Gerardus mercator. Gerardus Mercator revolutionized mapmaking. He was almost executed for it. 2022-10-24

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Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish cartographer and geographer who is best known for his work in creating the Mercator projection, a map projection that is widely used today in navigation and geography.

Mercator was born in 1512 in the small town of Rupelmonde in the County of Flanders, which was then a part of the Habsburg Netherlands. From a young age, he showed an aptitude for mathematics and science, and he received a thorough education in these subjects.

In 1530, Mercator enrolled at the University of Louvain, where he studied mathematics, astronomy, and geography. He quickly gained a reputation as an excellent student and was appointed to the position of professor of mathematics in 1539.

In 1540, Mercator began work on his most famous project: the creation of a new map projection that would be more accurate and useful for navigation. At the time, most maps were based on the Ptolemaic projection, which was a flat map that distorted the shapes of land masses as they got farther from the equator. Mercator's projection, on the other hand, was a cylindrical projection that preserved the shapes of land masses but distorted their sizes. This made it much more useful for navigation, as it allowed sailors to plot a straight course on a map and follow it on their journeys.

Mercator's projection quickly gained popularity and was adopted by navigators and cartographers around the world. Today, it is still widely used in navigation and geography, although it has been modified and improved upon over the years.

In addition to his work on the Mercator projection, Mercator also made significant contributions to the field of geography. He published a number of maps and atlases, including the first world atlas to be printed on a flat projection. He also wrote a number of treatises on geography, cartography, and mathematics, and he was considered one of the leading experts in these fields during his lifetime.

Overall, Gerardus Mercator was a pioneering figure in the field of cartography and geography, and his contributions have had a lasting impact on the way we understand and study the world around us.

Gerardus Mercator revolutionized mapmaking. He was almost executed for it.

gerardus mercator

In the 1500s, globe-making was a precise and difficult art. The first element was the Chronologia, The Chronologia developed into an even wider project, the Cosmographia, a description of the whole Universe. As a child, called Geert, he was surrounded by adults who were possibly followers of It is no great matter whether those that die on this account be guilty or innocent, provided we terrify the people by these examples; which generally succeeds best, when persons eminent for learning, riches, nobility or high stations, are thus sacrificed. Mercator: the man who mapped the planet paperbacked. While the meridians are equally spaced parallel vertical lines, the lines of latitude are spaced farther and farther apart as their distance from the Equator increases; on world maps the projection greatly enlarges areas distant from the Equator. The difference is small for short distances but increases as λ, the longitudinal separation, increases.

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Gerardus Mercator summary

gerardus mercator

Geographic maps according to Claudius Ptolemy, drawn in the spirit of the author and expanded by Gerard Mercator Mercator's definitive version of Ptolemy's 28 maps. John Dee, the English mathematician, astrologer and sage, spent time in Louvain from 1548 and he and Mercator became close friends. Around this time the Mercator now turned to the modern maps, as author but no longer engraver: the practicalities of production of maps and globes had been passed to his sons and grandsons. Various hypotheses have been tendered over the years, but in any case Mercator's friendship with English mathematician The development of the Mercator projection represented a major breakthrough in the nautical cartography of the 16th century. Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created. This is a catalogue prepared for an exhibition at the Mercator Museum in Sint-Niklaas, 1994. He then expanded degrees of latitude as they approached the poles, which distorted land, but allowed the directions to be clearer.

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Gerardus Mercator

gerardus mercator

The three sections, each with a title page, dedication and supporting text, were sold together and separately. German Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer In 1569, Gerhard Kremer, known by his trade name Gerardus Mercator, announced a new projection by publishing a large Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendata: "A new and augmented description of Earth corrected for the use of sailors". However, it was much ahead of its time, since the old navigational and surveying techniques were not compatible with its use in navigation. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1395, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D. And, despite the map's shortcomings, it remains extremely handy for that purpose. More often than not the maps show only a graticule of selected meridians and parallels.

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Gerard Mercator

gerardus mercator

These encounters may well have provided the stimulus to put aside his problems with theology and commit himself to geography. Most sites and apps use the We believe that everyone deserves access to clear, factual information that helps them educate themselves on the issues of the day and the things that pique their curiosity. Even if you've never seen Gerardus Mercator, you've almost certainly seen his work. Elaborated from astronomical observations of eclipses for all times. In 1569, Mercator developed a better, more accurate projection. Mercator never explained the method of construction or how he arrived at it. The distance AB along the parallel is acos φ λ.

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The Birth of Gerardus Mercator

gerardus mercator

In 1564 Mercator created a map of Lorraine and the British Isles. A cylindrical map projection is specified by formulae linking the geographic coordinates of latitude φ and longitude λ to Cartesian coordinates on the map with origin on the equator and x-axis along the equator. Rumold avowed that a second volume would attend to these deficiencies but it was not forthcoming and the whole project lost momentum; Rumold, who was 55 years old in 1595, was in decline and died in 1599. This example was used as frontispiece to Mercator's Italiae Sclavoniae, et Graeciae tabulae geographicae Duisburg: 1589. Mapmakers often etched their maps onto paper that they then painstakingly pasted onto paper mache spheres.

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Mercator projection

gerardus mercator

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium annotated in Mercator's hand: this is held by Glasgow University. The globe determines the scale of the map. Other projections have come in and out of vogue, but all of them have issues. This scale factor on the parallel is conventionally denoted by k and the corresponding scale factor on the meridian is denoted by h. Later he would say, "Since my youth, geography has been for me the primary subject of study. Even more extreme truncations have been used: a Much Web-based mapping uses a zoomable version of the Mercator projection with an aspect ratio of one.

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Gerardus Mercator Biography

gerardus mercator

Following Mercator's death his family prepared the Atlas for publication—in four months. In 1552 Mercator moved to Duisburg in the Duchy of Cleves in Germany, where he enjoyed the favour of the duke. Dedicated to Antoine Perrenot. The value of e 2 is about 0. This website is a digital resource for teachers of history in the Netherlands. His family did produce another edition in 1602 but only the text was reset, there were no new maps.

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GERARDUS MERCATOR, Hopper Dredger

gerardus mercator

Dedicated to Charles V. Retrieved 18 August 2022. The current position of GERARDUS MERCATOR is at East Asia coordinates 14. In 1538 Mercator produced a map of the world on a projection shaped like a pair of hearts. In general this function does not describe the geometrical projection as of light rays onto a screen from the centre of the globe to the cylinder, which is only one of an unlimited number of ways to conceptually project a cylindrical map.

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Gerardus Mercator

gerardus mercator

The Round Earth on Flat Paper s. Mercator and many of his university contemporaries were jailed in 1544. Mercator was apprehended in Rupelmonde and imprisoned in the castle. Consider a point on the globe of radius R with longitude λ and latitude φ. The Mercator Atlas of Europe: Facsimile of the Maps of Gerardus Mercator Contained in the Atlas of Europe, circa 1570—1572.

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gerardus mercator

Mercator, der deutsche Geograph, Duisburg,. Of this grandiose plan all that was completed were the first and last objectives. Wall map 96cm ×125cm 38in ×49in in 9 sheets. Mercator's original map is truncated at 80°N and 66°S with the result that European countries were moved toward the centre of the map. A cylindrical projection model. Alternative solutions like the The Robinson Projection The The Gall-Peters Projection Each map has its own advantages and compromises, like Mercator's. However, the advent of Web mapping gave the projection an abrupt resurgence in the form of the Today, the Mercator can be found in marine charts, occasional world maps, and Web mapping services, but commercial atlases have largely abandoned it, and wall maps of the world can be found in many alternative projections.

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