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But globes aren't really that practical for navigation. You can plan your voyage, but when you're at sea, how do you make sure you're going in the right directi

But globes aren't really that practical for navigation. You can plan your voyage, but when you're at sea, how do you make sure you're going in the right direction? Mercator has the advantage that you can use your compass and as long as you stay on course, you'll arrive at your destination. Keep in mind: that's 500 years ago, not 50 years ago. There's no question that we have better tools today but the question was why the mercator projection was so successful it became the default. I think "it was super useful at the time because it made navigation easy, reliable, and available to everyone, at any any weather" is a much more compelling explanation than "the would-be colonizers spread it because their home-countries were enlarged and they liked that and used it to oppress the equatorial countries".

littlestymaar 1y ago
> But globes aren't really that practical for navigation. You can plan your voyage, but when you're at sea, how do you make sure you're going in the right direction? With a compass, a sextant, a clock, and geometric calculations to get the intermediate points you'll then use a straight course to rally these point. The Mercator projection just inverse the order of the calculations (going from the intermediate points to course is straightforward as you just go in straight line over the Mercator projection), but deriving the said points requires calculations. If you have a globe, it's the other way around. > is a much more compelling explanation than "the would-be colonizers spread it because their home-countries were enlarged and they liked that and used it to oppress the equatorial countries". This is a strawman though, nobody serious would claim it has been designed for that reason. The fact is that it distorted the view of peoples in a way that aligned situ colonists propaganda at home. But those claims aren't at all equivalent.

littlestymaar 1y ago

> But globes aren't really that practical for navigation. You can plan your voyage, but when you're at sea, how do you make sure you're going in the right direction? With a compass, a sextant, a clock, and geometric calculations to get the intermediate points you'll then use a straight course to rally these point. The Mercator projection just inverse the order of the calculations (going from the intermediate points to course is straightforward as you just go in straight line over the Mercator projection), but deriving the said points requires calculations. If you have a globe, it's the other way around. > is a much more compelling explanation than "the would-be colonizers spread it because their home-countries were enlarged and they liked that and used it to oppress the equatorial countries". This is a strawman though, nobody serious would claim it has been designed for that reason. The fact is that it distorted the view of peoples in a way that aligned situ colonists propaganda at home. But those claims aren't at all equivalent.