The most precise map of the Earth has been created by a team of physicists. And it has little to do with what we are used to

One of the great challenges of cartographers trying to create world maps is the impossibility of recreating the surface of a sphere in a plane. At least faithful, precise and legible.

The map on disk. He last attempt For creating a map that minimizes the distortions associated with the representation of the surface of the sphere in a plane has given a curious result: a plane whose authors compare it with a vinyl disk. The reason is that on this map our planet is represented as two circles, one showing the northern hemisphere and another the south.

The map has imperfections, but its authors consider that it is the most faithful projection to date. “You can’t do everything perfect,” pointed in a press release Richard Gott, one of the authors, “a map is as good in a thing as it may not be to represent other things.”

A problem of (more than) half an millennium. Humanity has known for thousands of years that Earth is spherical, but this rarely was a problem for two reasons. The first is that the cards only included the Eurasia and Africa region, the Americas, Oceania or Antarctica did not enter the maps until

To this we must add that the maps were not so precise that the distortions of This problem They will charge relevance. Many times they didn’t have to be: it was not until the modern era that cartographic precision began to be vital, especially for those who threw themselves into the sea.

From Mercator to Winkel Tripel. Mercator’s projection is a of the oldest And even today is one of the most used. This projection was created in the 16th century by Gerardus Mercator with the intention of facilitating transoceanic navigation. While this map maintains precision in the shapes of the elements such as seas or countries, The sizes are significantly distortedmaking areas close to the poles more with respect to those located in Ecuador.

A lot of history. Centuries of work have led less distorting maps. Among them, the authors of this new plane include the Winkel-Tripl, a projection created by German cartographer Oswald Winkel in 1921. This map is not so helpful for navigators and still has distortions around the poles, but represents a commitment . It is also the representation used by the National Geographic Society.

Scoring the maps. If the plane is not perfect, why do your authors think it is close? In 2007 David Goldberg and Gott itself created a maps score system based on six criteria: local forms, areas, distances, flexion, asymmetry, and cuts.

The punctuation system is inverse: a spherical mapamundi would have a score of 0.0, and from there, any added distortion would add greater score. The punctuation system was introduced into An article In the magazine Cartography: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization.

Being work of the same team does not result from this letter to be able to minimize the score. If the Winkel-Tripl had a score of 4,563, the new map Reduces error to 4,497 points.

The “trick.” The new projection presumes to achieve better scores than its alternatives in the six variables stipulated by Gott and its team, however there is one in which it emphasizes particularly thanks to a trick, that of continuity.

If we take any map we will see that there is a cut, usually located in the Pacific Ocean, between Asia and Oceania, and the Americas. This is a great source of distortison according to Gott’s criteria and his team. Your solution: a disc with two faces.

The Gott map is raised to present itself in the form of an disk, which gives continuity to the “cut” we see in Ecuador (and that, that, The authors explain The map could also be placed along the zero meridian).

From Earth to the confines of the cosmos. The authors of the new map took advantage of their new projection to Cartogarafiar Other other elementsfrom the planets of the Solar System to the celestial vault, including a story map Microwave cosmic background.

In Xataka | The real size of all countries in the world, compared to the size of the maps

In Xataka | The map that teaches us what the world will be like within 250 million years

Image cover | Rectangular version of the projection of Gott, Goldberg and Vanderbei

*An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024