This is a
constant assertion that flat earthers repeat and one of the arguments they use
to support this asseveration is that inside previous US presidential plane (the “Air Force One”) there is a map of the flat
earth.
Above I put
a photo taken in 1966 where President Lyndon Baines Johnson appears on the
right, and below I put another photo taken in 1963 where President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy appears on the left.
This second
photo has been used by flat earthers to make memes that according to them
support their belief that the earth is flat.
And they
have even published videos:
In summary what the flat earthers try
to say is:
“What better proof that the earth is flat than the
fact that a flat earth map is aboard the mythical Air Force One! If the
President of the United States has that map on his official plane, what other
proof is needed?"
But if you
look more carefully, you will notice that the map that appears on the
presidential plane does not correspond to the map used by flat earthers.
Since in the
map of the flat earthers the North Pole is in the center, while in the map of
the presidential plane the city of Washington is in the center.
In the map
of the flat earthers Antarctica surrounds the Earth, while in the map of the
presidential plane Antarctica appears as a large island under America; which creates
a big problem for flat earthers since there is no a "wall of ice"
that prevents the water from the oceans from being lost around the edges of the
planet.
On the flat earthers
map, Australia is on the opposite side of America, while on the presidential
plane map, Australia is on the left and has an enormous size since it exceeds
the size of America.
These
differences are due to the fact that these maps are not a true representation
of the Earth, but are projections of the world globe on a disk.
Cartographers call these types of
projections "azimuthal
equidistant projections" and in the case of the presidential plane this
projection is centered on the United States, while in the case of flat earthers
this projection is centered on the Arctic.
And to give you more examples, if it
had been the government of France, then it would have used this projection:
And if it
had been the Australian government, then it would have used this projection:
But this
does not mean that the governments that use these maps, they accept that the
earth is flat. They use this type of projection when they want to position
their country in the center and put the other countries around them.
The
disadvantage of these types of projections is that they generate gigantic
distortions, such as:
·
The colossal size of
Australia when the projection is centered on the United States or Europe.
·
Or Antarctica, which,
from being an island, becomes a circle when the projection is centered on the North Pole.
·
Or the strange shape
that continents take when the projection is centered on Australia.
CONCLUSION
The flat earthers
in their profound ignorance of cartography, they confuse the azimuthal equidistant projections of the spherical Earth
with their "flat earth", and is why they say such tremendous
absurdities as they put up.
And for the
anecdote, I heard that later that map was removed from the presidential plane
for diplomatic reasons, because it generated an unpleasant impression for the
governments of other countries.
But
continuing with the way of reasoning of the flat earthers, I would reply to
them that the real reason was because: "the United States government no
longer believed that Earth was flat and that is why it removed that map from
Air Force One..."
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