Journey through the centre of the earth

August 18, 2017 5:29 AM

Antipodes map tells you what is precisely on the other side of the planet from any location you give it. In Australia the universal answer is water.
posted by deadwax (29 comments total)

The answer is almost always water. There is remarkably little overlap. I guess Gondwanaland hasn't spread out enough yet.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:34 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

71% of the earth's surface is water, so yeah, water water everywhere.

Unless you're in Consul, SK S0N 0P0, Canada.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:57 AM on August 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

You just miss Bermuda off the coast of Perth.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:03 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

The antipode of my house is a a spot of ocean roughly halfway between Perth and main island of the Kerguelens archipelago. When I was in Perth a couple of years ago, it was interesting to be nearly as far as it was possible to be from home, and yet still on land.
posted by jscalzi at 6:11 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

71% of the earth's surface is water, so yeah, water water everywhere.

And the northern hemisphere has something like almost 70% of it. Other than parts of Namibia and Botswana (Hawaii), Congo (Kiribati), New Zealand (westernmost Iberia), South America is the only one that actually has plenty of results in E/SE Asia.

In here, I'm right off the coast of New Zealand.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:11 AM on August 18, 2017

Ah shit, Antarctic Ocean...

*goes to back yard in Seattle to start filling very deep hole back in*
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 6:11 AM on August 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Woohoo, feet dry. I wind up in Weber, NZ!
posted by arcticseal at 6:18 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Similarly if you spin a globe to position yourself over the center of the Pacific Ocean, almost all the land visible is at its very periphery. It covers just shy of a third of the Earth by itself.
posted by Quindar Beep at 6:22 AM on August 18, 2017

Bee'sWing: "The answer is almost always water. "

That's a very north-hemispherist thing to say.
My antipode is smack dab in the middle of the middle kingdom, Zhen'an, Shangluo, Shaanxi, China.
posted by signal at 6:23 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Previously.
posted by CaseyB at 6:29 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I guess Gondwanaland hasn't spread out enough yet.
What was on the other side of the world from Gondwanaland?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:29 AM on August 18, 2017

Continent X.
posted by Etrigan at 6:31 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

What was on the other side of the world from Gondwanaland?
A movie called Waterworld.
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:40 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

In Australia the universal answer is water.

Not True. Use the map and go to Bermuda, and work your way around the island, you'll spend a fair amount of time seeing Perth as the antipode.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:40 AM on August 18, 2017

When Ze Frank did his Make the Earth a Sandwich thing, I think it was Spain and New Zealand that actually made it work. I do remember that the list of plausible candidates was a lot smaller than I would have guessed beforehand.
posted by Copronymus at 7:08 AM on August 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Indian Ocean, alone with my thoughts.

That page appears to have been made by a Czech web design company, just for the heck of it. "Say, boss. I've got a fun marketing idea..."
posted by notyou at 7:13 AM on August 18, 2017

During the syzygy next Monday, the Earth and sun will be antipodal with respect to the moon
posted by TedW at 7:17 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I always wondered why the diametric holes of my youth always ended so wet and not in China. Turns out I was born in the wrong America.
posted by johnnydummkopf at 7:22 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

That's a very north-hemispherist thing to say.
By definition, both hemispheres have the same amount of land that is antipodal to land.
posted by soelo at 7:40 AM on August 18, 2017

Circa 1980, Don Rubin's syndicated "The Puzzle" posed the question of where Three Mile Island would emerge if it melted down straight thru the earth and came out the other side. Without an internet at one's disposal (let alone Google maps), it was a fun time digging through the big atlases at the local library.
posted by AbnerRavenwood at 8:21 AM on August 18, 2017

This is kinda cool, but what would be cooler is a map showing the Bofades.
posted by fleacircus at 8:37 AM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

soelo: "By definition, both hemispheres have the same amount of land that is antipodal to land."

Thanks for the northsplaining but that's irrelevant.

The original comment I was reacting to was "The answer is almost always water.", which assumes you're in the northern hemisphere, where this is true. If you're lucky enough to be in the southern hemisphere, there's a larger chance that your antipode is on land.

Both hemispheres have the same amount of land that is antipodal to land, but not the same percentage, which is the relevant issue.
posted by signal at 8:52 AM on August 18, 2017

I like this map on wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antipodes_LAEA.png#/media/File:Antipodes_LAEA.png
posted by mulligan at 10:37 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can't get diddly. Looks like the site is using a developer's key for Google Maps rather than a commercial license.

js?key=AIzaSyCs1RKY8qVBMqRO8mScnJuOEikNIaxBpB0&callback=initialize:37 You have exceeded your daily request quota for this API. We recommend enabling billing to get a higher quota: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/usage

posted by ardgedee at 10:46 AM on August 18, 2017

Similarly if you spin a globe to position yourself over the center of the Pacific Ocean, almost all the land visible is at its very periphery. It covers just shy of a third of the Earth by itself.

I did this in regular google maps in order to get my location and my antipode visible at the same time. What surprised me is that this was possible if I put the Pacific Ocean in the middle of my screen, but *not* if I put Africa there instead. It seems Google is using a projection that emphasizes land and de-emphasizes sea.
posted by dbx at 11:28 AM on August 18, 2017

I'm pretty sure Google Maps uses Mercator.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:33 AM on August 18, 2017

Google Maps uses Web Mercator (which is basically Mercator assuming a spherical earth).
posted by madcaptenor at 1:42 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

>In Australia the universal answer is water
Not true, the Cocos Islands (Australian territory) are antipodal to Nicaragua.

More seriously, this has assuaged a childhood fear of mine - when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened and no-one knew what had happened to the core of the reactor, I was utterly convinced it was going to burrow through the earth and pop up in our backyard. It's good to know that had it followed a straight line, it would have ended up somewhere many miles south-east of New Zealand
posted by girlgenius at 1:39 AM on August 19, 2017

I couldn't make Perth and Bermuda overlap, although it is close. However I did find some other dry antipodes of Australia. Christmas Island is antipodal to Colombia and Heard Island is antipodal to Saskatchewan.
posted by foobaz at 12:30 AM on August 20, 2017