Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Tom's obsession

New Maps of Hell
ER — (archived)

There is always more known about a piece of terrain than will fit on a map. The cartographer's task is not to map it all, but to select what is needed by the final user and present it in such a way that it will communicate it clearly and unambiguously to him. It is a job which requires some technical and artistic skill, but more important is the ability to communicate what the user needs to know, and also to give him an idea of what is not known. It is easy to lie with maps, and even easier to mislead, deliberately or accidentally.

On a trip to take a course in my field, I noticed several maps hanging on the wall of the company offering the training; examples of the firm's work and it's software's capabilities.

One of the maps was a nautical chart, produced entirely by computer, from data compiled in a marine database. It was a gorgeous piece of work, but I took a closer look at it with a navigator's critical eye. The first thing I noticed was that the bathymetry was well presented, but that there was no indication as to whether the soundings were feet, meters or fathoms. Precisely surveyed points on shore (for taking bearings) were carefully marked with the appropriate symbol, but they had no explanatory text! For example, the tiny circles were not labeled "penthouse" or "steeple", or "northernmost of three stacks". It was up to the navigator to figure out which feature on shore was represented by the map symbol. Finally, I noted the extensive use of pale red inks on the map, which would, of course, be invisible under a red safelight used to preserve night vision on a darkened bridge.

I realized that whoever was responsible for this map ( I refuse to use the term "chart") had probably never been on a boat in his life, much less navigated one.

Maps are the way we represent multidimensional space so it can be accessible to the human mind's remarkable ability to process visual data.
Everything we know is mapped virtually in our minds, it is how we navigate through this universe of infinite possiblities and finite resources.

Trust your instruments, but post a sharp lookout.

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