Princeton astrophysics prof designs best map ever
My conversation with J. Richard Gott started innocently enough.
“Sorry if you hear me chewing, I’m just eating a chocolate bar,” the Princeton University astrophysics professor told me when we connected over the phone.
I took this as a good sign. Sure, Gott might be one of the greatest minds of our, or any, generation, and yes, he might be one of the leading theorists on time travel, and of course, I was probably going to have a tough time keeping up with the conversation, but … come on! The guy was eating a candy bar. A Hershey’s, no less (Yes, I asked.)
Why was I speaking with Gott? Because of the map you see here. Created by Gott and Robert Vanderbei, a professor of operations research and financial engineering and David Goldberg, a professor of physics at Drexel University, this is the most accurate flat map ever created. Basically, it’s like a phonograph record. Want to see for yourself? Cut it out (don’t try this on your computer; you’re going to need the physical paper for this trick) and paste the two sides together back-to-back. What you’re now holding is, basically, a 3D globe scrunched down to two dimensions. It’s awesome, right?
“This is a map to hold in your hand,” Gott told me.
It is pretty cool, as it cuts down on the main errors on the maps we’re used to seeing on our classroom walls. The errors are shapes, area, lopsidedness, distance, and the boundary cut. What does all that mean? In short, it means you can’t flatten a globe and expect the result to be pretty. The most famous example of a map error is on the standard Mercator projection map, which shows Greenland and South America to be the same size. They’re not; in fact, South America is seven times larger.
Basically, any two-dimensional map of the Earth is bound to be fugazi. So Gott and his partners devised a scoring system to see which maps worked best, and after they came up with this map, they found it had the least errors. Again: What you’re looking at is the best, most accurate, twodimensional map of the Earth ever created.
Now there was a press release associated with this map, and it covered in a bit more detail what I’ve laid out above. Again: Pretty cool, right? Princeton dude creates worldbeating (literally) map.
So I decided to reach to Gott, to get a little more insight.
He was cool. He was nice. He took over an hour to explain to me the map, and how he arrived at his ah-ha! moment.
And I am helpless to describe it here. Seriously: My mind melted. The guy tried so hard to help me to understand, but he started talking about string theory and space curvature and I am not ashamed to admit I am not ready to become an astrophysics major at Princeton, or any, university.
But I did ask him why this project. After all, this guy’s bread and butter is Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. He’s legitimately, no joke, deadly seriously designing theoretical time machines. He once made a map of the entire freaking universe. So why so Earth-bound, Dr. Gott?
“I’ve always loved maps and map projections,” he said. “When I was a kid I made a map of Mars, and I also made a map of the heavens on a cube, with the north and south on two sides and the seasonal skies on the other four sides. So it’s kind of like a nostalgic journey back to my childhood interests.”
How awesome, right? One of the smartest scientists to have ever lived, dealing with string theory and all manner of esoteric science, and he decides to rekindle a childhood passion for map making and ends up creating the mostperfect map ever. Now that’s cool, right?