This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[freebrickproductions]

So it is NOT really a great circle, but rather the opposite of a great circle.

A detestable circle.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Either way great circle routes are not straight - they follow the surface of sphere, and they require continuous adjustment of your heading.

(or just take a look at your globe)

They are in fact straight. It's going straight East-West what requires constant adjustment, as going straight will eventually veer towards the equator unless already there. Had the USA/Canada border West of the Lake of the Woods been perfectly adjusted to the 49th Parallel North, it would be a long arc.

[CtrlAltDel]

Either way great circle routes are not straight - they follow the surface of sphere, and they require continuous adjustment of your heading.

It is true that a great circle is not a straight line from a Euclidean perspective, where all the straight lines connecting two points on the sphere would cut inside it.

Rather, a great circle is a straight line with respect to the surface of a sphere, in that it is a route that does not require turning except, of course, with respect to that surface (which in practical terms is done by gravity). That is, if you were to mark a great circle on a perfect sphere and then mark another line one foot to the left and another one foot to the right, both lines would be exactly the same length.

The continuous adjustment of the heading that comes with following a great circle (except for those coinciding with the equator or any meridian) does not necessitate turning on the sphere, but following a constant heading does. In particular, if you were to mark an east-west line at say 45 degrees north latitude on a perfect sphere and then mark another line one foot to the left and another one foot to the right, the more northern of the lines would be shorter than the more southern. This might be seen when following the east-west line about 10 feet from the south pole, which would be the same as any circle ten feet in radius anywhere else on the sphere.

[DTComposer]

Dang I didn't think LA would be on top of the list for most dense city in the US.

But that's the whole point of the video - they're going by urban areas, not cities. The city of New York is far more dense than the city of Los Angeles. But California's suburban-style development is much more dense then that in the east or south.

Might as well have said, "I screwed with the stats until they came up with a YouTube-able result."

This is all easily found Census Bureau data, so I don't think anybody was screwing with the stats - it just shows that places like the Los Angeles area, which has long been perceived as a poster child for urban sprawl, actually has much less actual sprawl than many East Coast regions.

[Poiponen13]

Of course, in cities that see midnight sun (such as Inuvik in North America ...), lamps are off 24/7.

Does that happen in Inuvik?

You just said it does.

I meant that does the 24/7 on lamps during polar night occur in Inuvik.

[kphoger]

It's a great circle line going the long way, i.e. 180° opposite the shortest route.

So it is NOT really a great circle, but rather the opposite of a great circle.

What definition of 'great circle' are you going by, that requires it to be the shortest distance between two points on the globe?

A great circle is the intersection of a plane and a sphere (or, in the case of planet Earth, I suppose, an oblate spheroid).  Technically, you'd have to plot a path that circumnavigates the entire globe back to your starting point to fit the true definition of 'great circle'.  But, in common parlance, a portion of that path can also be described as a great circle:  who, though, says it has to be the 'shorter half'?

[kphoger]

I meant that does the 24/7 on lamps during polar night occur in Inuvik.

Sorry, I misread your question.

[Road Hog]

Here is one: The two population centers of Canada — Toronto and Montreal — all are contained within the western and eastern extents of the State of New York.

[webny99]

Here is one: The two population centers of Canada — Toronto and Montreal — all are contained within the western and eastern extents of the State of New York.

In fact to get from much of the Niagara Peninsula to Montreal, it can be faster to take I-90/I-81 (depending on traffic conditions and your tolerance for tolls; it's not usually faster than 407, but almost always faster than QEW/401 during daytime hours).

[Poiponen13]

Denmark reaches futher south than Scotland. The difference is 3 degree minutes.

[webny99]

Here is one: The two population centers of Canada — Toronto and Montreal — all are contained within the western and eastern extents of the State of New York.

Toronto is easy to see.

Even so, a northward extension of the NY/PA line skims the western side of the Toronto area, passing through Burlington and Brampton while excluding Hamilton.

From my experience driving in that area up I-87 and into Canada, the Montreal part must be true only if you include Long Island (which is part of NY State, I'm not arguing that). If you go due south from eastern Montreal, you would enter Vermont first.

Sure, there are parts of the Montreal metro area where you'd have to include Long Island. But the easternmost point(s) of Montreal city limits appear to line up almost perfectly with I-87 at Champlain. If anything, it's actually bit west of there... and that still leaves over 5 miles to spare between I-87 and the NY/VT/QC tri-point.

[kphoger]

Denmark reaches futher south than Scotland. The difference is 3 degree minutes.

That actually doesn't surprise me at all.  In fact, Scotland reaching farther south than Denmark would have surprised me, for some reason.

[tmoore952]

Here is one: The two population centers of Canada — Toronto and Montreal — all are contained within the western and eastern extents of the State of New York.

Toronto is easy to see.

Even so, a northward extension of the NY/PA line skims the western side of the Toronto area, passing through Burlington and Brampton while excluding Hamilton.

From my experience driving in that area up I-87 and into Canada, the Montreal part must be true only if you include Long Island (which is part of NY State, I'm not arguing that). If you go due south from eastern Montreal, you would enter Vermont first.

Sure, there are parts of the Montreal metro area where you'd have to include Long Island. But the easternmost point(s) of Montreal city limits appear to line up almost perfectly with I-87 at Champlain. If anything, it's actually bit west of there... and that still leaves over 5 miles to spare between I-87 and the NY/VT/QC tri-point.

Not sure if you noticed, but I deleted the post you are quoting about 20-30 minutes after I had made it.

I looked at GoogleMaps and realized that what I wrote was not as clear cut as I thought, so I deleted it. My thinking was that the Canadian expressway that I-87 becomes goes due north, but when I looked at a map, the expressway actually bends a bit to the west, so the whole city of Montreal is more west than I thought.

[Poiponen13]

Denmark reaches futher south than Scotland. The difference is 3 degree minutes.

That actually doesn't surprise me at all.  In fact, Scotland reaching farther south than Denmark would have surprised me, for some reason.

And Alaska's southernmost point is only 2 degree minutes north of Scotland's southernmost point.

[kphoger]

Denmark reaches futher south than Scotland. The difference is 3 degree minutes.

That actually doesn't surprise me at all.  In fact, Scotland reaching farther south than Denmark would have surprised me, for some reason.

And Alaska's southernmost point is only 2 degree minutes north of Scotland's southernmost point.

Now this one does surprise me.  Even if you ignore the Aleutian islands, it's still not that big of a difference.  Wow.

[JayhawkCO]

The easternmost and westernmost countries in the world are Russia and Fiji, which both have land on the 180th meridian.

Between 10:00 and 11:59 UTC every day, people on Earth experience three different dates.
Example - at 10:30 am in London on Friday, it's 11:30 pm on Thursday in American Samoa and 12:30 AM on Saturday on Kiritimati Island in Kiribati. 

[vdeane]

Here is one: The two population centers of Canada — Toronto and Montreal — all are contained within the western and eastern extents of the State of New York.

Toronto is easy to see.

Even so, a northward extension of the NY/PA line skims the western side of the Toronto area, passing through Burlington and Brampton while excluding Hamilton.

From my experience driving in that area up I-87 and into Canada, the Montreal part must be true only if you include Long Island (which is part of NY State, I'm not arguing that). If you go due south from eastern Montreal, you would enter Vermont first.

Sure, there are parts of the Montreal metro area where you'd have to include Long Island. But the easternmost point(s) of Montreal city limits appear to line up almost perfectly with I-87 at Champlain. If anything, it's actually bit west of there... and that still leaves over 5 miles to spare between I-87 and the NY/VT/QC tri-point.

Not sure if you noticed, but I deleted the post you are quoting about 20-30 minutes after I had made it.

I looked at GoogleMaps and realized that what I wrote was not as clear cut as I thought, so I deleted it. My thinking was that the Canadian expressway that I-87 becomes goes due north, but when I looked at a map, the expressway actually bends a bit to the west, so the whole city of Montreal is more west than I thought.

Anything west of A-30 (which I would consider pretty much all of the Montréal area to be; Montréal itself doesn't extend to the mainland) is west of VT.  The key thing is that Canada (southern Ontario aside) doesn't tend to sprawl as much as the US, so those smaller nearby communities that would just have been subsumed into the bigger metro area in the US (or near Toronto) are still distinct places.

[webny99]

...
From my experience driving in that area up I-87 and into Canada, the Montreal part must be true only if you include Long Island (which is part of NY State, I'm not arguing that). If you go due south from eastern Montreal, you would enter Vermont first.

Sure, there are parts of the Montreal metro area where you'd have to include Long Island. But the easternmost point(s) of Montreal city limits appear to line up almost perfectly with I-87 at Champlain. If anything, it's actually bit west of there... and that still leaves over 5 miles to spare between I-87 and the NY/VT/QC tri-point.

Not sure if you noticed, but I deleted the post you are quoting about 20-30 minutes after I had made it.

I looked at GoogleMaps and realized that what I wrote was not as clear cut as I thought, so I deleted it. My thinking was that the Canadian expressway that I-87 becomes goes due north, but when I looked at a map, the expressway actually bends a bit to the west, so the whole city of Montreal is more west than I thought.

Whoops, sorry I did not notice that. I must have already had it quoted, and did not look back to see it had been deleted. Understood though!

[webny99]

...
I looked at GoogleMaps and realized that what I wrote was not as clear cut as I thought, so I deleted it. My thinking was that the Canadian expressway that I-87 becomes goes due north, but when I looked at a map, the expressway actually bends a bit to the west, so the whole city of Montreal is more west than I thought.

Anything west of A-30 (which I would consider pretty much all of the Montréal area to be; Montréal itself doesn't extend to the mainland) is west of VT.  The key thing is that Canada (southern Ontario aside) doesn't tend to sprawl as much as the US, so those smaller nearby communities that would just have been subsumed into the bigger metro area in the US (or near Toronto) are still distinct places.

Definitely a fair point, but I would include Toronto in the category of not sprawling as much as the US. It's so huge that it can feel sprawling, but on a block level the suburban areas are still way more compact than US suburbs. Even the outlying suburbs such as Milton, Vaughan and Richmond Hill have new homes built on small properties with hardly any yard to speak of, and the transition from those areas to rural ones is very abrupt (in no small part due to the Greenbelt). I'd even go so far as to say "exurban" areas don't really exist, and to the extent they do, they're very limited and usually fall closer to either suburban or rural.

Canadians in general seem to be impressed by how sprawling suburbs in the US are, and vice versa. To us, a house on an acre property is pretty typical for an outlying suburb, but to them, that's a massive property that would be almost impossible to find for a single-family home.

[7/8]

Denmark reaches futher south than Scotland. The difference is 3 degree minutes.

That actually doesn't surprise me at all.  In fact, Scotland reaching farther south than Denmark would have surprised me, for some reason.

And Alaska's southernmost point is only 2 degree minutes north of Scotland's southernmost point.

Now this one does surprise me.  Even if you ignore the Aleutian islands, it's still not that big of a difference.  Wow.

And for me, I didn't realize the Aleutian Islands extend further south than the Alaskan panhandle.

[Poiponen13]

Another oddity: Africa reaches farther from the equator in its northern than southern extreme. Many people associate Africa with Southern Hemisphere.

[NWI_Irish96]

Another oddity: Africa reaches farther from the equator in its northern than southern extreme. Many people associate Africa with Southern Hemisphere.

Algiers is farther north than Nashville.

[webny99]

Another oddity: Africa reaches farther from the equator in its northern than southern extreme. Many people associate Africa with Southern Hemisphere.

Algiers is farther north than Nashville.

Two great ones. And how about Cape Town is farther north than Buenos Aires?

[kphoger]

And how about Cape Town is north of Buenos Aires?

Cape Town is east of Buenos Aires.   

[webny99]

And how about Cape Town is farther north than Buenos Aires?

Cape Town is east of Buenos Aires.   

OK, fine. FTFY.