Читать книгу Geography For Dummies - Jerry T. Mitchell - Страница 65

IN THIS CHAPTER

Stretching the truth

Understanding how maps are dishonest

Weighing the pluses and minuses of globes and flat maps

Analyzing different maps

Looking out for really bad maps

Imagine a million-dollar map contest. The only thing you have to do to win is to supply an exact map of the entire Earth that’s flat. Here’s how to enter!

1 Get your hands on a globe.

2 Peel off the surface layer in such a way that you end up with one big piece of map peel. (You may want to use somebody else’s globe because this procedure results in the globe’s complete ruin.)

3 Lay the map peel on a flat surface so that the two surfaces are completely in contact but without distorting the original map in any way. You can cut the map if you want, but pulling and stretching it is prohibited.

You are absolutely right if you think it’s going to be tough to submit a winning entry. Actually, it’s impossible. You can’t take a sphere-like surface (see the sidebar “Earth’s shape: Sphere-like, not spherical” for more on this), such as Earth, and lay it down flat without distorting the original image. This fact, however, hasn’t deterred people from making flat maps of the world or parts thereof. And, to do that, the mapmaker has to figuratively pull it here and stretch it there. The result is a map that’s full of distortion. Full of distortion? Well, simply put: Maps that lie flat lie!