Blog Day Eight: Peters World Map

Today in class we had a discussion about our world map. The map that we are use to seeing is actually highly inaccurate when it comes to the size of each country. On the map we are used to seeing, Greenland looks almost as big as Africa. But in reality Africa is 14 times bigger than Greenland. If this doesn't show how incorrect the map is, I don't know what does. The fact is that any flat map will be inaccurate. This is because our world is a sphere and when it is shown on a flat map the proportions will always be off somehow. Thankfully there is a map that is much more accurate than the previous world map. That map is called Peters World Map. This map shows more accurately the sizes of each country/ continent. When showed this map at the beginning at class I thought that all the countries looked weird and out of place/ shape. I was very surprised to find out that Peters World Map is more accurate to the real sizes of each country. I was even more surprised to find out the map could be flipped upside down and it really wouldn't change anything. At that my thoughts spiraled. I realized that even though we feel and think about the concept of "up" and "down", there really is no "up and down" in the universe. I refused to let myself go down any deeper in that rabbit hole and let myself ponder on that fact for the rest of the day. In the end today's class was very interesting and I learned something that I probably won't ever forget.