41–50 of 351 posts
maps give us our only ability to see "the world". Can you imagine what you would think the world looked like as our ancestors did in the world before accurate maps? you think the mercator projection is problematic, I got news for you.
> Maps distort how we see the world maps give us our only ability to see "the world". Can you imagine what you would think the world looked like as our ancestors did in the world before accurate maps? you think the mercator projection is problematic, I got news for you.
Interesting post with eye opening stats (even after reading many posts like this I'm still amazed at how big Brazil is!) Another interesting effect maps have on worldview that was not mentioned is the placement of North at the top ( https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/7960/why-is... ). The fact that in the South of Egypt was referred to as "Upper Egypt" has confused me to no end, since "clearly" it's the…
I received a gift from a friend in Uruguay that is from the clockmaker Girosur. The clock runs backwards, rhetorically asking “why is North up?” https://girosur.com/como-funcionan/
Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings)…
Hmm. That’s not usually how the discourse goes.
It’s never “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. That’s terrible.”
It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thought. That’s terrible.”
FWIW, I was amazed in school when I saw a more accurate projection of the size of Europe. I mean, I _knew_ that it was tiny. But my thoughts about Europe definitely changed after seeing the other projection.
Similarly but not size-related, I was amazed to learn that some countries place Asia in the center (and the social/cultural implications of this).
I think you should be more amazed at people who _don’t_ care at _all _ about size. Sure, this group might include reasonable people like yourself who are knowledgeable about map distortions and trade offs. But a lot of the “I don’t care” group overlaps with the “Africa is a country” group. (Map size “memes” appear on Quora often and the degenerates come out of the woodworks to complain.)
There was a memorable scene from "The West Wing" on the biases imposed by most map projections, in particular, how Mercator makes North America look huge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI
Preserving the relative proportions of the continents while also emphasizing how the continents nearly form one giant supercontinent is why I prefer the Dymaxion projection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map It works by projecting the earth onto an icosahedron (a D20) and then unfolding it. Distortion is fairly low and roughly equal across all the continents; here's a graphic that demonstrates the relative d…
But really the biggest problem I have with Dymaxion (and with all discontinuous maps to some degree) is how difficult it is to grasp how the different landmasses are located in relation to each other across the discontinuations; the worst-case example is probably estimating the path from South-America to Australia or Africa which requires some degree of mental gymnastics to accomplish.
Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings)…
Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings)…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That reminds me of this contemporary Chinese world map: https://priorprobability.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/img_536... It's meant for shipping lanes, mostly. So it puts China in the centre. The shortest route to European and American markets are approximately straight lines. And the Panama canal is at the edge of the world.
If you look closely, it's actually putting the Maldives in the center. And the description in the bottom right doesn't mention shipping lanes at all (which anyways would go overland if you were to simply draw straight lines on this map) but instead mentions that a latitudinally equal-differential polyconic projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitudinally_equal-differenti... is used to prevent the distortion nea…
This is why I am hugely in support of increased immigration into Canada, housing crisis aside (it'll resolve over time)