Google Earth In 4D 147
Rockgod writes to tell us about Google Earth's latest expansion. From the article:
"Google skipped right past the third dimension and landed directly in the fourth (time) by offering historical maps on Google Earth. Now you can travel back in time — for example, I am looking at the globe of 1790. Don't expect detailed high resolution photography from days gone by, but it's still interesting to see old maps overlaid on the satellite imagery of today." I suppose a link to Earth4 would have been good.
Pangea? (Score:5, Funny)
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Either way though... they should probably have a checkbox for users to select which theory they believe in (young earth or old) and then if they select "young" they can get a nice error message.
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Shows how old those damn satellites must be :-) (Score:4, Insightful)
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I recently spent several months looking over historic maps around Newark Bay in New Jersey. Most of what we looked at came from NOAA and while I have a great deal of confidence in the abilities of the mapmakers, there are still many issues having to do with datums and resolution that I never thought about before I started working with historic maps. When you deal with charts and maps you really have to start think
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What's really unconscionable is the way they remove all the incriminating evidence from Area 51.
*blink blink*
C//
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Hey, Christopher! (Score:3, Funny)
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Signed, the Basque Fishing Consortium
well (Score:2, Insightful)
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today's maps will be historical (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking the other day about this. As new photos become available on Google Earth, the old ones will be removed... or pushed back in time, just like a CVS repository. A hundred years from now, you'd be able to walk the repository backwards and watch the suburbs shrink, the global waters recede, the forests regrow and the ice shelves stitch themselves together. (No guarantees expressed or implied.) Of course, Google would be one of those stodgy old companies that you wonder why they didn't implode in the nanostock scandals of 2065, but I digress.
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That kind of thing?
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Re:today's maps will be historical (Score:4, Informative)
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Well, Schumpeter would probably call the Dark Ages, post Rome,
a period of "creative destruction". That being, of course, a
term describing the main positive dynamic of Capitalism.
So it could be argued that it was that precise turmoil that
was able to breed over time, darwin-style, the best states,
organizations, philosophies, art, war techs, which ultimately
brought the renaissance and the modern world in which we live
today.
Would we count that messy p
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That is simply untrue. Some select parts were preserved, if you're lucky and look only for the things you already know were preserved. To take one example: of all the official communications between the imperial administration and provincial governments, which certainly amounted to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of letters and other communications over the course of centuries, the grand total of what survives is two communique
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A link to Google Earth would have been useful (Score:4, Informative)
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you must be new here.
4th Spacial Dimension (Score:4, Funny)
Come on Google, I thought you guys were "innovators"
Re:4th Spacial Dimension (Score:5, Funny)
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4th dimension!? (Score:2)
Come on onyx00, get with reality.
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You forget, most
Almost there (Score:3, Funny)
So I can assume (Score:1)
OMG AMERICA IS SNAKES!
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Outdated pop-culture reference (Score:2)
Snakes on a Plain!
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Medieval London here I come! (Score:2)
Silly me.
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I'm sure dagguerotypes would handle space just fine if they could have figured out the logistics of getting them up there.
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Re:Medieval London here I come! (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a supersized scan of a medieval map [pitt.edu] of London from the 1600's. Using some projective texture mapping/morphing, it should be possible to place this map on top of the Google maps [google.com] of London.
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I agree with you though, according to the most dictionaries, in a historical context "medieval" is equivalent to saying "The Dark Ages" (up to 1500 at the latest). This map was written in 1593.
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Hah! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hah! (Score:5, Funny)
huh ! (Score:1)
Google and Wikipedia = sum of human knowledge (Score:1, Interesting)
History, Geography, Government, Music, Literature, Research, Art, Education...
We will all routinely wear earpieces and wrist displays and the words telephone, television, media, network will disappear just as the words {carriage} footman, {switchboard} operator and typist. George Orwell got so many, many things right in _1984_ especially Newspeak.
A Brave New World, NOT! Just a r
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Now what would be really cool... (Score:3, Interesting)
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http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/newspub/apr01rpt/Apr01gif
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Needs GE 4 to work.
Great! (Score:1)
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4D debate (Score:1, Informative)
I hate that I know that.
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If it makes you feel any better, though, I think you're wrong to reduce it to a 2D manifold. Google maps includes elevation data and 3-D building models.
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Now can somebody calculate the genus or the Earth surface? Counting man-made bridges and tunnels, of course.
Not yet, but working on it. (Score:1)
They are working on it... by using a unparalleled level of space-telescope technology and the ability to propel the vehicle way beyond the speed of light, the Google-scope will eventually outrace the 1000's of year old visible light from earth, turn tail and start receiving this historic visual information. And before you say "it will take light years to get the information back", two words my friend... "gravity waves".
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So I'm afraid your idea obviously won't work.
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For example, if you found a reflection from a piece of ice 5 light years from Earth, the reconstructed image from it would be of Earth 10 years in the past.
Except that with all the relative motion light would not just go from the Earth to an object and back to the Earth to be viewed again. You'd have to create an accurate comp
A good application (Score:1)
Historical fun. (Score:4, Interesting)
Jack The Ripper victoms in olde London.
Ghangis Khan/Alexander the Great conquest & warpath
Marco Polo route to the East
Or my personal favorite; combine this data with the Geneology Project to map out the paths that early humans took out of Africa.
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When the satellite cameras are good enough to resolve facial features, the identity of the Ripper will finally be discovered!
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If it's not spatial it's not 4D (Score:4, Informative)
The idea of time as a 4th dimension has been propagated erroneously. People who have no concept of the significance of a 4th dimension have grabbed hold of this concept and ride it into the ground.
Under the definition that time is a 4th dimension, Guild Wars, Quake, Morrowind, World of Warcraft, Everquest 2... they would all have the appearance of being a 4D games. Heck, checkers would actually be a 4D game.
Furthermore, spatial dimensions are interchangeable. Width/Height/Depth are all the same thing and only have meaning in relation to the others. Time is not interchangeable with the 3 known spatial dimensions. You can't have an object composed of x, y, t and still have the same dimensions as an x, y, z object. (3ft x 3ft x 3s) doesn't mean the same thing as (3ft x 3ft x 3ft)
Things do not sound inherently cooler by calling them 4D. Web 2.0 has brought with it many things, but a 4th dimension is not one of them. I'd rant some more but my 4D microwave has finished cooking my 4D hotpocket, and I need to grab that sucker before the 4th dimension causes it to be misshapen with lost heat!
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I think you mean that Checkers would be a 3D game (as there is no Z axis used in the game.)
Bill
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Minkowski would like a word with you. You seem to have missed the point of relativity.
Time is not interchangeable with the 3 known spatial dimensions.
In relativity, space and time are unified into one 4-dimensional spacetime. You can always tell the difference between a spacelike interval and a timelike interval, but diffferent observers disagree on what specifically "the time dimension" is: a purely temporal separation according to one
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x,y,z,t all define a specific "place" in space-time based on an arbitrary origin. t has no origin, except one you arbitrate, just like x,y, and z. Big Bang, birth of Jesus? Whatever you want.
You can even have more than three spacial dimensions if you want to be redundant in 3-space.
You can add a totally fictional dimen
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Everyone knows that 3s is the same as 3m not 3ft. You've got to use si units for these things to work out neatly.
Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D (Score:5, Insightful)
If the special relativity example seems too bizarre, just think in terms of locating an event. If I wanted you to come to my party, I would tell you 4 pieces of info - the x,y,z, and t coordinates of the party. Each of these degrees of freedom is a dimension.
What's much more annoying to me are the "4D" shows that are 3D plus some user interaction (getting water shot at you or something like this). That is a misuse of "4D".
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But on the other hand, the Lorentz transform has very different properties compared to for example a rotation in 3 dimensions, just because of that minus sign for time in the equations. A pair of points in xyzt space that are outside each other's light cone can never be transformed such that they end up inside each other's light cone. Also, a
Wrong (Score:2)
Still Waiting (Score:3, Funny)
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Silver Surfer? (Score:1)
Chronoogle? (Score:2)
When I first read the sub. title, I thought they had superimposed some kind of 4th spacial dimension on google earth, and was thinking, why the hell would you do that?
Interesting concept they have here, and going forward it will be much cooler now that we have satellites actually photographing the earth instead of reliance on a single explorer's math skills.
Ok, the scene is ripe - bring on the nukes! We can do before and after pictures now!
For something a little more like 4D (Score:2)
More interesting, and more 4D (in that it gives you an actual slider you can play with) is Google Earth 4 Beta's timeline [gearthblog.com] feature. I was hoping the article would've been something along those lines (since I've been having lots of fun displaying aircraft tracking data in Google Earth with their timeline slider activ
As in stephansmap.org (Score:1)
at spacetimebrowser.org
Stephan
Pfft, wheres Atlantis (Score:1)
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Duh!
Time, GIS and Virtual Globes (Score:2)
Time for Time in GIS
Christian Spanring links [spanring.eu] to a FOSS4G2006 open document presentation [foss4g2006.org] named It's About Time for Time [foss4g2006.org]. From the abstract: ""The weakness of current cartography is its poor representation of time. The surface of the earth is treated as a static thing." (Anselm Hook) [...] There are numerous experiments, but little solid support in tools or data structures for representing the 4th dimension (when we're still getting used to the 3rd dimension i
Re:The fourth dimension has nothing to do with tim (Score:5, Funny)
Usually denoted "t"...
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