Why the Mercator projection distorts size

Mercator distorted the world to make navigation easier

The Mercator map stretches distances more and more toward the poles. The benefit is that a ship following one compass direction can draw its route as a straight line. This made navigation easier, but it also makes places near the poles look much larger than they really are.

Earth's magnetic bubble is much longer on one side

~10 vs >200 Earth radii

On the side facing the Sun, Earth's magnetic region reaches about 10 Earth radii into space. On the other side, the solar wind stretches it into a long tail more than 200 Earth radii long. Earth's magnetic surroundings are therefore far from symmetrical.

Greek writing added letters for vowel sounds

The Phoenician writing system used letters for consonants, but not vowels. When the Greeks adapted it, they reused some letters for vowel sounds. Greek became the earliest alphabet in the strict sense: a writing system with letters for both vowels and consonants.

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Why the Mercator projection distorts size

Mercator distorted the world to make navigation easier

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