Halbert wrote:
> Interestingly, it would seem, many cartographers seem to consider the UK to 
> be the most important part of the map.

Possibly because that's where the explorers came from that had invented 
maps?  (As in, many people invented maps, but the europeans carried 
theirs with them while others tended to stay home?)

And in the USA, America really is in the middle of the maps like that. 
It doesn't look "weird" at all to me. Having the Atlantic in the middle 
doesn't look weird either. Having the Pacific or Russia in the middle 
would look weird.  All that cold-war stuff, I guess.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Invisible wrote:
> Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?

In the middle of the US.

Or that's what some people living there seem to think.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> In the middle of the US.
> 
> Or that's what some people living there seem to think.

I remember when Jeremy Clarkson got his own TV show. The first thing he 
did was take North America off the world map and throw it in the bin. I 
recall he had a Canadian guest who said "most yanks wouldn't even know 
that America is missing. They'd just assume 'oh, hey, we must be that 
BIG one over there'." (I.e., Russia.)

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As an American I sadly acknowlege the truth to this; most of these people 
here couldn't learn there way out of a wet paper bag. On the positive side, 
our grading curves are skewed to the left.

-- 

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:491af9d3@news.povray.org...
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> http://www.xkcd.com/503/
>
>> Man, the map looks weird with America in the middle!
>
>  In Japan world maps always have Japan in the middle. It's even more
> ironic than the map in that comic. "The west", which includes America
> and Europe, is on the east on the map, and "the east", which includes
> Asia, is on the west on the map. Yes, they are known as "the western
> countries" and "the eastern countries" there in the same way as here,
> even though in their maps it's the opposite.

"Has in the middle," or placement of the boundaries of the map, has nothing 
to do with demarcation of coordinates.  Greenwich, England was decided upon 
as the Prime Meridian, and most modern maps use this standard reference 

positioning of the map contents.  So there's really no irony.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Tim Cook wrote:
> Greenwich, England was decided upon as the Prime Meridian, 

I think you have to ask yourself why that was, first. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:491c7acb@news.povray.org...
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> Greenwich, England was decided upon as the Prime Meridian,
>
> I think you have to ask yourself why that was, first. :-)

Not really.  Sure, the British Empire was pretty much top of the pile.  But 
they could just as easily have chosen Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo, Rome, or a 
random spot in the middle of the Sahara and marked it with a little 
monument.  Regardless of *why* a particular place was chosen, the important 
part is the fact that it *was* chosen, and agreed upon, and thenceforth used 
by everyone.  There isn't really an obvious natural feature to use as the 
Prime Meridian...well, maybe the highest point on the surface, but when 
you're out and about exploring without being actually certain what that 
point is, it's problematic, and if a higher point than the one you know 
about is discovered, you have to change all your maps.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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On 13-Nov-08 23:32, Tim Cook wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
> news:491c7acb@news.povray.org...
>> Tim Cook wrote:
>>> Greenwich, England was decided upon as the Prime Meridian,
>>
>> I think you have to ask yourself why that was, first. :-)
> 
> Not really.  Sure, the British Empire was pretty much top of the pile.  
> But they could just as easily have chosen Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo, Rome, 
> or a random spot in the middle of the Sahara and marked it with a little 
> monument.  Regardless of *why* a particular place was chosen, the 
> important part is the fact that it *was* chosen, and agreed upon, and 
> thenceforth used by everyone.  There isn't really an obvious natural 
> feature to use as the Prime Meridian...well, maybe the highest point on 
> the surface, but when you're out and about exploring without being 
> actually certain what that point is, it's problematic, and if a higher 
> point than the one you know about is discovered, you have to change all 
> your maps.

I think there is a meridian that intersects almost no land at all. That 
would be a good prime meridian.

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Tim Cook wrote:
> Not really.  Sure, the British Empire was pretty much top of the pile. 
> But they could just as easily have chosen Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo, Rome,
> or a random spot in the middle of the Sahara and marked it with a little
> monument.  Regardless of *why* a particular place was chosen, the
> important part is the fact that it *was* chosen, and agreed upon, and
> thenceforth used by everyone.

Yep. People are still arguing about little endian vs big endian byte
ordering though :)

(and then there's those people who drive on the wrong side of the road)

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Tim Cook wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
> news:491c7acb@news.povray.org...
>> Tim Cook wrote:
>>> Greenwich, England was decided upon as the Prime Meridian,
>>
>> I think you have to ask yourself why that was, first. :-)
> 
> Not really.  Sure, the British Empire was pretty much top of the pile.

It's also where the first reliable portable clock was invented.

Hence, you came to Greenwich, set your clock, then took it with you 
sailing around the world to figure out where you were.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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