According to a scientist from Britain, the old maps of the world, which we all used to use, actually distort information. The expert has created a map on which the scale of the countries is markedly changed.
A climatologist from the British Met Office is confident that the maps of the world we are used to are trite lies. People look at the map and see that Africa is smaller than the United States or Russia, and Greenland is smaller than Australia. In fact, the researcher argues, things are completely different.
British scientist created a new map of the world
Neil Kai, who works for the Met Office in the UK, has created a 2D map that he believes provides more accurate information about the scale of countries and continents around the world.
Neil Kai believes that the usual maps that humanity uses today distort the real picture of the world. It's all about the creation of Gerard Mercator, who in the distant 16th century developed a cartographic projection, which became the basis for further map creation. The Mercator projection perfectly conveys the outlines of the seas, oceans and continents. However, scaling is significantly "lame" in it.
When transferring a three-dimensional image to a flat surface, a projection shift occurs, due to which different scaling values are obtained in different parts of the map. So, in the equatorial region, these indicators are the most accurate, and the further to the poles, the stronger the distortion. In reality, it is very difficult to transfer a spherical image to a map without distortion.
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That is why, Nick Kai is sure, Greenland, which in reality is three times smaller in area than Australia, looks more than twice as large on the map.
Thus, in the two-dimensional version of the climatologist, not only Australia looks much smaller in area than it actually is, but also Canada, and Russia, and other countries.
Note that Gerard Mercator was a Flemish cartographer and geologist. He is best known as the author of a cartographic conformal cylindrical projection when compiling a navigational map of the world on 18 sheets.
Many modern historians believe that travelers used this projection before Mercator as early as 1511. However, it was he who in 1569 provided this type of cards with wide popularity.