Has anyone wondered when it will be time to move beyond our current system of navigation, using GPS coordinates? Might there be a better system out there?
So much of the way we convey information involves the use of keypads. I think that keypads actually represent an ideal system that we could use for navigation.
Consider a rectangle that is subdivided into nine smaller rectangles, like a phone keypad but without the zero. Now suppose that we number the smaller rectangles from 1-9, just like on a phone.
Next, we superimpose a map of the world on the rectangle so that the map of the world is subdivided into nine sectors by the smaller rectangles. So each sector of the world map would have a number from 1-9.
One issue that we soon run into, of course, is that of projection. The earth is a sphere and it is impossible to render the surface of a sphere onto a flat map without any distortion. Various projections have been developed for mapping, such as the Mercator Projection, but none can ever render a sphere on a flat map without any distortion.
Most wall maps of the world use the simple Cylindrical Projection. This is the one without any "gaps" in the map. The distortion of Cylindrical Projection is that east-west distances near the equator will appear shorter than they really are, and east-west distances at higher latitudes will appear longer than they really are.
One advantage of Cylindrical Projection, other than it's simplicity, is that a straight-line route on the earth will also show as a straight line on the map.
Now suppose we get our Cylindrical Projection map of the world and superimpose our nine-section keyboard on it. What we could do to compensate for the inevitable distortion in east-west distances is to have the equatorial regions of the world consisting of three narrower sections while the higher latitudes, both north and south of the equator, consist of three wider sections.
What this could accomplish is to make it so that each of the nine sectors represented an equal area of the earth's surface.
We see that each of the nine sectors represents an area of the earth's surface. What we can do next is to subdivide the indicated section into a further nine sections. And then those into a further nine.
Suppose that we indicated an area of the earth's by the numbers 379. The first number indicates section 3, out of 9. Then section 3 is itself divided into into nine and section 7 is chosen. Then section 7 is divided into nine and section 9 is chosen.
By using this method we can pinpoint any place on the earth's surface with as much accuracy as we wish. More numbers mean greater accuracy. 379 would give less accuracy than 37941264. This gives it an advantage over GPS because sometimes we want to specify a wide area.
The zero is not used in the keyboard of nine. This means that we can use zeros to join two points together. 3790412 would mean points 379 and 412. This would mean a route or line between those points. More points could be added to indicate an area or the corners of a map.
The nine sectors of the earth's surface would be predefined. But that doesn't mean that maps of limited areas could not be adapted from this system. All that would be necessary is to define the four corners of the map, and then it could be subdivided into the nine sectors in the same way as the whole world.
GPS could be "running in the background" of a map that used this keypad method. Any keypad map could be initiated at anytime, all that would be necessary is to define the corners of the map. The keypad method is not actually a new way of determining locations and distances, just a much easier way of expressing it.
I have written about this method before and suggested a new method of map projection. We could set the equator as a diagonal across the map. Here is the original posting.
http://markmeekprogress.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-keypad-system-of-global-navigation.html?m=0
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