-
18 votes
-
The ghosts of the Green Sahara
7 votes -
Maps distort how we see the world
23 votes -
Why is there a tiny bit of Italy inside Switzerland?
9 votes -
Europe's new power map, from ASML to the Arctic – places other than Paris, Brussels and Berlin are wielding economic influence
4 votes -
The not-so-straight story of the US-Canadian border
7 votes -
Ferrying voting machines to mountains and tropical areas in Indian elections is a Herculean task
13 votes -
The story of The Oregon Trail
18 votes -
Insular India - A video on the archaeological legacies of the Indian subcontinent
5 votes -
Proving the Earth is round at home
I am looking for practical ways to prove the Earth is round using materials accessible to the average person. I have zero interest in disproving Flat Earth folks. I am inspired by Dan Olson's...
I am looking for practical ways to prove the Earth is round using materials accessible to the average person. I have zero interest in disproving Flat Earth folks.
I am inspired by Dan Olson's (Folding Ideas) excellent video where he is able to do this measuring the curvature of a lake near his home that has a very specific geography that lends itself to this sort of experiment. I've seen all sorts of ways to prove this measuring shadows and poles, using gyroscopes, etc. and wanted to know if there are any practical guides for proving once and for all that the Earth is round for yourself relying on nothing more than experimentation.
What I'm not looking for:
- Math relying on flight times/charts
- Video/picture evidence
- Deductive proofs built on agreed upon premises
- Expensive tests
- Extremely time consuming projects
- Underwhelming results (relying on a probabilistic argument for a round Earth from the evidence.)
What I am looking for:
- Practical experiments
- Things I could potentially do without spending much money
- Tests that aren't largely comprised of accepting someone else's research
- Potentially math-heavy evidence
- Results that are strong and conclusive
I've thought of finding some easy to test version of Eratosthenes' proof using two poles. I've also thought about using a balloon and sending something to space like what is done in this Tom Scott video. Nothing seems well documented in such a way as for me to be able to follow it at home.
TL;DR: I think it would be a meaningful experience to have the power to prove the Earth is round by myself, for myself. I can only compare this desire to the desire a child with a telescope has when wishing to observe Saturn or Mars themselves for the first time. It's not to prove anything or to settle doubts, but for the personal value of independently observing this astronomical fact oneself.
17 votes -
The Greenwich meridian's forgotten rival
4 votes -
The United States of barbecue, mapsplained
15 votes -
Pew Research data on how many countries people have travelled to
25 votes -
travle - Name countries/provinces/counties/states to travel from the Start location to the End location on a map. Try to get there in as few guesses as possible.
33 votes -
Forty-seven anime for forty-seven prefectures in Japan
11 votes -
What a striking new study of death in America misses
15 votes -
Why British cities make no sense | Map Men
16 votes -
The miniature France inside France
10 votes -
Kazakhstan: A road trip through the nation's immense landscapes
12 votes -
United States of America
7 votes -
what3words
13 votes -
The emotional resonance of Microsoft Flight Simulator
3 votes -
Once a millennium alignment of all three norths
5 votes -
The biggest mapping mistake of all time
7 votes -
The simple secret of airport runway digits
11 votes -
Why Taiwan is not Ukraine
5 votes -
Why Belgium (still) exists
6 votes -
Belgium: A nation
5 votes -
How a spectacular piece of pedantry created an international enclave
5 votes -
Maps Are Fun! (1946)
3 votes -
How far do you live from the place you were born?
I saw this as a Facebook meme question, but I think it's actually fairly interesting.
25 votes -
Scientists last month set foot on a tiny island off the coast of Greenland which they say is the world's northernmost point of land and was revealed by shifting pack ice
10 votes -
Vast sunken continent “Icelandia” may exist under the North Atlantic – if proven it could upend long-standing assumptions about region's geological history
9 votes -
How to read a map with a clock | Map Men
4 votes -
Glaciers I: Glacial landsystems and locations
2 votes -
How many continents are there? | Map Men
7 votes -
Why we find rainforests in unexpected places: An overview of all the temperate rainforests in the world
3 votes -
The Emergence of the Global Heartland
4 votes -
Galápagos rock formation Darwin’s Arch collapses from erosion
10 votes -
What3Words - The algorithm used to generate its geocodes, and issues with it that result in ambiguous locations being common
11 votes -
The mystery of the squarest country | Map Men
12 votes -
Rock of ages: How chalk made England
8 votes -
Southwestern Iceland was rocked by a series of earthquakes Wednesday, which have caused increased volcanic activity
5 votes -
The making of a state: Why did Czechoslovakia become one nation instead of two?
4 votes -
How coral atolls get their gorgeous ring shapes
4 votes -
What will the world look like in 250 million years? | Map Men
12 votes -
Why beaches disappear (and how we mitigate it)
4 votes -
Why does Russia have the best maps of Britain? | Map Men
12 votes -
Who named the United States and what alternatives gained the most traction?
5 votes -
A beginner’s guide to Italian ghost towns selling houses for €1
22 votes