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Reinventing Explanation

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The Babylonian Map of the World is one of the world's oldest extant maps, dating to 600 BCE. It's a crude map, difficult to read at a glance, but fortunately an accompanying cuneiform text describes the features on the map, including Babylon, seven other cities, a canal, and a mountain: Modern maps are, of course, far better than this early map. They improve on it by taking advantage of the many map-making techniques developed since 600 BCE, such as: surveying to get proportions correct; projections to correct for the curvature of the Earth; methods to depict topographic features; and so on. Even ideas such as showing roads and nautical routes were not a priori obvious, but had to be invented. This agglomeration of ideas has turned maps into a powerful medium for thought. Consider the famous map of the London Underground, excerpted here: Using this map, an ordinary person can walk into the Underground for the first time, and within minutes know how to find their way from place to pla

Reinventing Explanation Reinventing explanation Michael Nielsen January 2014 The Babylonian Map of the World is one of the world's oldest extant maps, dating to 600 BCE. It's a crude map, difficult to read at a glance, but fortunately an accompanying cuneiform text describes the features on the map, including Babylon, seven other cities, a canal, and a mountain: Modern maps are, of course, far better than this early map. They improve on it by taking advantage of the many map-making techniques developed since 600 BCE, such as: surveying to get proportions correct; projections to correct for the

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