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It's pretty good, but having the Pacific in the center instead of the Atlantic makes it a lot less useful as a teaching tool in history.

I had the same thought. Funny how much of our history classes rely upon the classic world map.

TPRJones wrote:It's pretty good, but having the Pacific in the center instead of the Atlantic makes it a lot less useful as a teaching tool in history.

It is made.by the Japanese... Check out which country is the center focus.

Sure, so it makes perfect sense for them. Not so much for us.

There is no such thing as an unbiased map.

People rag on the Mercator projection, as if it's some kind of White Man conspiracy to make Brown Countries look small. The fact is that Mercator has a property that makes it useful for navigation: it preserves angles.

Nobody seems to know this.

Lots of people know that. That being said, it's not like we need it any more for that.

TheCatt wrote:Lots of people know that. That being said, it's not like we need it any more for that.

I *dare* you to go to...I dunno...next time you go grocery shopping, ask 5 people. If anybody you ask knows that, I'll give you a dollar.

And you can't as them: "Did you know..."

You gotta say: "Why is the Mercator projection useful?"

Hell, ask at work!

Well, I already know I'd win that at work. But you do have a point, since most people in general public would say "Mer-what?"

I *dare* you to go to...I dunno...next time you go grocery shopping, ask 5 people. If anybody you ask knows that, I'll give you a dollar.

Had a pub trivia question that revolved around the Mercator projection. I think 3 teams out of 20-something got it right.

thibodeaux wrote:

TheCatt wrote:Lots of people know that. That being said, it's not like we need it any more for that.

I *dare* you to go to...I dunno...next time you go grocery shopping, ask 5 people. If anybody you ask knows that, I'll give you a dollar.

And you can't as them: "Did you know..."

You gotta say: "Why is the Mercator projection useful?"

I didn't know that. Not a particular name for it, anyway. Not something that would rally matter to me one way or another unless I ended up on Jeopardy or something.