He wrote about them in New Scientist years ago and I kept the article for a long time. Anybody got a link to it? I lost my paper copy a while back.

Google 'venn diagram with 4 sets' It shows you lots of images of how to do it.

Ooh wow. Thanks everyone. Those are addling my brain right now (I am pretty good at maths, at least I was, but sadly one of the four variables is 'cognitive impairment'!) but I'll look during the day :)