QI worthy trivia

[Bryn]

For starters: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/new...5f980-46900426

[kindofblue]

For starters: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/new...5f980-46900426

I mean this is huge. Someone should write a piece of music to mark this. Hell, an opera. There will be street parties in Hebden Bridge.

[Old Grumpy]

For starters: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/new...5f980-46900426

Excellent!

[Serial_Apologist]

I mean this is huge. Someone should write a piece of music to mark this. Hell, an opera. There will be street parties in Hebden Bridge.

Opinions might be poles apart, but it could have magnetic appeal!

[smittims]

I've always been interested in the difference between grid north and true north. Grid north is the direction 'upwards' on a grid line on an OS map, so it will diverge from true north the farther west you go across Britain, because grid lines are parallel, whereas lines of longitude converge to the poles.

Ordnance survey maps used to be aligned to true north, as were Bartholomew maps for many years, but at some time between the wars the OS grid system was introduced At first there was a transitional period when grid lines were printed over the old 'true north' maps. Then when new editions of OS maps werer produced the grid lines were parallel with the map margins.

The diffreences matter little on small areas of land or nearer the equator, but nearer the poles curious exaggerations happen. Many people will be familiar with 'Mercator's projection' maps were Greenand appears as big as Africa. A flat map cannot show distances as accurately as a globe.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Opinions might be poles apart, but it could have magnetic appeal!

There is going to be a special ice cream to mark this: the three-line whippy.

[Old Grumpy]

There is going to be a special ice cream to mark this: the three-line whippy.

Or in Boreal regions a Treeline Whippy?

[edashtav]

I mean this is huge. Someone should write a piece of music to mark this. Hell, an opera. There will be street parties in Hebden Bridge.

Yes, it’s time to celebrate lines of longtitude. After all, RVW wrote music for the film The 49th Parallel way back in 1941.

[oddoneout]

Yes, it’s time to celebrate lines of longtitude. After all, RVW wrote music for the film The 49th Parallel way back in 1941.

I would say songlines, but I believe that would now be considered cultural appropriation?

[Serial_Apologist]

I've always been interested in the difference between grid north and true north. Grid north is the direction 'upwards' on a grid line on an OS map, so it will diverge from true north the farther west you go across Britain, because grid lines are parallel, whereas lines of longitude converge to the poles.

Ordnance survey maps used to be aligned to true north, as were Bartholomew maps for many years, but at some time between the wars the OS grid system was introduced At first there was a transitional period when grid lines were printed over the old 'true north' maps. Then when new editions of OS maps werer produced the grid lines were parallel with the map margins.

The diffreences matter little on small areas of land or nearer the equator, but nearer the poles curious exaggerations happen. Many people will be familiar with 'Mercator's projection' maps were Greenand appears as big as Africa. A flat map cannot show distances as accurately as a globe.

Indeed so - the further north or south you travel the fatter you become until, standing at the North or South Poles holding a Mercator Projection, you are too obese even to fit into the aircraft passenger seat!

[Old Grumpy]

Does that mean Canada has a greater obesity problem than USA?

[Serial_Apologist]

Does that mean Canada has a greater obesity problem than USA?

No, because Canadians have more sense than USA citizens, and would never go for using Mercators as their measure of national proportions!