Boston Public Schools Map Switch Aims To Amend 500 Years of Distortion (theguardian.com) 321
Students attending Boston public schools are now getting a more accurate depiction of the world after the school district rolled out a new standard map of the world that show North America and Europe much smaller than Africa and South America. From a report on The Guardian: In an age of "fake news" and "alternative facts", city authorities are confident their new map offers something closer to the geographical truth than that of traditional school maps, and hope it can serve an example to schools across the nation and even the world. For almost 500 years, the Mercator projection has been the norm for maps of the world, ubiquitous in atlases, pinned on peeling school walls. Gerardus Mercator, a renowned Flemish cartographer, devised his map in 1569, principally to aid navigation along colonial trade routes by drawing straight lines across the oceans. An exaggeration of the whole northern hemisphere, his depiction made North America and Europe bigger than South America and Africa. He also placed western Europe in the middle of his map. Mercator's distortions affect continents as well as nations. For example, South America is made to look about the same size as Europe, when in fact it is almost twice as large, and Greenland looks roughly the size of Africa when it is actually about 14 times smaller.
Geometry is hard, as is geography (Score:5, Insightful)
As we were all (hopefully) taught in school, any map projection will be a compromise. After all, we're trying to take the surface of a round object and display it on a flat surface.
Projections matter (Score:5, Informative)
I agree; Mercator's projection is not deliberately designed to minimize Africa. That is incidental. But, nevertheless, it is a side effect. As a kid, I was always puzzled as to why Australia is a continent, but Greenland not, when on the map Greenland is clearly larger.
I'm a fan of the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection [wikipedia.org], which seems to be geometrically very clear and straightforward, although it has a odd (pi to 1) aspect ratio.
And, of course, the obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a fan of the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection [wikipedia.org], which seems to be geometrically very clear and straightforward . . .
Demanding both that E-W be horizontal and N-S be vertical buys us into some pretty severe distortion towards the poles (at ~50+ degrees lattitude), where Earth does have some populated land masses. I prefer to sacrifice N-S verticality, along with the unhelpful habit of forcing the world to be rectangular, and go with:
Eckert IV [wikipedia.org],
Robinson [wikipedia.org], or even
Winkel Tripel [wikipedia.org].
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I have to admit, even though I've seen that projection before, it still always surprises me Australia is as big as it is.
the best map of a sphere is a sphere [Re:Projectio (Score:2)
Well, the aspect ratio for that one varies according to the parameters you choose, you can squash and stretch it. The Lambert cylindrical equal-area is just one parameter choice.
Yes; I like the un-squashed Lambert cylindrical precisely because the distortion is intuitive: the equator is undistorted, and everything off the equator has exactly the distortion due to perspective (as viewed from theoretically infinite distance at the equatorial plane). Other vertical perspective magnifications don't have any obvious reason for the choice of magnification, other than "make the map undistorted at latitude X."
I used to write code for these projections as part of my job. Decent choice though.
Mercator's most useful property is you can pick an origin and destination, draw a line connecting, and that gives you an initial bearing for travelling between. Keep that bearing, and you will get there albeit not by the shortest distance. Very handy for sailing ships.
Indeed, each of the projections used has one or another advantage. Mercator's g
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I like Boggs Eumorphic [wikipedia.org] personally. Less distortion than the already pretty good Goode Homolosine [wikipedia.org].
I actually agree with the XKCD comic that, hey, the problem is like peeling an orange, so why not do it as peeling an orange? And if you're going to do that, you might as well have your peel segments centered around the continents. And it's not really that much white space. The equator is just as wide as the equator in most rectangular and elliptical projections , so you have just as much longitude/horizonta
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I've never heard a particularly cogent justification for that one.
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This article tries to justify imposing socialist political propaganda as a 'new' lesson in geography. As you said, many of us were taught about the distortions of Mercator (and possibly others) back when we were children too, without the political indoctrination. The implied message is that it is somehow racist/'imperialist' which is insane. If this was strictly about more accurate geography and cartography, there'd be no need to talk about politics or sociology.
The fact they use a TV show, itself a piece
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I mostly use maps to see shapes and calculate distances. This one fails at both.
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oblig xkcd (Score:5, Informative)
https://xkcd.com/977/ [xkcd.com]
Re:oblig xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
https://xkcd.com/977/ [xkcd.com]
Nice find!
But in the end, it's all relate to this : The earth is a globe, and there's no way to represent is on a 2D map without :
1-Tearing the map appart
2-Stretching the map
Personally, I prefer the 3rd option : "Put more globe in your school" like this one : http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEqw... [blogspot.com]
Now that is awesome.
Re:oblig xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Earth in all classrooms!
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But you can't see all the continents at the same time to compare them on a globe... and measuring is far too complicated.
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A physical globe is of course best. I had one growing up. My kids now have one.
2nd best is the orange peel map, a homosiline projection.
I had to slap somebody around once at the work place when he swore up and down that Antarctica was the biggest continent. OMFG that hurt my brain. Then I quickly realized he was used to seeing some of those terribly distorted maps. I had to google it to prove to him that he was wrong, so convinced he was. And NOT google maps... just "google". ;)
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oblig West Wing (Score:2)
I'm all for correct country proportions, but (Score:5, Insightful)
to lay the reasoning on "fake news" sounds stupid.
Re:I'm all for correct country proportions, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is, this new map isn't particularly reflective of the truth either. Go look up the total area of both North America and South America on Wikipedia, then look at how they are represented on this map.
TFA states that "the USA is small", which is a silly thing to say about the third largest country in the world... but they did an even greater disservice to now-puny Canada and Russia.
Politics always wins out, one way or the other.
Here is the obligatory XKCD (Score:3)
https://xkcd.com/977/ [xkcd.com]
Distortion is fact. (Score:5, Informative)
The school has just decided that it wants one type of distortion instead of another.
Hand waiving is lame. (Score:2)
But one with far less distortion than Mercator - which is the point.
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Only a complete moron would claim Gall-Peters has less distortion.
It sucks.
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Students attending Boston public schools are now getting a more accurate depiction of the world
They are not getting a more accurate depiction though. Just one that is more accurate in some aspects at a cost in accuracy to others.
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Ridiculous (Score:3)
No flat map of the world is more or less accurate than any other. All of them are wrong. And the north hemisphere is distorted in exactly the same way that the south hemisphere is.
If you're attending a half-decent school, notice the globe, and do use it.
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No flat map of the world is more or less accurate than any other.
That's not strictly true; they are just more or less accurate in different ways. For example the Peters projection is, as the article states, accurate in terms of area. I think that they would have been better off using something like the Winkel tripel, which tries to strike a balance between the area, direction, and distance distortions.
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Lots of options (Score:2)
Some are more wrong than others (Score:2)
No flat map of the world is more or less accurate than any other.
No flat map of the world is perfectly accurate. But some are more accurate than others.
All of them are wrong.
Just because all are wrong doesn't mean that some aren't more wrong than others. There's a great Isaac Asimov essay on that subject: http://chem.tufts.edu/answersi... [tufts.edu]
And the north hemisphere is distorted in exactly the same way that the south hemisphere is.
Even there, you're mostly wrong. Grab your dictionary and take a look at the Mercator maps (here [mapsofworld.com], for example, or here): they very rarely have the equator in the middle. The reason they don't is that if the map goes all the way north to show Alaska and Sca
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No flat map of the world is perfectly accurate. But some are more accurate than others.
They're all a compromise. The best you can say about any of them is that it's more accurate in an aspect you just happen to care about.
they very rarely have the equator in the middle.
That's not the projection's fault, though. That's the mapmaker's flawed decision. My Mercator map in my school atlas was symmetrical.
Alternative Facts Again? (Score:2)
Uhh (Score:2)
So what about Asia? Biggest of them all? Is that also smaller on this new, slightly PC-ish projection?
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So what about Asia? Biggest of them all? Is that also smaller on this new, slightly PC-ish projection?
The Peters projection should preserve area, so they should all be correct. The problem is that it has other distortions, which is why it's not a huge favourite with cartographers. Unfortunately, given a choice between Mercator and Peters, folks went for the slightly PC Peters.
As for it being new, it may be new in American schools but the argument has been rumbling for thirty years or more.
stop using projections... (Score:2)
Oh please (Score:2, Funny)
It's so obvious that they're just projecting.
Fake news? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem with the whole definition -
The Mercator projection is ACCURATE for it's data view (to better display trade routes).
So long as the information itself isn't false it's just a different view facet of the data set.
My school system didn't use the Mercator maps but they weren't "accurate" either because they balanced out all the land masses so they were all VISIBLE so the various geographies and cities could be pointed out during lectures.
Faker news? (Score:2)
Except no one GAF about trade routes aside from shipping companies. As .000000001% of school kids will work in that industry, the Mercator map is a shitty map for them.
Opposite effect of that intended (Score:2, Insightful)
So let me get this straight, Africa and South America have that much more land and natural resources than the first world countries - and still can't do nearly as well in terms of development and wealth? That would tend to make one even more dismissive of cultures on those larger landmasses that cannot pull it together.
The end result over some time is that assumptions will be made that people from those regions are simply not as smart. That's sad because it's more a matter of poor governance than intellig
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The end result over some time is that assumptions will be made that people from those regions are simply not as smart.
Incorrect. The only explanation for African underachievement is white oppression. The number of klansmen per square mile in Africa must be astronomical.
Re:Opposite effect of that intended (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd say they don't need lectures from you [businessinsider.com] about how to grow an economy.
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So let me get this straight, Africa and South America have that much more land and natural resources than the first world countries - and still can't do nearly as well in terms of development and wealth? That would tend to make one even more dismissive of cultures on those larger landmasses that cannot pull it together.
...unless one reads Guns, Germs, & Steel [wikipedia.org], or its equivalent content out of a textbook somewhere, which explains all this rather nicely. IMHO its much better to take these questions head-on, rather than ignore them.
(Executive summary: Having a large amount of land at the same latitude is really important to any agricultural society. This is because the "resources" that matter are ultimately domesticable crops and animals, both of which tend to not do well outside of their home latitudes. So Eurasia win
Not the real wealth (Score:2)
It's a wonder that some of them are still in the path to development [like, say, Brazil], since almost all the wealth was stolen by the colonial powers
They stole only gold, and even then not all of it.
The true wealth of a nation - land and natural resources - were still there, waiting to be used.
So it's not a wonder at all that Brazil is doing somewhat well, because they came closest to actually making yes of the wealth they had. Sadly Brazil is also a great example of how poor government and lack of rule
Irony (Score:3)
“The Mercator projection showed the spread and power of Christianity and is standard,” she said. “But it is not the real world at all. What the Boston public schools are doing is extremely important and should be adopted across the whole of the US and beyond.”
Beyond the US even! Perhaps beyond the US other maps have already been adopted for this reason? I know that when I was in high school decades ago, our world map was not a Mercator projection for exactly this reason.
If those educators had been looking over the border they would have implemented this around the turn of this century.
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What projection did you have?
I remember having mostly Mercator at school in France. We also had a globe and an we were taught the basics of map projection so it wasn't really a problem.
Are actual globes wrong? (Score:2)
Any globe you buy these days is a cardboard or plastic sphere usually with printed strips glued to the sphere. Are these accurate considering they are actually on a sphere and thus shouldn't suffer from spherical to flat distortion?
And if a physical globe is accurate, why can't they just take all the strips they would normally glue onto the globe and lay them out flat, even if the seams don't line up when flat?
I saw the projection they are advancing and it looks really distorted compared to an actual globe
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http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjInt/projInt.html [progonos.com] has some examples of this, looks odd and tends to split countries into pieces when flattened out.
Anything looks distorted when flattened out from a globe, and a globe would be the best thing to use, but having one for each desk for kids to measure and plot on is infeasible. A single flat projection like Gall-Peters is more useful, but the level of distortion is more jarring than some others.
Why limit the solution to 2D maps on paper? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The developer of that site is a friend of mine. Always smile when someone posts about it.
oh the places they'll go... (Score:2)
scishow (Score:3)
Just watched this scishow the other day. It explains why this type of distortion occurs and the trade-offs when you try to correct it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Colorado did it better (Score:2)
14 times smaller? (Score:2)
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"Greenland looks roughly the size of Africa when it is actually about 14 times smaller." Actually, if you make something 1 times smaller, it's gone! Nothing left! Perhaps you meant 1/14 the size, instead of "14 times smaller"....
I wish this slashdot article was using a font that was 14 times smaller...
The reason Europe in the middle (Score:5, Insightful)
And the reason is not because of Europe itself, you have to look the other side : between Alaska and Russia.
It is a very convenient place to split the map : it avoids cutting important landmasses in half and the wraparound occurs in the middle of the pacific ocean where there are few things of interest.
Putting the Americas in the center will split Asia in two, which is a bad thing. We could cut through the Atlantic unless you have good reasons to do so, it is an overall worse solution than cutting through the Pacific..
Would have preferred Behrmann projection (Score:2)
The Behrmann is undistorted at 30deg, where Gall-Peters is undistorted at 45deg. This makes the Gall-Peters have a bit too much vertically stretch distortion at the equator for my taste.
Not this again (Score:3)
The problem isn't the map projections. The problem is people's insistence on believing there is always one and only one best solution. There isn't. Different map projections are best for different applications. I see the same flawed reasoning all the time when people ask me for help buying a computer - "What's the best laptop?" There isn't a single best laptop. There's a best laptop for you, there's a best laptop for me, there's a best laptop for Fred in accounting. But they are all probably different laptops. You have to prioritize what's important for what you want to do, then pick the best solution based on those priorities.
The same thing happens with election systems [wikipedia.org]. Turns out all methods of voting are flawed in some way.
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pick the best solution based on those priorities
Oh, so there is a best solution for school needs?
But the world is flat isn't it? (Score:2)
I remember when I was taught that Christopher Columbus was NOT the first European to visit North America. people in my class told me I was crazy/stupid. We have so much misinformation in our school for various political (and even economic reasons). We are
Sigh. (Score:2)
Have your students never heard of Google Earth? You don't need to buy a single thing, it's free for educational users.
And that gives a damn-near perfect, rotatable, zoomable view of anything you like and you can even get plugins that compare area, measurements, etc. using proper sphere-following routes.
But, no, let's continue printing things out on 2D paper that is GUARANTEED to be distorted, and then argue about what distortion we prefer.
Last century called (Score:2)
...and wants their fixed 2D projections back. Except for third world countries, what teacher doesn't have a PC and a projector to show Google Earth? Oh wait, Boston... You don't have to do it every time, just do it once and show that the closer you get the more the paper map looks like the 3D map. For extra fun, hollow out an orange and show the absurdity of trying to make a sphere into a square. Then leave the world map - the old and the new - to collect dust until the power's out - like a third world coun
No, I'm wondering where France really is. (Score:2)
Individual schools in the US have used the Peters maps, Scott said, adding: “We believe we are the first public school district in the US to do this.”
You have got to be kidding me. C'mon! Somebody prove that statement wrong. It can't possibly have taken this long* to start fixing this, can it?
*The West Wing, Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail [youtube.com], season 2, episode 16, (February 28, 2001)
Was Boston that far behind? Or is this propaganda? (Score:4, Insightful)
The insinuation that students never saw any map other than the Mercator projection seems unlikely. The implication that the map is some kind of Anglo-Saxon reality distortion field is borderline propaganda. Was there some kind of district-wide rule that teachers had to use the Mercator projection? Was the Boston school district really that screwed-up?
I went to school in Maryland, and we used Robinson [wikipedia.org] and either Goodes [wikipedia.org] or Boggs [wikipedia.org] (I can't tell the difference). Our social studies teachers had 10 foot tall maps that they could pull down over the chalkboard like a blind. We had a unit where we went over different map projections and had to understand the differences. It is a classic elementary science demonstration to give kids an orange and challenge them to peel it and make it flat, or to take a sheet of paper and wrap it around a ball. Did none of this happen in Boston?
The article spends several paragraphs slamming the Mercator projection, as though it was news. It has an embedded clip from a fictional television show debating map projections. But this sounds like it is attacking a strawman here. The article presents no evidence to me to indicate that Boston school teachers really only used one horribly stupid map projection, that they didn't use globes, and that they didn't have curriculum to explain map projections. It seems more likely that the school board decided to standardize, and the site is exaggerating it into a civil rights issue to make it newsworthy. The Boston school district official is happy to take credit for a "paradigm shift" which just feeds into the whole exaggeration.
Africa is so much larger (Score:2)
I guess we should expect so much more from it.
Now with more distortion (Score:4, Insightful)
Boston Public Schools Map Switch Aims To Amend 500 Years of Distortion
... by adding even greater distortion that is entirely motivated by a petty political agenda, rather than scientific accuracy. I read the article, and the quoted motivations are not well-founded (Europe, for example, is not in the center of the maps used in the US, the United States is). The distortion in the propsed map (which, gallingly, is "an internal decision that will not be put up to public approval" or some words to that effect that make the person behind them sound more like a petty dictator who will shout down any dissenting view) is far worse than the traditional Mercator projection. You can see it: South America and Africa look stretched vertically (because they are).
There are so many, many projections that are scientifically superior. The only reason to select this one is political. Shame on those educators.
And I had such hope with the momentum building up behind the STEM movement.
the way you know all this is political BS (Score:2)
Quote from TFA that motivates all this:
âoeThe Mercator projection is a symbolic representation that put Europe at the center of the world. And when you continue to show images of the places where peopleâ(TM)s heritage is rooted that is not accurate, that has an effect on students.â
Yes, "has an effect". That's it. Not "bad effect", not "large effect".
Think for a second (Score:3, Insightful)
The last 50-60 years of education have been committed to presenting 'alternative facts' - white people aren't the most important, the US and Europe aren't the most important and successful, minorities were meaningful to history, Columbus was a fucking asshole, women are important, homosexuals aren't sexual deviants, there is no absolute morality, babies are just chunks of tissue, etc.
I'm not disputing the accuracy of any of those, but one has to recognize that, as opposed to conventional wisdom at the time, all of those things were being consciously presented as alternative viewpoints to the established narratives.
So let's not pretend that we haven't been dogmatically acculturated to the presentation and acceptance of alternative truths for most of our lives.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Never had a globe? (Score:5, Funny)
We learned about maps and their inherent distortions in fucking _middle_ school, again in high school. Referenced the globes sitting in every classroom.
The globes have been removed because the other shapes objected to the privileged position of circles and spheres. In their place will be a diversity of shapes with the exception of spheres which have also been blamed for keeping down Africa and South America. The only spheres that are now allowed are other shapes that have had the corners chipped away to now be spheres as they always felt that they were spheres on the inside.
Re:Never had a globe? (Score:4, Funny)
The only spheres that are now allowed are other shapes that have had the corners chipped away to now be spheres as they always felt that they were spheres on the inside.
Are you sure? I thought apple had a patent on that.
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If anything, this change draws more attention to the "distortion fact" and may ultimately reduce misconceptions going both ways. Good thing right?
Is it really PC? Or just "stuff that's different than you wish it to be"?
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Yes it is. The PC red flags are all there and quite blatant.
eg:
1. abuse of the word 'imperialist'
The result goes a long way to rewriting the historical and sociopolitical message of the Mercator map, which exaggerates the size of imperialist powers.
2. use of the word 'decolonize'
“This is the start of a three-year effort to decolonize the curriculum in our public schools,” said Colin Rose, assistant superintendent of opportunity and achievement gaps for Boston public schools.
The 'journalist' makes it clear (and supports the fact that) they don't want to replace Mercator because there's a better projection. They want to replace it for ideological reasons.
3. Most of the article rambles on about social justice instead of geography or cartography.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Huh. We certainly didn't learn about map distortions in middle school, nor in high school either, for that matter-- maybe that must be something that was added to the middle-school (we called it "grade-school" when I was a kid, shows how old I am) curriculum since I grew up.
Not all classrooms have globes: our grade school didn't.
I think it makes sense to use a better standard map in classrooms-- the Mercator projection is just plain misleading. I don't see why should it be "PC crap" to use a map that's not
odd thing I've noticed (Score:5, Insightful)
You were likely playing grabass while they tried to teach it. If you had paid attention you would know _all_ maps are distorted. The PC dweebs just prefer one distorted in a different way. I don't believe your class didn't have globes.
This is a very odd thing I've noticed, and I've see it from both liberals and conservatives: they are unable to conceptualize the idea that other people's experiences may not have been just exactly the same as their own.
Nice of you to tell me what my grade school was like. If I were a woman, I suppose I'd call your lecturing me about what my grade school classroom was like an example of "mansplaining," but since I'm not, I guess it's just arrogance on your part.
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In the '70s, we covered projections. But when he went through school in the '50s and '60s, they may not have been covering that yet. In the '90s, the schools
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Fair enough, your story is: You never saw a globe in school. I'm still calling bullshit, they aren't expensive.
Hmm... I did NOT see a globe in my mid/high school back in 1980s (not in the US). And I know that it was very expensive back then in my country. Schools couldn't afford one; besides, teachers wouldn't want to spend that much money that may easily be destroyed by students... Different culture...
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SMH
> You never saw a globe in school.
That's not what was said, or even implied.
Nobody else would be confused by the point, but ironically I guess I have to explain it to you like you're back in school.
The idea communicated is that a globe is not used as the primary instructional tool. Outside of some brief experiences in elementary levels, NOBODY on earth does that, unless you don't have a flat map (your anecdote is actual bullshit). So, if you had a classroom where you're teaching geography, the first t
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So everybody on this forum who was actually educated about maps being distorted and globes being very common in school is wrong?
The fact that flat maps are distorted was and is common instruction, EVERYBODY does it, using a globe as the primary instruction tool. It's a way of crossing between history/geography/math, which teachers love.
Many of our globes were from earlier periods and included old political boundaries, also educational. I know globes were common for all of living memory. I've seen 100 y
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Globes are (or were) common when I was in US public school (late 80s-late 90s) but no one ever taught us about the distortions in map projections. I specifically remember because I was (and am) a huge map geek and learned all this myself.
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No it doesn't. It's your feelings of butthurt that get in the way of an opportunity to learn something.
No shit (Score:2)
And I dunno about schools these days, or everywhere for that matter, but way back when I was in high school the books usually used something that was quasi-cylindrical like a Robinson or some such. Tended to give you a good picture of whatever they centered it on (which would usually be whatever was being talked about) and squished things near the edges.
I don't recall ever seeing a Mercator projection. Maybe the local maps were, like when it was showing a single country, but of course it doesn't matter a lo
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When I was in school, they taught from a globe and using both the Mercator projection, as well as the orange peel projection. That way, any questions about why Greenland being so huge were promptly answered. One of the main uses of the globe was showing how Russia was placed, as it is winds up distorted in most maps.
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I think it's just retarded to imply that the use of the Mercator projection was intended to "diminish" Africa or South America. Grrrrr those Greenland supremacists, always tryin' to keep the Africans down!
But everything's gotta be political these days. Even fucking map projections.
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We agree that the maps are distorted, but the PC-libtards are making it about racism, so we're going to argue for keeping the distorted maps just to fuck with them and throw in some posturing about physical globes for some reason.
But that's literally why. They're going from an apolitically distorted map to a politically distorted map. Change map projections, fine, but give me a reason to do it besides "fuck whitey."
I think APK has a point. Maybe it's time to add slashdot to the hosts file.
You're not fooling anyone APK.
Re:Never had a globe? (Score:5, Insightful)
All flat maps will be distorted. The PC dweebs don't teach that 'maps are distorted' they replace the maps with new ones distorted to overemphasise other parts.
This is a non-issue raised by an idiot who is very bad at geography.
1. Poll people on the street. Only a tiny minority even among the educated will know about map distortion.
2. All maps will be distorted, so you need to pick the projection that works best for your needs. The Mercator projection is a good choice when you need to sail across the Atlantic. It is however among the worst choices you could make for teaching people about our earth in a geographical or political sense, for which it has been used. Choosing a better suited projection is the most logical thing one can do.
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Uh no. Not even close. Their usage of vocabulary like 'imperialist' and 'decolonize' invalidates your position completely. The quotes from school administrators in the article make it clear the justification for this is very political. More than half of the article is social justice rambling that has nothing to do with geography or cartography.
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I can't find Somali on a map either.
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Good to know the Boston school system is so rolling in money they can afford to waste whatever they pay Colin Rose. Freeze their budget or cut it.
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Students are getting shot right outside of Boston schools but they're worried about racist maps. That's Boston.
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Well... at least there's no black bars on the sides...
Mercator straight lines are not great circles! (Score:3)
On the Mercator projection. straight lines map to great circles,
No! No, no, no, no!
In the Mercator projection, straight lines do not map to great circles-- the only straight lines that are great circles are meridians and the equator. Plot a great circle route from, say, New York to Berlin. It goes way north of the straight line on a Mercator projection.
(In fact, there is no possible mapping in which all great circles map to straight lines, nor all straight lines to great circles. That's non-euclidean geometry for you.)
This, in a nutshell, is exactly why we should st
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Re:Mercator straight lines are not great circles! (Score:4, Insightful)
useful for navigation.
Not!
Yes. By construction, straight lines on a Mercator map have constant bearing towards magnetic north. That means if you take out your compass, face a given angle with respect to north, and follow it, you make a straight line on the Mercator map. That's extremely useful, probably one of the most useful properties a map can have for navigational purposes (unless you're really really good at doing some rather complicated coordinate transformations).
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Not 100% accurate, Earth is not a sphere.
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I somewhat doubt it, because unless my math is off, earth shrunk to the rough size of a billard ball would have a difference in equtorial/polar diameters of almost 0.5 mm, which would produce visible wobble when rolling. Unfortunately I could not find official specifications of how a pool ball is supposed to be shaped -- since you obviously could, mind sharing the ruleset?
That said, even if you're right, your point is moot, because it doesn't change that a globe isn't 100% accurate.
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To say the mercator projection is oppressing people whose ancestors came from continents that look bigger compared to a different projection diminishes the sensitivity people have about allegations of actual racism.
I'm just glad they're finally sticking it to these awful Greenland supremacists and their hate maps.