March 5, 2005 at 11 AM
Great Circles
The Great Circle Mapper is a tool for geography geeks and transportation geeks alike. Namely, it answers that age old question: why does an airplane flying from New York to London start by going north past Newfoundland?
But the truly bizarre routes show up when you start flying from one end of the globe to the other. The most direct line for an airplane from Paris to Auckland starts by flying north towards Scandinavia. It looks bizarre when you look at a “normal” map of the Earth, but it makes sense when you see an orthographic projection centred in the middle of the route, which is a much more realistic portrayal of our round globe.
Ain’t science neat?
Previously: Filter This
Subsequently: Drawn and Linked
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