{"id":36848,"date":"2013-06-05T21:28:45","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T01:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=36848"},"modified":"2013-06-05T21:28:45","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T01:28:45","slug":"its-own-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2013\/06\/05\/its-own-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"its own pace…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The oldest map of the world shows Babylon [the rectangle] and its surrounding countries.<\/p>\n


British Museum<\/a> 6th Century BC
<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n

Hecataeus’ work, especially the Genealogiai, shows a marked scepticism of oral history, opening with "Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to me ridiculous."<\/strong><\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n
You’ve got to admire a guy like Hecataeus<\/a> of Miletus. This is a reproduction of a map of the world he drew centered in Miletus that only contained what he knew from his own wanderings:<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/a>
Hecataeus<\/a> of Miletus – 500 BC<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

Ptolemy<\/a> added calculations, though his data was often defective. His map extended  the edges of the known world. The further the distance from his home base in Alexandria, the greater the errors:<\/div>\n

<\/a>
Ptolemy<\/a> – 150 AD<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

al Idrisi<\/a>, a descendant of Mohammed, added a lot detail from the information gathered by the Arab inland and coastal traders [but not much geographic accuracy].<\/div>\n

<\/a>
al Idrisi<\/a> – 1154 AD<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

With the coming of ships capable of long voyages and more advanced navigational tools, maps such as this one by Martellus<\/a> <\/strong>began to more accurately portray the Old World [literally on the eve of Columbus’ voyage]:<\/div>\n

<\/a>
Martellus<\/a> – 1490 AD<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

Within only a few years, maps like this one by Waldseemüller<\/a><\/strong> began to add the discoveries by Columbus, Cabot, Marco Polo. Note the Latitude\/Longitude grid. This map was the first to add the label "America" to the New World:<\/div>\n

<\/a>
Waldseemüller <\/a>– 1507 AD<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

Within a short time, Diogo Ribero<\/a> created  the first truly scientific world map using empiric latitudes. Note that the western extent of the Americas is unknown and left blank:<\/div>\n

<\/a>
Ribero<\/a> – 1529 AD<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

But within 40 years, the known world was finally  "known," shown here in Gerardus Mercator<\/a>‘s world map made with the his new cylindrical projection [still in use as the "Mercatorial Projection"]:<\/div>\n

<\/a>
Mercator<\/a> – 1569 AD<\/strong><\/sup> <\/p>\n

\"earthrise\"And so the maps just kept getting more accurate as technology and exploration advanced. But, as anyone who was near a television set in 1968 would be glad to tell you, no map ever equaled that first glimpse of the real thing from space as Apollo 8 went around the Moon and sent the first photos of the "earthrise." 1968 was a year of assassinations and political upheaval in the US, but those pictures ended the year with a much-needed ray of hope.<\/p>\n

These are some of the great maps along the two thousand plus year road to an accurate rendition of our world [Wikipedia<\/a>]. Some of the advances were technological – the Astrolabe, Quadrant, Sextant, ship and sail design, accurate time-pieces. Others were conceptual – Latitude, Longitude, a spherical earth, cartographic advances. Many were commercial – funded exploration in search for gold, trade routes, conquest. At times there was no progress for centuries. At other times, each new map improved over the last.<\/p>\n

I wrote this some time back. At the time, I was thinking about the frustration with the lack of expected discoveries in neuroscience given all of the new technologies. I think I was responding to the APA’s DSM-5 Task Force and the NIMH’s RDoC trying everything in their power to speed up science by having conferences, committee meetings, redoing classifications, and wringing their hands. I was actually wondering if the kings and merchants who commissioned these ancient maps were as impatient as their modern counterparts and had similar councils. It sat in the unpublished posts bin for a long time, because I couldn’t think of any commentary. I ran across it today, and thought I’d post it for no reason other than the maps are interesting [and maybe to say that science often has its own pace]…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The oldest map of the world shows Babylon [the rectangle] and its surrounding countries. British Museum 6th Century BC Hecataeus’ work, especially the Genealogiai, shows a marked scepticism of oral history, opening with "Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36848"}],"version-history":[{"count":87,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37118,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848\/revisions\/37118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}