Credits: Princeton University For centuries, cartographers have been pulling their hair out to accurately represent our planet in its roundness. If the globe is today the way to represent it as faithfully as possible, scientists at Princeton had another idea. It is not a secret for anyone, but the planispheres, plane projection of the two hemispheres of the terrestrial globe, are a distorted representation of reality, especially at the level of the poles. To remedy this problem, the professesur J. Richard Gott and his team have developed a new flat map which is more realistic. Like a vinyl record, this flat card has two sides that each represent one of the two hemispheres. “This double-sided card has smaller distance errors than any one-sided flat card. "
A Two-sided Earth map from Remember to Switch to PU on Vimeo .
Less than 22.2% discarded from reality
In 2007, Professors Goldberg and Goot invented a score to score existing cards on six types of distortions that flat representations can introduce: areas, local shapes, distances, flexion, asymmetry and cOops at the limit (continuity gap). The lower the score, the more representative the card. For example, a globe obtains: 0.0. Using their metrics, the best flat projection is the Winkel Tripel, with a score of 4.563. But this still poses some problems, especially in creating the illusion of a great distance between Asia and Hawaii. Princeton cartographers say their new map is no more than 22.2% off the mark. Professor Gott concedes “you can't make everything perfect. A good map in one area may not be as good at illustrating something else. ”
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- A 21 cm globe for observing the Earth, by day, and the constellations at night.
- Day function: Ideal for studying political boundaries, seas, mountains, countries, cities ...
- Night function: The globe lights up when you press the switch and reveals 88 ...
- Globe mounted diam. 21 cm on frame l (brass). Works on mains.
39.90 EUR - 3.80 EUR 36.10 EUR
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