Bankruptcy vs. Inflation vs. Recession vs. 1930s vs. Layoffs

Today, I compared the Google-Popularity of some terms that come up a lot in this time of recession:



No.1, bankruptcy, was huge in 2004-2005, then fell somewhat but stayed on top and was again rising this year. The second most Googled word was inflation. Recession was generally low but saw a huge but brief peak in January 2008. Toward the end of the year it had climbed higher again, even surpassing inflation. Note that 1930s actually had a higher search volume in 2004-early 2006 than in 2008. It always displayed a seasonal pattern with a low during the summer.

Let me give you a quick rundown of the country top 3 for each term:



The US appeared in four out of five top 3's. The exception, inflation, had South Africa as no.1, followed by India and Singapore. India actually figured also frequently: three times. 1930s was more an "Anglo-Saxon" phenomenon.

Marriage vs. Divorce

I faced off marriage/wedding and divorce.



Marriage was much more Google-popular than divorce, no surprise there. Note the seasonal pattern: the summer was the peak season every year while December was the low point. How about we see which countries were most interested in wedded bliss?



The top 3 was: South Africa, the US and Trinidad and Tobago. The latter was interesting: did a lot of Americans and Europeans maybe get married in this sunny, tropical holiday destination? The antithesis then:



In the US, South Africa and Canada, more people used Google to inform themselves about divorce than in other countries. Trinidad and Tobago made it in the top 10 again: no. 8.

Bay vs. Lake vs. Sea vs. Ocean vs. Gulf

This time I faced off the five largest kinds of bodies of water.



You might have thought that Google-popularity would be linked to size and expected to see ocean or sea on top but it is bay that overall is the "winner." Maybe that has something to do with the existence of a lot of place names (and their derivatives) that contain "Bay"? Note that lake is very seasonal: everybody goes to the lake in the summer, I guess?

Anthropology vs. Archaeology vs. Linguistics vs. Art History vs. Musicology

Tonight, a face-off of five academic disciplines which are somewhat related:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of archaeology | archeo... in all years
anthropology 1.19
archaeology | archeo... 1.00
linguistics 0.64
"art history" 0.43
musicology 0.12

All disciplines displayed lows in the summer and at Christmas while peaking in Fall when university is back in session. Also, they all decreased steadily in Google-popularity. Anthropology beat out arch(a)eology for first place, musicology was dead last but had a surprisingly big peak in early 2004. It turned out that this was related to Prince's Musicology album however... Pretty good album I must agree. I'm not sure what that other peak in the news graph in late 2004 represents. But wait, let's see if we got different results when we zoomed in on specific English-speaking countries. First the US as a benchmark:


Scale is based on the average traffic of archaeology | archeo... from United States in all years
anthropology 1.56
archaeology | archeo... 1.00
linguistics 0.52
"art history" 0.58
musicology 0.10

Anthropology was more ahead in the US than in the world as a whole while linguistics and art history were about even now. Next, the United Kingdom:


Scale is based on the average traffic of archaeology | archeo... from United Kingdom in all years
anthropology 0.43
archaeology | archeo... 1.00
linguistics 0.27
"art history" 0.16
musicology 0.01

In the UK, archaeology was twice as popular as anthropology but declined much faster. In the UK, archaeology is not subsumed under a broader anthropology discipline, unlike in the US. Musicology only registered in Google-popularity for the Prince album in 2004 and then nothing... How about Australia?


Scale is based on the average traffic of archaeology | archeo... from Australia in all years
anthropology 0.42
archaeology | archeo... 1.00
linguistics 0.14
"art history" 0
musicology 0

Here too archaeology was more popular than anthropology. Art history barely registered and musicology not at all: I guess they don't like Prince as much down under? ;-) Lastly, let's check on Canada:


Scale is based on the average traffic of archaeology | archeo... from Canada in all years
anthropology 1.52
archaeology | archeo... 1.00
linguistics 0.46
"art history" 0.38
musicology 0

Well, Canada may still have the Queen as head of state but in in this academic face-off they followed the US and not the British Commonwealth... Creeping Americanization, I guess ;-) Anthropology was again king.

By the way, just like with some of the other face-offs, I am constrained to search terms that don't have too many different meanings lest they distort the graphs. For example, "philosophy" is too often used in a non-academic context. I left "musicology" in this face-off in a way to demonstrate the statistical noise produced by such an ambiguous term.

Einstein vs. Isaac Newton vs. Charles Darwin vs. Euclid vs. Copernicus

I've compared some of the most influential, revolutionary scientists of all time (Google Trends):


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "isaac newton" in all years.
einstein 5.35
"isaac newton" 1.00
"charles darwin" 0.75
euclid 0.55
copernicus 0.45

Einstein dwarfs everybody else: he is truly the iconic scientist. However, his impact makes it hard to distinguish the other four. Let's look at them separately:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "isaac newton" in all years.
"isaac newton" 1.00
"charles darwin" 0.76
euclid 0.54
copernicus 0.45

Even more pronounced than before, we can spot a seasonal aspect to the Google-interest in science: summertime and Christmas are outspoken "unscientific." The possibility that the interest in science is gradually declining is also more apparent in this graph. Finally, people are more interested in Newton and Darwin, closer to our own cultural framework than Euclid and Copernicus.

War vs. Peace

war
peace

No surprise here: war gets a lot more attention than peace, and increasingly so. Sad state of the world. Notice the dips in the war line during the summers.

Olympics vs. Tour de France

Let's compare two big international sporting events this time, again with thanks to Google Trends.


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of olympics in all years.
olympics 1.00
"tour de france" 0.80

A. Athens Olympics
Chicago Daily Southtown - Aug 24 2004;
B. Turin Winter Olympics: Your 2-minute guide to the Winter Olympics
Tucson Citizen - Feb 10 2006;
C. Winter Olympics
Unison.ie - Feb 13 2006;
D. Mancuso Salvages Olympics for US Women
Glasgow Daily Times - Feb 24 2006;
E. UK's Brown won't attend Olympics opening
Houston Chronicle - Apr 9 2008;
F. A to Z of the Beijing Olympics
24 Hours Vancouver - Aug 8 2008;

Notice the clearly seasonal aspect of the interest in both events: the Tour de France every year in the summer, the Summer Olympics every 4 years and the Winter Olympics ditto but in the winter. Also, there was a lot more interest in the Tour de France internationally, esp. in the US, when Lance Armstrong was still competing...