Inspired by [this post](https://www.instagram.com/p/B6QjaMAHAzm/?igshid=176ja0au37qak)
In: Other
You can’t flatten a 3 dimensional sphere to a 2 dimensional surface without losing something.
The main projection Americans are familiar with is Mercator, which has the benefit of having longitude and latitude in equal lengths, but distorts distances the closer to the poles.
There are many other projections because they each have their benefits and detriments, and some are better to use in certain situations than others.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections
The rules of geometry are fundamentally different on a spherical surface vs. a flat surface. You can have a triangle with three 90° angles, parallel lines will intersect each other, traveling in a straight line will bring you back to where you started, etc. There’s no way to have any of those on a flat surface, so you can only get an approximation by stretching or tearing.
The projection of a globe onto a 2D plane is a mathematical transformation or function from a sphere in 3D to a 2D plane. Unfortunately, there is no transformation that preserves both the distance between two points and the angle created by three points.
That is, if we take three points on the globe with known distances from each other and known angle between them and send them through the projection function, either the distance between each point can remain the same or the angle created by all three points can remain the same, but not both.
Edit: I forgot to make my point. This in turn causes the exaggerated features of many maps. It’s also why there are so many different projections. Some projections preserve certain geometries better than others so people can choose which projection fits their needs.
Take an orange, peel off the skin, and try to lay it perfectly flat. You’ll see very quickly why it’s difficult to map a spherical surface onto a flat plane.
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