[HN Gopher] Princeton astrophysicists re-imagine world map
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Princeton astrophysicists re-imagine world map
Author : FullyFunctional
Score : 32 points
Date : 2021-02-19 08:16 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.princeton.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.princeton.edu)
| kzrdude wrote:
| Nice new projection and quantification of the improvement, but
| not "revolutionary".
| snedges wrote:
| This might be a silly question, but why wouldn't they divide the
| globe through the oceans, rather than through large land masses?
| These are not adjusted like they did, but roughly like these
| https://postimg.cc/D4Kx6Rqc https://postimg.cc/9rhkYwbj
| snedges wrote:
| Nevermind, they mention it, they just don't have a picture: "It
| can be displayed with the Eastern and Western Hemispheres on
| the two sides, or in Gott's preferred orientation, the Northern
| and Southern Hemispheres, which conveniently allows the equator
| to run around the edge. Either way, this is a map with no
| boundary cuts."
| pferde wrote:
| I like it. Although it goes against the centuries old "north is
| up" convention, which will probably mess with many people used to
| that - me included.
| autocorr wrote:
| I'm sorry for posting a classic "shallow dismissal"... but this
| press-release speaks breathlessly of revolution when similar
| hemispherical-type projections have been around for ages. And it
| doesn't mention the major downside: it may minimize the metrics,
| but it's not great for where most people in the world actually
| live! It does seem interesting for a set of front/back disks of
| the Solar System, but that's a pretty different use case than for
| general geography. Okay, now I'm ready to have my shallow opinion
| corrected by an expert opinion :) but I could not help but take
| umbrage at what appears to be a submarine piece of folks trying
| to sell this to educational materials publishing houses.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I think the key idea of using both sides of the paper or
| whatever is a notable one, if over-promoted here. It has
| certainly gotten me thinking about how to improve on it. Maybe
| something origami-based where you can flip between surfaces
| with different hemispherical projections.
| rement wrote:
| I really like the Fuller/Dymaxion map for this. It limits the
| distortion and you can "rebuild" the earth by folding the map
| back into an Icosahedron. (It is displayed in the article)
| happytoexplain wrote:
| What do you mean by "breathlessly"? This sounds like an insult,
| but I can't identify the tone in the article that you're
| criticizing.
| schimmy_changa wrote:
| Completely agree - when trying to use a map to understand
| things about the world that humans care about (the normal use-
| case of world maps!), it helps to have the places-where-things-
| that-humans-care-about easily visible and differentiable.
|
| On the other hand, humans care a lot about climate change and
| this affects the poles a great deal, and maybe a projection
| that centers the poles like this can help make these regions of
| the world more visible.
| bostonpete wrote:
| I think they're talking specifically about printed maps. I'm
| not sure the hemispheres have been printed back to back like
| this.
|
| This feature of the map seemed particularly unique:
|
| "To measure distances from one side to the other, you can use
| string or measuring tape reaching from one side of the disk to
| the other, he suggested."
| jacobolus wrote:
| Hemispheres have definitely been printed back-to-back before.
| sanj wrote:
| What I think is interesting here is that you can trivially choose
| which hemispheres are displayed.
|
| Centering on your preferred landmass (country, continent, city
| state) is a easy and natural.
|
| I mention this because the majority of the commentary here is
| about the specific hemispheres chosen.
| ryder9 wrote:
| how about we just invent 3D globe holograms, oh wait google earth
| exists
| nerdponx wrote:
| Minimal distortions it might have, but is it useful? Both sides
| are centered on either totally-uninhabited or sparsely-inhabited
| regions, or wide open ocean.
|
| If you're a tern or an albatross, this seems like a great map.
| But as a human I can't see myself using this for anything
| practical.
|
| On the other hand, it's always nice to have new ways to marvel at
| the pale blue dot we inhabit.
| meowster wrote:
| I think it would be useful in the classroom when learning about
| maps. Everyone will learn and become familiar with the other
| projections, but this projection shows how distorted the others
| are. It would be good to know the (more) true size of
| landmasses early on.
|
| Having it flat on paper can be more useful for classrooms that
| do not have a globe. And even if they have a globe, it's
| something that can be photocopied for every student to have.
| Also, I feel like it's easier for people to internalize the
| sizes when it's flat on paper vs looking at a globe.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| "We have continuity over the equator. African and South America
| are draped over the edge, like a sheet over a clothesline, but
| they're continuous."
|
| Odd way to characterize a map that cuts the equatorial region
| literally in half. It is true you can rotate the two circles so
| that whichever longitude you want is touching though, that's
| nice. They picked something around 5 degrees east, or just about
| the middle longitude of the landmass of Africa.
|
| The most unusual feature of this projection is how it heavily
| emphasizes the two poles, literally centering them. Most maps you
| don't really get any sense of the Antarctic continent at all.
| tantalor wrote:
| Especially odd choice, since the article criticizes Winkel
| Tripel as lacking continuity:
|
| > But that still had the "boundary cut" problem of splitting
| the Pacific Ocean and creating the illusion of great distance
| between Asia and Hawaii.
|
| By their definition of "continuous" you could do a similar
| draping of Winkel Tripel on 2 sides of a surface, eliminating
| the "boundary cut".
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| The title is quoted from the paper version
| (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.08176v1.pdf)
| Pulcinella wrote:
| * It can be displayed with the Eastern and Western Hemispheres on
| the two sides, or in Gott's preferred orientation, the Northern
| and Southern Hemispheres, which conveniently allows the equator
| to run around the edge.*
|
| I mean I would say that is very, very inconvenient. Seems very
| awkward to use.
| rement wrote:
| Map projections are tools that all have pros and cons. I do not
| really see how pasting two Equidistant Azimuthal Projections on
| both sides of paper "re-imagines" the world map.
|
| The choice of having the focus of this map on the poles (the two
| most uninhabitable places on earth) is interesting. These two
| points are the least distorted on the map.
|
| Here is an observable that lets you drag around landmasses in
| different projections
| [https://observablehq.com/@fil/synchronized-projections]
| [deleted]
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