Let's talk about perception using maps.
This map is called a Mercator. It was developed for sea navigation in the 16th century. It's also misleading when it comes to size. For instance, Greenland is distorted to be 550% too big. Also, you can fit 5 Alaskas in Brazil.
This is a Dymaxion Map. It better shows how close the continents really are to each other, but loses directionality. What is down, anyway? That's a topic for another day. For now, know this map projects onto an icosahedron.
Robinson Map
Called the compromise, pretty much everything about it is wrong.
Goode’s Homolosine
This is my personal favorite. The size of the countries is accurate here.
Why though? Because a sphere is 3d and a map is 2d. Distortions are inevitable. 3D characters for movies and videogames face the same problem. The surface textures are projected by "unwrapping"
This stuff is brain food for me.
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