Tell us something we don’t know.

[IndyJay]

Can This New Map Fix Our Distorted Views of the World? (Published 2021)

You’re going to need some double-sided tape.

www.nytimes.com

Bruce

Paywall

 

[turnkey4099]

Many years ago I was a navigator on international routes, way before GPS. Loran and Consolan were major aids at the time. Part of my training was in cartography and the different types of projections. Since I was travelling long distances, an accurate projection and the limitations of each type were important to understand. To truly see the proper size relationships you need a globe. A mercator projection is usually projected with the equator as the "reference" as in wrapping a tube of paper around the globe at the equator, but could be from any longitude line as well and you'll get different appearances. A mercator is projected from the view point of the center of the earth. Thus, with the reference being the equator, everything at the equator will be accurate. The farther you get from the equator (closer to the poles) the more "distortion" there is. It is impossible to project either pole onto a mercator map. A line from the center of the earth thru the pole does not intersect the tube that is wrapped at the equator.

Most of the maps I used for navigation were Lambert Conformal, but those only covered a part of the route so it took several maps to cover our routes. An example to help explain Lambert Conformal: It was like travelling from California to New York and the Lambert Conformal was like the state map, have to carry one for each state, but they're more accurate than one of the whole country. Even the area of the US gets distorted if you try to project it onto a flat surface with any kind of map projection.

The odd part is closest route point to point is a great circle. i.e., Seattle to Japan goes via Alaska!! NW Orient used to have a refueling stop on Shemya isle way out near the end of the Aleutian isles.

 

[bcp]

Paywall

Another article about this map.

Princeton astrophysicists re-imagine world map, designing a less distorted, 'radically different' way to see the world

Princeton Professors J. Richard Gott and Robert Vanderbei, in collaboration with David Goldberg of Drexel University, have designed a two-sided disk that minimizes the flaws of traditional flat maps.

www.princeton.edu

Bruce

 

[turnkey4099]

Again, the point is, all we were shown in grade school was the mercator map. It's highly distorted and doesn't give little kids a true comparison of the size of different countries and land masses.

The light color is how we were taught. The dark color is how it really is.
Unless you give each kid a globe (we had ONE in each classroom), they don't learn this until much later in life, if at all, or like I did, they see something that doesn't make sense and question it. Fortunately, my parents knew the answer and were able to explain it.

Almost everyone was taught that Greenland was bigger than Africa, when in reality, Africa is 14.5 times larger than Greenland.

Question everything.




The View attachment 776375

I recall in grade school being very clearly explained the different projections and distortions. No conspiracy at all.

 

[turnkey4099]

In spite of the comman belief, wind chill factor will not freeze a pipe or car radiator. The inanimate object will only cool down to whatever the thermometer temperature is.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

An acre of hilly land has more surface area than an acre of flat land.

 

[MossRoad]

I wondered why Greenland wasn't a continent.



Bruce

No kidding.

What we were taught...



What reality is. Australia is nearly 4X the size of Greenland.

 

[MossRoad]

I recall in grade school being very clearly explained the different projections and distortions. No conspiracy at all.

I never said it was a conspiracy.

 

[MossRoad]

An acre of hilly land has more surface area than an acre of flat land.

Yeah, I learned that as a kid, too. My dad always said our yard was about an acre and a half. I measured it on a map as part of a Boy Scout project. It was less than an acre. He pointed over the escarpment in our back yard and said something to the effect of "you forgot to measure that." He explained that from above that area was only about 50' wide by the width of our yard. However, the surface area of the hillside was about 3/4 of an acre. Fortunately, he was only taxed on the flat measurement.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

My geologist brother was right. As a kid I remember him cutting out continents (magazine print) and putting them together like a puzzle.
"Continental drift describes one of the earliest ways geologists thought continents moved over time. Today, the theory of continental drift has been replaced by the science of plate tectonics."