Without looking, do you have a vague idea of your coordinates?
I was recently talking to a group of people about a random plot point in a video game, wherein a character reveals some coordinates written down on a sheet of paper and says something to the effect of "I think that's nearby, I will check it out." Nearly everyone in the group was thrown back by that, saying that there is no way that the character would know their coordinates off hand.
Later on, through entirely unrelated circumstances (some SciFi show where a human told aliens to drop him at specific coordinates), coordinates came up in a discussion with my family. Half of the family knew, half the family didn't know, and both halves were surprised by the other half.
I would be able to tell you if some random coordinate were within a reasonable drive of my city or not. I am curious about the ratio of people on Tildes that would know.
(I have absolutely no idea how to tag this)
Yes, but I work with geographical information system (GIS) and I use my house as a test marker from time to time.
I also work in GIS, and I know my house's coordinates within a tenth, but that's because New Orleans' coordinates are easy (30N 90W).
I met an older guy at the ESRI UC one year who had made a "pilgrimage" to 30N 90W, and had written ahead to get permission, etc. (the actual spot is on private property); I'm nerdy about a lot of things, but that's pro-level nerdy.
Yeah coordinates regularly come up for work. I was off by less than 0.01 degrees latitude and longitude sitting in the office.
Given minutes and seconds (i.e. XX° YY′ ZZ″ South, AA° BB′ CC″ West format), I'd do considerably worse. Luckily I don't ever use sea charts, which is the only application I can think of where that's still standard.
I don't have the slightest clue what my coordinates are, or even those of any famous landmark to give me a ballpark idea.
I got 4-ish degrees off the latitude and 3-is ish longitude! That's quite a range. And I actually see my coords all the time in the weather app, I really just blank on them
30-something north by 76-something east?
checks
Alright, I was off by roughly 10° of latitude and 1° of longitude. No idea why my recollection of longitude was so much more precise than latitude. Regardless, for both of them, it's basically trivia. I've never had a practical use for directly knowing my coordinates (although obviously, carrying around a device which keeps track of them is extremely handy).
There's a hacker joke about these sorts of coordinates (although note that to deliver an ICBM to someone's door, you ideally want elevation as well as lat/lon).
You really sure you need elevation? I mean, these things come down nearly vertical, and the margin of error for considering a nuke "properly delivered" is probably large enough. Like, if you're unsure if they're at 9km or 0km, you'll probably only miss by 4km at most, which is still good enough.
Beyond that, a 18MB .png in the guidance calculations will probably sort you out a lot better, bringing the elevation uncertainty down to a few hundred meters at most.
(Is this comment unvoluntarily ITAR-restricted now? Who knows!)
Nukes explode above ground level for better dispersion. If you hit the ground before exploding you'll direct a lot of force back up instead of around due to the aforementioned ground.
If the latitude and longitude are correct, I don't think it's going to matter if the nuke detonates above me or on me. I'm dead either way.
I'm fairly certain that nuclear bombs do not explode unless explicitly told to do so. If an altitude for detonation is not set it will just crash into the ground and do nothing. This is meant to be a failsafe for accidental detonation.
In other words, I think you may want to retrace your line of thinking 😉
And if I'm wrong we have nukeman to (potentially) set me straight.
Wow, I work with GPS and survey work and I have absolutely no idea. I know what coordinate system we're in be it WGS84 or the NAD State based system - so if they said NAD 83 Zone 4, I'd know they are in my ballpark... but that's still a huge amount of land.
I just thought about it and looked up.
I guessed my location with a guess uncertainty of 0.25 deg Latitude and 5 deg Longitude. I ended up less than 0.1 off on Latitude and 3.3 off on Longitude. Of course I'm a big old geography nerd and have a major latitude line ~0.5 degrees away, so that's probably a big help.
Like geographic longitude and latitude? Maybe I could hazard a guess whether a position is close or far from me, but I have no idea where 0° even starts on the globe!
I roughly know the cardinal directions wherever I am, and that's about it. That's usually good enough for me to navigate.
0°, 0° is at Null Island in the Gulf of Guinea!
Ah, yes, Myst Island.
As someone living in the UTC timezone, and also Portuguese (São Tomé and Principe, the island country nearest to Null Island, was a Portuguese colony, discussed in school) I was previously aware of the location.
But amusingly, I have no idea what my own coordinates are. Not anywhere near a good idea of the latitude, especially.
I'm waiting for the tildes user who lives on that island and still doesn't know their coordinates
You don't think any Tildes users are sapient birds that might have a spot on the bouey?
Yet
I know 0° longitude, and I know that’s basically where I am, because there’s a red line you can go and stand on at the observatory in Greenwich! I couldn’t tell you whether latitude starts at the equator or the pole, though…
I want to say it's not terribly far off the west coast of Africa (on the Equator) but my map skills aren't strong enough to use that to guess anywhere else in the world.
I would not know.
My dad would.
He would be disappointed that I do not.
I'm always at 0,0,0,0 in my space time coordinate system.
I'm putting this in the same mental category as blood type: I have no idea, most people I know have no idea, but I'm going to find out next chance I get
I've been told my own blood type any number of times but always forget. It's either A or B (not AB not O). There was a brief period where I did have it memorized in case I went into labour complications, but soon forgotten afterwards
You can buy blood test kits online for very cheap! I used one for teaching, in part because I was also curious and didn't know my blood type.
I'm quite familiar with how far north I am, to a whole number of degrees, and judging how far east I am on the same scale isn't difficult since I'm so close to the meridian. That's good enough to locate myself on like, a national level. I wouldn't know well enough to navigate in my city or anything.
Oh that's way too detailed for me. I just figure anything +- 2 degrees (either way) of my city is something I could get to in an afternoon. Whole numbers only for my knowledge.
I compiled the information as it is currently.
Per @chocobean's request, I split this into four groups.
So almost half of people know their location (matches your experience) but the rest are split between vaguely recognize the location and having no idea.
Old chart for posterity
How many people knew exactly, say, within half a degree for both?
I updated the chart above to show this, and added in
23 new results.VIP of the thread. Thanks
I kind of do, because some business around here use the value of degrees north as part of their identity. It's kinda rough though. And being in England, and roughly in line with London, the other one is kinda roughly known too. I wouldn't rely on it for a rescue though, for sure. Still better than W3W though, no doubt.
So when I lived in Kansas City, I knew that the city is just ever so slightly north of 39°N. Because I thought that'd be a cool name for a brand based in KC. Though I recognize there are many cities and places that fall on the 39th parallel north...including Pyongyang, DPRK!
But I couldn't tell you the meridian. Apparently it's 94° 34' W or so.
Now that I'm in DC, I know it's not that much different north/south from Kansas City (DC is just barely south of Kansas City). But the longitude has to quite different. Apparently it's like smack dab 77°W.
So I know "half" of my coordinates? If I can get to the 39th parallel north, all I gotta do is start walking east or west and I'll eventually find my way home! Good thing we live on a
spherespheroidgeoid!Latitude, yes, within 4-5 degrees.
Longitude, no; pretty sure I'm "something-" east, and I feel like I could guess fairly closely from having looked it up at some point, but I might be close, or I might be 50+ degrees off (w/o re-checking now).
Edit: I just checked ... I was off on latitude by < 1/2 a degree, off on longitude by ~40 degrees.
So, at least I know what I don't know.
I guess this is mildly interesting - I had an idea of my location, put in the guess into Google maps and ended up about a half km from my parent's house (which is about 19 km from where I am). So I got pretty close.
ps I also knew:
Which is good for ballparking things.
Were you in a scout troop as a youngster? I'm trying to think of the simplest justification you can give for the character to have similar knowledge and that's what I've settled on.
This is the third time in the past week that someone asked me if I was in scouts. I was - shout out Scouts Canada - from age 5 until I was about 16. I've always liked maps, though, which is the actual reason why I know my approximate latitude and longitude.
The other times: I pulled out my pocked knife to open a letter, and I had a bandaid on me when someone needed it.
Nope it's not really something that I've ever needed to know because by the time I was driving GPS units were getting cheap enough that I splurged and got one. I think if I'd spent more time navigating by travel atlas I'd probably have had more exposure to them as a concept.
It's odd though, I should be interested enough to learn it. I love maps, I love geography, I have a good sense of direction and knowing something like that is right up my alley. I just never bothered to for whatever reason!
I knew where Null Island is, and I had some idea of where my longitude was, but I was completely off with the latitude.
As a starman, the fact that I live ~38° north of the equator is very relevant to my hobby. I think it's like 37°56' or something. Longitude... I think I'm at 97° west?
Just looked it up, I'm like 50 miles off. I'm happy with that
Gasp a real life starman! :)
Can you explain why being ~38°N is relevant to the hobby? Most celestial objects are super far away at incredible distances, why would being a tiny earth radius bit closer make any difference?
Yesterday I was reading the Geminids post and links and I can't understand why it matters what hemisphere we're located at if we're a spinning ball running through the same cloud of space pocket sand every year for days
A couple things. Depending on your latitude, different constellations and deep space objects are visible. For example, I'm just a little too far north to ever see Canopus, the second brightest star in the night sky. There's actually a lot of DSOs that I would like to travel to the global south to see someday.
Also, the way an equatorial telescope mount works is that you set it to rotate around the same axis as the earth. It sounds complicated, but you just have to align it north and set the angle to match your latitude. The easiest way to do this is to point the mount towards Polaris, since it sits at the celestial north pole. At a latitude of 38°, Polaris sits 38° above the horizon.
Re: Geminids, hemisphere matters because the radiant of the Geminids is in the northern hemisphere. Essentially, they'll be higher in the sky and visible through more of the night the farther north you are
I know it generally, the degrees but not necessarily the minutes. I don't think most people in my life would know their coordinates in any way.
A funny thing did happen though, where some US military commercials a few years back showed some remote or relevant area with the coordinates, and it's somehow about military stuff. But I saw the coordinates for one and said, "oh that's where my research site is." Was kind of surreal to see those numbers and immediately have it click in my brain.
Not a clue. Only time I think I've used coordinates in my life would have been when I went geocaching once as a kid, but I don't think I was involved in operating the GPS at that time.
Without looking: the upper border of the western US is the 49th parallel, so California would be below that. 39 degrees maybe? The pacific timezone is at -7 or -8, so that's 70-80 degrees west?
Turns out longitude is very wrong; there are 24 hours in a day and 360 degrees in a circle, so multiply by 15, not 10. And you want to use PST, not PDT.
I do, but I am a software engineer and have had to use geospatial coordinates before in my work.
Also I live near the 45° parallel.
I'm gonna make a guess now: N49.7° (I'm not gonna bother with minutes and seconds, decimal will do) E13.4°
I'm not doxxing myself, as these are so vague... And now I'm gonna check. And I'm around 5-10km off. Pretty good if I may say.
In games I know my whereabouts in most cases. I'm able to keep track to some degree even in underground, especially if the walls are right angle. I have image and kinda map memory which combined are very useful in games and also.in real life. I was to Vienna recently and I believe I could navigate the city public transport even a year from now, probably two or more years also (EDIT: I mean where the stations are and how to access them or jump.from.one line to another).
I'm going to guess without looking: I think that's in Germany?
Now I checked, and I was pretty close! I knew that the south of England is at about 50N (just north of the 49th parallel, which is the border of US/Canada) and that 0E/W is about the middle of England. And at 50N, 1 degree is about 70km, so 13E is about 900km east of the middle of England, so I went East in the map of Europe in my head, and felt like the Munich area of Germany was about right. But you are a fair bit north and a fair bit east of where I pictured, and obviously in a whole different country.
Good guess nonetheless!
I'm as familiar with my coordinates as I am with Morse code. Which is to say, not at all.
Unless that character has a really good reason to know that sort of thing, that's some real shit writing. Hopefully the rest of the game isn't as bad as that.
The game (revealed elsewhere as Inscryption) is actually pretty great and actually as presented in the game, it doesn't even actually need to have it explained how he knows the coordinates are nearby. He could have just googled it, in the context of the game.
Just to ask - if someone knows Morse code in a movie, is that shit writing?
I'm a fan of Dr Stone, a science "themed" Shounen Manga/Anime, where some characters' unique
talentssuperpower is just "science". I wrote off knowing coordinates and Morse code as Shounen magic, but after reading this thread I have to say I under estimated humanity and our wonderful diversity. Of course if we have train nerds and computer nerds we would also have Geography nerds and telecom nerds.It's like, back in the bad old days, computers have very limited storage and processing power, so we chose what to store very carefully. But these days with cheap terabytes and unlimited cloud storage, of course some of our storage is filled with the most quirky stuff.
I wonder what ancient nerds nerd out about, before we had this wealth of knowledge?
I'm 30 something by -122, something off the top of my head. On checking, it's 37 and the 122 is correct. It seems like each integer covers 55-60 miles -- what counts as "near"?
I weirdly did, but I have always had a weird thing about knowing more or less where I am by lat/long. In 7th grade I won the Middle School "Geography Championship" or whatever it was because they asked what latitude a specific city was located on and I knew straight away. Multiple other kids tried to claim I cheated lmao. Don't kink shame my occasional love of geography!
As an adult who had to look it up, I'm sure your middle school classmates were as overwhelmed as Medieval peasants crying "Sorcery!"
They were probably thinking exactly that, especially one classmate/friend that I didn't know had envisioned me as his "rival". I found out senior year of high school that he had been trying to "beat" me at academics the entire time. I thought we had just been friends, but apparently it was more of a "keep your enemies closer" sort of situation.
Was within half a degree latitude but a couple degrees off by longitude. That makes sense as I had a better idea with where I previously lived, knowing the nearest confluence point to there, and had a decent idea of the change in latitude with my new location but misjudged east/west distance.
Now I know it to within a hundred meters and will see how long I can keep that memorized (unless I move again).
I actually have a good idea to the 0.1 because I regularly use the Merlin bird ID app and it says "Listening from XX.XXXX, YY.YYYY". Before then, no idea at all!
Wouldn't have a clue. If I learned home I'd probably vaguely recognize nearby places. But I have absolutely no reason to know the coordinates.
ETA: looked mine up, I could probably drop a pin in IL fairly regularly but not retain the specifics of my coordinates behind the first two digits of each
I have absolutely no idea, but I remember thinking the exact same thing as you when playing that game.
Spoilers
It's Inscryption, right?Great game, but they really should've just had him look it up quickly on the internet.
You nailed it.
Had a bit of a brain fog moment cause I knew I used to live at 41N and moved further North, but moved the number the wrong way and thought 39N, in actuality it's 43N, duh. That one I know mostly because I've got some solar panels and the best angle for them is related to your latitude.
Longitude I had no idea off hand. I'm not too far from a whole number so I'll have to try to ingrain that one.
I've looked it up before but completely forgot! Trying to hazard a guess, plus remembering a few markers (eg, the 49th parallel) and general trends, i was almost bang-on with the latitude (half a degree) but a good 20 degrees off the longitude, which would have landed me somewhere in the Atlantic!
I have the integer and a couple of digits after the decimal for both latitude and longitude. We're in a tourist town. The spouse picked up a sweatshirt emblazoned with the numbers that he wears regularly. Is this cheating?
+0.84° off latitudinally, -18.0° off longitudinally.
You might say I cheated a bit, as there's a big road sign marking the 45th northern parallel not far from my house. I was rather closer on longitude than I would've bet, though.
I was about the same! Within 1 degree latitude but 20ish degrees off longitude.
Depending on how far North or South you are, 20 degrees of longitude can be quite close. If you're at 89 degrees for example, then 20 degrees of longitude is about 40km, you're very close!
I know half of my coordinates, the latitude half. I used to work at a museum that had a bunch of old navigational tools like sextants and backstaffs. So one time I made a basic quadrant out of a protractor and some string to test out how said instruments worked, and was able to accurately determine my latitude based off the sun.
Longitude however, was much harder to calculate on Age of Navigation ships. So blame the explorers from ~500 years ago for not inventing the chronometer yet (since that's what allowed them to accurately determine longitude on their voyages), else I might have memorized that too.
So if I was an NPC in your video game example, OP, upon hearing some coordinates I could then say "hey I think that's somewhere nearby, or on the other side of the world but at the same latitude...". So yeah, pretty useless unless I'm at the North or South Pole, lol.
I got the latitude degree right for my home but was about 10 degrees off for the longitude (wasn't even going to try for more than degree precision). Going off that I could have a decent stab at guessing whether something was within a days drive of my home town but I wouldn't be immediately recognising coordinates as actually nearby.
Coordinates just haven't been something I pay much attention to as I'm usually looking at relative positions to topography/landmarks/roads instead of coordinates (which are often in MGA on my topo maps anyway rather than lat/long). The most I tend to notice them is when sending a map pin location to someone.
A general idea, yes. My old place was near an intersection which had the coordinates etched into the sidewalks and filled with something that looked like bronze. It had a long wait for the crossing signal, I used that intersection to get to my commuter bus.
Yep, I work in cadastral surveying and have installed benchmarks at my house, office and have an excellent memory for marks I've found previously.
I could probably nail down a rough coordinate to within 1km of my location across the Top of the South Island, but if I'm near home or work that is down to 100m.
I do, but that's only due to fiddling with redshift to get my computer monitors to dim their color temperatures automatically. If it weren't for that, I would have been 5-10 degrees off.
I would be able to tell if it was close to my country, and somewhat where inside it. I study as a land surveyor, so my global coordinates come up from time to time. I doubt anyone else in my family would know though.
I'm good with navigation and knowing the cardinal directions from where I am, but I've never been curious enough to notice my latitude or longitude. I've always been interested in the names and locations of countries, and cities and of physical landmarks like mountain ranges, rivers, lakes. I just don't pay attention to the numbers which matches the way I live the rest of my life.
Guessed then checked, longitude was fairly close, but then living in England does narrow down the range quite a bit with Greenwich being in London.
Latitude I was far more off than I thought, had myself pegged much further north than I really am. Though mainly because I'd forgotten the actual range it covers, if I were to adjust that as a percentage of possible range I'm at least on the right landmass....
Yes but just to the precision of my region, not my city exactly.
I know my latitude strongly because there’s a brewery based in my hometown named after its latitude, and I’ve learned my new latitude in relation to that.
For the full coordinate pair it helped that as part of my old job I constantly had to run tests against fake locations to validate data and I would regularly input my region’s coordinates into a form, so it’s kind of ingrained into me. If I ever move away it’s extremely unlikely I’ll ever learn my coordinates again.
i have absolutely no idea! i'm incredibly awful at orienting myself, too.
when i first started driving, smartphones weren't a thing yet and GPS units weren't common (as far as i recall), so you'd think i'd have to be relatively aware to function but instead i was just lost all of the time or relied solely on landmarks and mapquest (which i would still get lost using).
to this day, i'm still not great with it and the reliance on smartphone navigation hasn't helped. i guess i'm too lazy to just stop using the navigation apps and figure it out. i should do something about that...