Computers are reasonably good at analyzing large datasets, but there is one class of problem where they require a bit of help from puny humans – high dimensional datasets. By “high-dimensional” we mean “wide”, as in lots of columns. When we have wide data, it’s very hard to spot commonalities across a number of those columns. For example, if we have data from a large number of sensors, and all of them have something to say about what’s going on, it’s very hard to detect what is similar about all those readings when a particular type of event occurs.
