OT: OT Re: Fuller Map OT: Shape of the Earth

J Y S Czhang wrote at 2003-11-16 00:02:37 (EST)
 > In a message dated 2003:11:14 11:54:21 PM, yonjuuni@EARTHLINK.NET
 > writes:
 >
 > >Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
 > >
 > >> Fiddlesticks!  The world has the shape of a d20 (an
 > >> icosahedron)!
 > >
 > >> This was the standard answer of a friend from a roleplaying
 > >> group which has fallen apart since; he was, BTW, in the process
 > >> of designing a world that was actually icosahedron-shaped (which
 > >> unfortunately never went anywhere)
 > >
 > >That would certainly make map-making a piece of cake!  :-) No
 > >worrying about "projections"!
 >
 >     Ironically that's exactly what the Fuller Projection is about -
 > invented by Buckminister Fuller: "One World Island." (See the
 > WorldGameInstitute.org's or .edu website...)
 >

Well, not exactly.  It's just another projection, and there's still
some distortion in mapping a sphere onto triangles (albeit relatively
little).  Whereas if the world were actually icosahedronal, a Dymaxion
map could (in theory) be _perfectly_ accurate.

AFAICT, the World Game Institute used to be at
http://www.worldgame.org/~wgi/, but this is dead now. There's
information on the map here: http://www.bfi.org/map.htm#define and a
detailed treatment here:
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/rbfnotes/maps/graymap1.html

(I don't see how it's particularly ironic, either.)

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