8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA CHANGED WORLD HISTORY

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD
HISTORY

• Most times, bad data causes confusion at best,
  or consequences in our immediate lives at worst.
  Incorrect values, wrong dates, bad inferences,
  and countless other examples impact people and
  businesses every day.

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD
HISTORY

• However, every so often, bad data does much
  more than create a mundane problem. When bad data
  becomes the focal point in an event with global
  ramifications, the course of world history can
  change.
• Here are 8 jaw-dropping ways bad data
  changed world history
• Chinas Disrupted Search for Rome
• In 97 AD, Chinese military ambassador Gan
  Ying was sent on an expedition by Chinese general
  Ban Chao to travel to the Roman Empire. But Gan
  Ying never reached Rome. He travelled as far as
  modern day Iran, and asked local merchants how
  long it took to cross the Black Sea to Rome.
  Wanting to preserve their trading monopolies, the
  merchants provided Ying with bad data, saying the
  trip could take up to 2 years. This was too long
  a wait, so Ying turned back, and China never
  connected with the Roman Empire.

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD
HISTORY

• Harald Sigurdsson, King of Norway, invaded
  England in 1066. After initial blistering
  victories, Haralds army decamped in the defeated
  town of Fulford. Haralds reconnaissance team
  concluded that English troops were nowhere near
  the town. The team passed this bad data onto
  Harald, who ordered his men to remove their armor
  and rest. Then English troops surprised the
  vulnerable invaders, routed the army, and killed
  Harald in battle, forcing Norways retreat from
  England.
• In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed
  across the Atlantic Ocean to find an alternative
  route to Asia. But Columbus relied on the
  inferior calculation of Alfranagus, a Persian
  geographer, to chart his route. Furthermore,
  Columbus either forgot or did not realize that he
  had to convert the Arabic miles used by
  Alfranagus into Roman miles. This bad data caused
  Columbus and his crew to land in the Americas,
  rather than in Asia.

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD
HISTORY

• For centuries, miasma theory held that
  diseases were transmitted by poisonous vapors or
  mists that contained decomposed matter, rather
  than by microbes. The theory was used to treat
  all of Europes major plagues. Miasma theory
  called for medical treatments that eliminated
  poor smells and bad hygiene. Since scientists had
  no instruments for measuring real success, they
  interpreted mild improvements amongst patients as
  confirmatory data for the theory. Miasma theory,
  and all the bad data associated with it, blocked
  physicians from properly treating patients all
  the way into the 20th century.
• During World War II, the Germans created the
  first long-range guided ballistic missile, known
  as the V-2. The V-2 allowed the Germans to hit
  Allied targets accurately and rapidly over very
  long distances. However, a misinformation
  campaign led by British double agents convinced
  the Germans that the missiles were off by 10 20
  miles. The Germans adjusted the missiles based on
  this bad data, and ended up mostly hitting the
  sparse areas outside of London.

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD
HISTORY

• By 1971, resistance to Americas war in
  Vietnam was growing quickly. But there was still
  a large portion of the country that supported the
  effort. When the Pentagon Papers were leaked to
  the New York Times, it became clear that most of
  the data the US government released about the
  conflict was false. Without this smokescreen of
  bad data, support for the war plunged across the
  American public.
• For the 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
  CHANGED WORLD HISTORY

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD HISTORY

• The Mars Climate Orbiter was a NASA space
  probe launched in 1998 to study the Martian
  climate. The probe was expected to generate major
  breakthroughs, and the scientific community
  across the world was eagerly awaiting the
  results. But the Orbiter never performed a single
  test. The probe flew off track and disintegrated
  in the atmosphere of Mars because its software
  was not converting data to the metric system. The
  bad data may have been a 6th grade science
  problem, but it led to a 193 million dollar
  mistake.
• 2008 World Financial Meltdown (2008)
• As one of the worst financial crises in
  history, the 2008 crash was fueled by bad data
  that overstated how much mortgage-backed
  securities, collateralized debt obligations, and
  other derivatives were actually worth. When the
  subprime mortgages that formed these derivatives
  defaulted, and their true value became apparent,
  key financial institutions such as Lehman
  Brothers went bankrupt. The collapse led to
  widespread evictions, foreclosures, and job
  losses across the world.

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8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS Big DATA CHANGED WORLD HISTORY

• Maybe Thats Why Data Quality is So
  Important?
• Not every instance of bad data is going to
  generate a world altering event. But it is
  interesting to reflect on how the data we use
  every day could ever become so randomly
  consequential. Most of us will never discover a
  country, or win a war, but we can certainly try
  our best to make sure that the data we handle and
  produce is of a high quality.