Skip to content
0:00 / 0:00

#gis#elevationdata#coastlineparadox

Does "land area" assume a country is perfectly flat?

Stand-up Maths

1.3M subscribers • 12 videos on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 3 people: 3 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by Matt Parker, stand-up mathematician
  • Linked in the descriptionlaurajanegraham/surface_area

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

858K views6 years ago3 recommendations

Computer scienceMath for programmersAlgorithms

Matt Parker investigates whether official country land areas account for hills and mountains, exploring how resolution affects 3D surface area calculations.

You can listen to the A Problem Squared podcast here (and everywhere else). Please do! aproblemsquared.libsyn.com/ Huge thanks to Dr Laura Graham! Everything they did is on github: github.com/laurajanegraham/surface_area/blob/master/surface_… All about Laura: laurajanegraham.github.io/ Prof Alasdair Rae was also big help and sent me their slides. bit.ly/measurelandarea This is that video: youtube.com/watch?v=pDYkiK90WCM All about Alasdair: statsmapsnpix.com/ Thanks to Phil Chapman for sending in the question and taking the time to record themselves reading it for me. Geoscience Australia were super helpful and answered all of my ridiculous questions. ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/di… Check out Steve Mould's Numberphile video on fractal coast lines. youtube.com/watch?v=7dcDuVyzb8Y Thanks to Bec Hill: comedian; podcast host; and the new voice of Geoscience Australia. youtube.com/channel/UC5_iLVNOt2i0fX57v8AjMEQ bechillcomedian.com/ CORRECTIONS - At I accidentally say a 9 instead of a 7 (the area is 247719 not 249719). The on-screen numbers are correct. Phew. - Let me know if you spot any other mistakes. Thanks to my Patreons who mean I can spend tens of days of my life on a silly video like this. Here is a random subset of those fine Patreon People: Cubey Andy B Nicholas Koceja Jordan Scales Malcolm Rowe Sean Derek Chandler Paul LeVan Kristian Joensen Patrick Stover patreon.com/standupmaths As always: thanks to Jane Street who support my channel. They're amazing. janestreet.com/ Filming and editing by Matt Parker Additional filming by Lucie Green A bunch of footage is from Pond5 Audio and music by Howard Carter Design by Simon Wright and Adam Robinson MATT PARKER: Stand-up Mathematician Website: standupmaths.com/ US book: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/610964/humble-pi-by-matt-parker… UK book: mathsgear.co.uk/collections/books/products/humble-pi-signed-…

Why it's here

3 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an entertaining explanation of how elevation data resolution affects surface area measurements, similar to the coastline paradox.

swilliamsioon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Coastline Paradox”

>But then realized that the coastline paradox must also exist for 3D surfaces (TINs or DEMs or whatnot) so asking “what is the area of a surface on earth” can be a very complex question if dealing with elevation. StandUpMaths did a great video on this recently, asking whether national land area includes elevation and which nations would gain/lose the most land area if it were/weren't: link to this video

jobigoudon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The True Size Of Countries: Mercator projection”

Matt Parker from Standup Maths made a great video on exactly this subject a few weeks ago. "Does land area assume a country is perfectly flat?" link to this video

rdlwon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The longest straight line in Great Britain (without crossing a public road)”

Then it becomes a coastline problem, with different answers depending on the resolution of your elevation data. Great video on this from Matt Parker (focusing on area in this case): link to this video

jobigoudon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Concrete: The most destructive material on Earth”

> over every hill, dale, nook and cranny in England That would take topography into account which another rabbit hole like calculating the perimeter of Great Britain. Cf. Stand-up Maths, Does "land area" assume a country is perfectly flat? link to this video