Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions
Authagraph is a map projection that attempts to preserve the size and shape of landmasses. It was popularized by the media.
The media dubbed the Authagraph as “the most accurate world map.” Flat-Earthers use it as “evidence” of the failure of science to describe the world. In reality, no world map can avoid all distortion. Authagraph attempts to preserve the accurate size and shape of landmasses at the expense of other properties.
Earth is a sphere. But we generally work with two-dimensional media (paper, computer displays, televisions, phone screens, whiteboards, etc.), and it is necessary to transform the curved Earth’s surface into a planar form using a map projection.
All maps have distortions, and flat-Earthers use it to discredit science. In reality, distortions are the result of transforming a curved surface into a planar form & cannot be avoided. Some distortions can be tolerated, and some are not. It is why there are many different map projections for different purposes.
The azimuthal equidistant map is a projection of spherical Earth on a two-dimensional medium. The map has distortions, like every other type of map.
Flat-Earthers stole the shape of the azimuthal equidistant map and call it the “flat-Earth map.” While the two are identical in shape, they have different characteristics. The map that they call the “flat Earth map” is claimed to be a scaled-down representation of the supposed flat earth. They claim it to be distortion-free.
Some institutions use the azimuthal equidistant map & flat-Earthers incorrectly claim it as an “endorsement” of flat Earth. These maps are azimuthal equidistant maps and not related to flat Earth.
Continue reading “The Polar Azimuthal Equidistant Map is NOT the Flat Earth Map”
The azimuthal equidistant projection is a projection of the spherical Earth. As a result, a map using this projection has distortions in distances, shapes, directions, and areas. Just like the azimuthal equidistant map, all other types of maps have their distortion characteristics.
In the illustration, the eight yellow dots indicate a location 5000 km from the red dot, toward all the cardinal directions and the intermediate directions. We can see that the distances, shapes, directions, and areas are distorted in some way depending on the location on the map.
Continue reading “Distortions of the Azimuthal Equidistant Map”
Flat-Earthers discovered a map titled “Air Map of the World” from 1943, explaining the flight routes during the time. Because the shape is identical to the fictional “flat Earth map,” they incorrectly claimed that it is a flat-Earth map. In reality, it is an azimuthal equidistant map that has distortions, a flattened shape of the spherical Earth on a flat surface, and does not depict the true shape of the Earth.
The exact nature of the map is even explained in a very detailed manner in the map’s description. Unfortunately, in the flat-Earth community, the map is passed around in a very low resolution, and therefore, the explanations become unreadable.
At any given time, there is an equal area of the Earth that is experiencing daytime, and that is having a night time. The reason is that the sun is very far, and it would illuminate a hemisphere of the Earth, and leave the other dark.
If we plot which areas of the Earth that are getting sunlight on an azimuthal equidistant map centered on the north pole, the sun would appear to illuminate a somewhat elliptical area during the northern hemisphere summer, and a lopsided Bat-Signal shaped area during the winter. During the equinox, the sun would appear to illuminate a half-circle area.
