The Mercator projection is leading you astray — 22 Comments
Yes, but…
In another sense the Mercator accurately reflects a cultural, historical, and economic reality. Europe and North America really are swollen in influence beyond their actual land-mass area. That is why the Mercator has held on for so long. It intuitively felt about right to people. They made some allowance for the extreme north and south but regarded everything between the 60 degree marks as about right.
You don’t see globes around any more.
old hat… very old hat…
Mercator projection maps are only useful as wall decorations. They’re accurate enough for regions near the equator, or 20 degrees or so north or south. For any practical purposes, you need conic sections centered on the mid-latitude of the area to be depicted.
Ken the Retired USN Navigation Instructor
roc scssrs Says:
“You don’t see globes around any more.”
With Google Earth, you don’t really need them. But a good globe is more a work of art than a practical tool for navigation.
Neo; a better example of the inaccuracy of a Mercator projection (better than Russia) is to compare Greenland with South America. In a Mercator projection, Greenland looks bigger than South America. On a globe, or comparing similar conic sections, Greenland is about the size of Brazil.
I remember they called it “scale expansion” when I was in the navy (maybe Ken was my instructor?). That’s where I learned about the “great circle” route of navigation. You go north to travel east or west (in the northern hemisphere) since it’s shorter that way.
Too often we don’t test our own assumptions and rely on the old familiar paradigms – and we call that interpretation “reality”…
The Mercator projection grossly distorts areas as one moves away from the equator. But it was of enormous value to sailors,for one reason: straight lines on this map represent lines of constant compass heading, a fact that greatly simplifies navigation on the open sea
The Mercator projection is locally accurate. Siberia is shaped like the Mercator image and not like the other. The problem arises when we try to compare the size of regions that are at different latitudes.
OK, here’s just one more thing that’s going to make me sound both old and whiny — a truly unattractive combination.
The different types of map projections, as well as their advantages and disadvantages, used to be taught to children in elementary school. And it was taught in a far more intellectually sophisticated way than this video. I repeat, taught to CHILDREN.
I’m retired now, but towards the end of my career, I used to frequently rant about this kind of thing. With all the people in grad school studying Education, somebody should try to objectively measure the degeneration of American schools.
Yes, I’m probably overreacting, but if you go to YouTube and read the comments to the video, I don’t know …
My favorite one so far: “Does this mean my breasts get bigger if I go further north?” Now that I’ve got things in perspective, I feel better.
In projective geometry you learn that you can’t accurately project a globe onto a flat surface without distorting something. I flew airplanes and the aeronautical charts used a lambert conformal projection which does a pretty good job of preserving distances and angles.
Re Greenland: years ago I shared an office and one of us had a Mercator-projection world map on the wall. One day I was staring at the map and said, “Have you ever noticed how big Greenland is?”
My officemate looked at it. “You’re right, it’s huge.”
Etc. We went on in that way for several minutes before the truth dawned on us, and then we felt pretty stupid.
Well, that was fun!
Big Maq Says:
“Really upside down?….”
Maps, even terrible maps like Mercator projections, are tools that tells as much about the tool MAKER as it does about the tool USER. The “upside down” map was drawn for Australians; note that Australia is in the center left-to-right.
Meanwhile, russia and china are gearing up for a new world war, that will be nuclear, and the USA is ignoring it.
[as is neo and everyone]
not a bad accomanyment to a militar that is larger than all the worlds militaries combined (upon activation)
japan is daring china over spratlys and with new missiles
80,000 troops are on the border of the ukraine
(and another set are near the baltics)
and the one country line in the sand was dismantled by obama and now russia is ruling the middle east with iran, and has a clear corridor to military expansion in the area thanks to Obama negating the buffer zone that was being created (And i laid out… remember? turkey, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, india…
with all those closed only a very tiny path tourh iran would enable such games, now the doors are wide open, and iran is taking iraq and afghanistan, russia hs syria, we lost egypt, etc.)
@Ken M – right you are! Worked with a guy from NZ and he had this displayed at his work station. Made us all think about perception.
I put it out there because we are all accustomed to thinking of the world in a certain way, when the exact same facts, arranged another way, can provide a different perspective, similar to the point about the Mercator design, but perhaps more jarring.
As you say, often the perception expressed is a reflection of the perceiver than of the reality.
When we are debating this election, the “anything is better than clinton” argument is very much caught up in the old, usual right vs left view, with all the focus on the left side and little concern about what we are really advocating for (going to have if we win) on the “right” side.
“somebody should try to objectively measure the degeneration of American schools” – CF
A variety of studies are now showing that the biggest differentiator between public and private school performance is due to parental involvement.
Perhaps it is not so much the schools and their administration, as it is the parents and the standards they hold both their own children and their school systems to.
.
We’ve become a society of grievance and victimhood. That is that wedge that others exploit to divide us all. But, its root is in looking externally to blame rather than taking personal responsibility.
What seems to be emerging from 2016 is that significant numbers on “our” side suffers from it perhaps as much as does the left.
.
This is a theme that fits nicely with a few posts ago about “optimism”.
To take a grievance and victimhood view of the world is squarely in the pessimistic, zero sum, divide up the spoils camp. Of course, there are a variety of things to point to that justifies each person’s pessimistic view. There always is.
An optimistic view is more likely to see the world as one of opportunity, of growing the pie through one’s contribution, where a rising tide floats all boats, each individual earning their piece along the way. It is a harder argument to make (e.g. easier to see job losses and attribute them to trade – though technology might be the real reason – than to see the jobs gained and other benefits from trade – lower prices – received by the wider population).
IMHO, America was Founded on the optimistic view. We ALL are letting ourselves succumb to the pessimistic view, and too many are willingly being led down a destructive path, arguing that one destructive choice is better than another one.
If you like maps, you might like this book.
But don’t take my word for it.
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190656/the-mapmakers-by-john-noble-wilford/9780375708503/
“In his classic text, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner John Noble Wilford recounts the history of cartography from antiquity to the space age. With this revised edition, Wilford brings the story up to the present day, as he shows the impact of new technologies that make it possible for cartographers to go where no one has been before, from the deepest reaches of the universe (where astronomers are mapping time as well as space) to the inside of the human brain. These modern-day mapmakers join the many earlier adventurers—including ancient Greek stargazers, Renaissance seafarers, and the explorers who mapped the American West—whose exploits shape this dramatic story of human inventiveness and limitless curiosity.”
Question for discussion: Did LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainboy skew Left?
I don’t remember any particular bias in his choice of kids books, but I didn’t watch much of the program myself.
I think on the whole they were well-written choices, so he can’t be faulted for the degeneration of education in general, but I have noticed that you have to vet a lot of modern books for tweens / teens for basic literacy.
Yes, but…
In another sense the Mercator accurately reflects a cultural, historical, and economic reality. Europe and North America really are swollen in influence beyond their actual land-mass area. That is why the Mercator has held on for so long. It intuitively felt about right to people. They made some allowance for the extreme north and south but regarded everything between the 60 degree marks as about right.
You don’t see globes around any more.
old hat… very old hat…
Mercator projection maps are only useful as wall decorations. They’re accurate enough for regions near the equator, or 20 degrees or so north or south. For any practical purposes, you need conic sections centered on the mid-latitude of the area to be depicted.
Ken the Retired USN Navigation Instructor
roc scssrs Says:
“You don’t see globes around any more.”
With Google Earth, you don’t really need them. But a good globe is more a work of art than a practical tool for navigation.
Neo; a better example of the inaccuracy of a Mercator projection (better than Russia) is to compare Greenland with South America. In a Mercator projection, Greenland looks bigger than South America. On a globe, or comparing similar conic sections, Greenland is about the size of Brazil.
I remember they called it “scale expansion” when I was in the navy (maybe Ken was my instructor?). That’s where I learned about the “great circle” route of navigation. You go north to travel east or west (in the northern hemisphere) since it’s shorter that way.
Too often we don’t test our own assumptions and rely on the old familiar paradigms – and we call that interpretation “reality”…
Really upside down?….
http://www.thnk.org/application/uploads/2013/12/upside_down_2.png
The Mercator projection grossly distorts areas as one moves away from the equator. But it was of enormous value to sailors,for one reason: straight lines on this map represent lines of constant compass heading, a fact that greatly simplifies navigation on the open sea
The Mercator projection is locally accurate. Siberia is shaped like the Mercator image and not like the other. The problem arises when we try to compare the size of regions that are at different latitudes.
OK, here’s just one more thing that’s going to make me sound both old and whiny — a truly unattractive combination.
The different types of map projections, as well as their advantages and disadvantages, used to be taught to children in elementary school. And it was taught in a far more intellectually sophisticated way than this video. I repeat, taught to CHILDREN.
I’m retired now, but towards the end of my career, I used to frequently rant about this kind of thing. With all the people in grad school studying Education, somebody should try to objectively measure the degeneration of American schools.
Yes, I’m probably overreacting, but if you go to YouTube and read the comments to the video, I don’t know …
My favorite one so far: “Does this mean my breasts get bigger if I go further north?” Now that I’ve got things in perspective, I feel better.
In projective geometry you learn that you can’t accurately project a globe onto a flat surface without distorting something. I flew airplanes and the aeronautical charts used a lambert conformal projection which does a pretty good job of preserving distances and angles.
Re Greenland: years ago I shared an office and one of us had a Mercator-projection world map on the wall. One day I was staring at the map and said, “Have you ever noticed how big Greenland is?”
My officemate looked at it. “You’re right, it’s huge.”
“Wow, look it’s bigger than…[whatever]…and [whatever]…”
Etc. We went on in that way for several minutes before the truth dawned on us, and then we felt pretty stupid.
Well, that was fun!
Big Maq Says:
“Really upside down?….”
Maps, even terrible maps like Mercator projections, are tools that tells as much about the tool MAKER as it does about the tool USER. The “upside down” map was drawn for Australians; note that Australia is in the center left-to-right.
Meanwhile, russia and china are gearing up for a new world war, that will be nuclear, and the USA is ignoring it.
[as is neo and everyone]
China building ‘death drone’ cruise missiles guided by artificial intelligence…
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1638833/china-building-cruise-missiles-powered-by-killer-artificial-intelligence/
not a bad accomanyment to a militar that is larger than all the worlds militaries combined (upon activation)
japan is daring china over spratlys and with new missiles
80,000 troops are on the border of the ukraine
(and another set are near the baltics)
and the one country line in the sand was dismantled by obama and now russia is ruling the middle east with iran, and has a clear corridor to military expansion in the area thanks to Obama negating the buffer zone that was being created (And i laid out… remember? turkey, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, india…
with all those closed only a very tiny path tourh iran would enable such games, now the doors are wide open, and iran is taking iraq and afghanistan, russia hs syria, we lost egypt, etc.)
@Ken M – right you are! Worked with a guy from NZ and he had this displayed at his work station. Made us all think about perception.
I put it out there because we are all accustomed to thinking of the world in a certain way, when the exact same facts, arranged another way, can provide a different perspective, similar to the point about the Mercator design, but perhaps more jarring.
As you say, often the perception expressed is a reflection of the perceiver than of the reality.
When we are debating this election, the “anything is better than clinton” argument is very much caught up in the old, usual right vs left view, with all the focus on the left side and little concern about what we are really advocating for (going to have if we win) on the “right” side.
“somebody should try to objectively measure the degeneration of American schools” – CF
A variety of studies are now showing that the biggest differentiator between public and private school performance is due to parental involvement.
Perhaps it is not so much the schools and their administration, as it is the parents and the standards they hold both their own children and their school systems to.
.
We’ve become a society of grievance and victimhood. That is that wedge that others exploit to divide us all. But, its root is in looking externally to blame rather than taking personal responsibility.
What seems to be emerging from 2016 is that significant numbers on “our” side suffers from it perhaps as much as does the left.
.
This is a theme that fits nicely with a few posts ago about “optimism”.
To take a grievance and victimhood view of the world is squarely in the pessimistic, zero sum, divide up the spoils camp. Of course, there are a variety of things to point to that justifies each person’s pessimistic view. There always is.
An optimistic view is more likely to see the world as one of opportunity, of growing the pie through one’s contribution, where a rising tide floats all boats, each individual earning their piece along the way. It is a harder argument to make (e.g. easier to see job losses and attribute them to trade – though technology might be the real reason – than to see the jobs gained and other benefits from trade – lower prices – received by the wider population).
IMHO, America was Founded on the optimistic view. We ALL are letting ourselves succumb to the pessimistic view, and too many are willingly being led down a destructive path, arguing that one destructive choice is better than another one.
If you like maps, you might like this book.
But don’t take my word for it.
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190656/the-mapmakers-by-john-noble-wilford/9780375708503/
“In his classic text, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner John Noble Wilford recounts the history of cartography from antiquity to the space age. With this revised edition, Wilford brings the story up to the present day, as he shows the impact of new technologies that make it possible for cartographers to go where no one has been before, from the deepest reaches of the universe (where astronomers are mapping time as well as space) to the inside of the human brain. These modern-day mapmakers join the many earlier adventurers—including ancient Greek stargazers, Renaissance seafarers, and the explorers who mapped the American West—whose exploits shape this dramatic story of human inventiveness and limitless curiosity.”
Question for discussion: Did LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainboy skew Left?
I don’t remember any particular bias in his choice of kids books, but I didn’t watch much of the program myself.
I think on the whole they were well-written choices, so he can’t be faulted for the degeneration of education in general, but I have noticed that you have to vet a lot of modern books for tweens / teens for basic literacy.
Cartographers for Social Equality.
Sorry about the Leslie Jones.
@mikeski – good link… Now THAT’s about “political correct” thinking… suggesting that the map itself creates a kind of dominance thinking.
Wonder how the Chinese developed their maps, when they were an early extensive seafaring nation?
Even beyond the Chinese, what about other nations/societies?
IOW, is there any indication that they might have come up with a similar design to the Mercator?
mikeski @ 11:46,
Brilliant.