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Mercator

the man who mapped the planet

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Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594) was born at the dawn of the Age of Discovery, when the world was beginning to be discovered and carved up by navigators, geographers and cartographers. Mercator was the greatest and most ingenious cartographer of them all: it was he who coined the word ¿atlas¿ and solved the riddle of converting the three-dimensional globe into a two-dimensional map while retaining true compass bearings. It is Mercator¿s Projection that NASA are using today to map Mars. How did Mercator reconcile his religious beliefs with a science that would make Christian maps obsolete? How did a man whose imagination roamed continents endure imprisonment by the Inquisition? Crane brings this great man vividly to life, underlying it with the maps themselves: maps that brought to a rapt public wonders as remarkable as today¿s cyber-world. Nick Crane's new book is a scintillating account of the climax of the map-makers¿ century (and of Mercator¿s life) - the miraculous compression of the planet which revolutionised navigation and has become the most common worldview we have.

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Mercator, Nicholas Crane

Langue
Année de publication
2002
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Titre
Mercator
Sous-titre
the man who mapped the planet
Langue
Anglais
Publié
2002
Pages
348
ISBN10
0297646656
ISBN13
9780297646655
Séries
Description
Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594) was born at the dawn of the Age of Discovery, when the world was beginning to be discovered and carved up by navigators, geographers and cartographers. Mercator was the greatest and most ingenious cartographer of them all: it was he who coined the word ¿atlas¿ and solved the riddle of converting the three-dimensional globe into a two-dimensional map while retaining true compass bearings. It is Mercator¿s Projection that NASA are using today to map Mars. How did Mercator reconcile his religious beliefs with a science that would make Christian maps obsolete? How did a man whose imagination roamed continents endure imprisonment by the Inquisition? Crane brings this great man vividly to life, underlying it with the maps themselves: maps that brought to a rapt public wonders as remarkable as today¿s cyber-world. Nick Crane's new book is a scintillating account of the climax of the map-makers¿ century (and of Mercator¿s life) - the miraculous compression of the planet which revolutionised navigation and has become the most common worldview we have.