A Distorted View of the World
President Trump:
I think you are using a Map of the World, like the one above. It makes some parts of the world look bigger or smaller than they really are. Greenland is not bigger than South America. Canada is less than 2% bigger than the United States … and, of course, the border between our country and Canada is artificial. All borders between countries, states, counties, towns, etc. are artificial. When you drive from one to place another you do not feel a bump in the road. No lines show when you look back from space.
I understand that taking possession of land is important to you. You made your money in real estate. If you want to take over part of another country, why not pick Siberia. It is 32% bigger than Canada and only 55 miles from Alaska. President Putin might even be willing to sell it to you. After all, Lincoln’s administration bought Alaska from Russia.
Sincerely,
What follows is an explanation of how the Mercator Projection creates the size distortion in maps and why it’s news. There’s no need for President Trump to read it. There’s no need for his most ardent supporters … those who have drunk the MAGA Cult “Kool-Aid” … to read it either. Like their leader, they probably wouldn’t understand it. It has a lot of words with more than two syllables.
The Mercator Projection
The first time I saw a Mercator Projection Map of the World was in elementary school. I and some of my classmates were surprised by how big some parts of the world were. Antarctica was bigger than the rest of the continents combined. Greenland was bigger than South America. Why was it called an island rather than a continent?
Eventually, one of us asked the teacher. She explained that, because the world is round … like a ball … and the paper was flat, this kind of map distorts the size of land areas. The farther from the Equator a place was the bigger it appeared compared to its real size. She showed us a globe … a round map … where all the land areas are proportional to their actual size on our planet. She explained that the whole top and bottom of the map represented the North and South poles respectively.
She didn’t explain why Gerardus Mercator invented this style of map making. Maybe she didn’t know herself. Her explanation was sufficient. None of asked that question.[1]
Why should the President Care about That?
“Why would President Trump need to know about Mercator’s mapping approach?”, you ask. My answer is, “He doesn’t,” I was trying to be generous. I was giving him a way to avoid more embarrassing questions like:
- What makes you think you can “buy” Greenland?
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. The people who live there are full citizens of Denmark. Why would Denmark or any other country be willing (or even able) to sell a group of it’s citizens? Selling and buying people on a large scale has fallen out of fashion since December 6, 1865. How would you feel if some other country decided it wanted to but Puerto Rico?[2] - Have you considered how the distribution of Electoral Votes would change if Canada became our 51st state?
There are 538 Electoral Votes available in every Presidential Election. Each state gets 2 votes … one for each of its Senators … and 1 vote for each of its Representatives in the House. The total number of Representatives is set at 435 by the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. Three years after each Census, the 435 seats are redistributed among the states according to their current populations.[3]
Last Paragraph
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Notes
[1]
I didn’t think to “ask” until I began this article. I had to look it up on the Internet. Basically, the Mercator Projection is useful because a sailing ship is a LOT smaller than the Earth.
Although ancient scientists knew that the Earth is round for nearly 1,000 before Columbus, it looks flat when you’re a tiny being on it’s surface. Because the lines of longitude are a series of concentric circles, a ship sailing in a straight line east or west you are moving in an arc that exactly matches a particular longitudinal coordinate. Straight lines on a flat map correctly show where you’re going. But, the lines of latitude cross at the North and South poles.
By making a map with the lines of latitude appearing as straight lines, Mercator’s map closely portrays the the shapes of the land areas and their north/south positions and the shapes of each (e.g., Nuuk, Greenland is almost exactly due north of Brasilia, Brazil). Unfortunately, the farther a land area is from the Equator, the more it’s size is distorted. Map projections that more closely show the sizes of the land masses by curving the lines of latitude distort the shapes of those land masses and make it less obvious that sailing in a straight line gets you from Point A to Point B.
[2]
President Trump might immediately begin negotiating a price. After all, if they have another hurricane like Maria in September of 2017, he wouldn’t have to waste time and money throwing rolls of paper towels to local residents like he did then.
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[3]
When the House seats are reapportioned, each state gets a minimum of 1 seat. Each state has at least 3 members in Congress … 2 Senators and 1 Representative. Currently, Alaska, Delaware. North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming have 3 representatives in Congress and, therefore 3 Electoral Votes. Washington, DC has 3 electoral votes as well.
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My Less Than Humble Opinion 