Transcription
This piece, this piece off here, and put it over here. And now you see, the United States is no longer in the middle of the map.
>> Right.
Now I did this with a major record company in New York City, I think in 1970. And an older man stood up in the back of the room and said, "Now Elliot, you've gone too far." I said, "What's your problem?" "You You can't do that with a map." I said, "Well, actually you can." He said, "Now the United States isn't in the middle of the map anymore." I said, "The United States never was in the middle of the map. You need to realize this depends on how you draw your map."
>> Right.
And then I pointed this little background fact. South America is actually nine times larger than Greenland.
>> Even though it doesn't really look like it.
No, it is. South America is actually nine times larger than Greenland.
>> That's crazy.
Now according to your social studies teachers, what is the equator? Halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole on this map would be right about here.
>> Right.
And that means that Iowa has a semi-tropical climate. Well, if you've been in Minnesota in the wintertime
>> Iowa too, and it's definitely not.
No, that's It doesn't have a tropical climate. So you have to then introduce a real version of the map of the world. I'll put this up here.
>> Let's see. That's very nice.
The Peters projection map.
>> Oh.
The sizes on this map are right. The shapes are distorted.
>> Wow.
Look at Greenland on this map. Right there, see it?
>> Yeah, it's really tiny.
See how small it is?
>> Right.
Look at it on the Mercator projection.
>> So why did they do that? I don't understand.
Why? Because the Pope commissioned Mercator to map to make a map that shows the spread of Christianity.
>> Mhm.
So, all the countries in which there are predominantly white people are larger than those in the southern part of the of the world. Halfway between the North Pole and South Pole.
>> Mhm.
[music]
Now, if you get if you have children going to school and they're seeing this map,