Belinda Niu 5/4/2012 Geography 341 Professor Hudson

The Times Projection

Upon formally realizing in 150 A.D that the earth did not have a flat shape, but rather, a spherical one, translating a representation of its surface onto paper became significantly more complicated.1 It quickly became apparent that this process, formally known as creating a map projection, had an infinite amount of possibilities. Over the course of many centuries, several hundred projections have been published. Each is a different attempt by a map designer to strike the necessary balance between minimizing distortion in one geographical aspect at the price of inevitable distortion in another, hopefully less important aspect. The Times map projection, presented in 1965 by John Moir, is no exception. Despite its fairly recent creation, the Times projection does not incorporate any remarkably innovative technique; it is fairly representative of many other projections introduced during the twentieth century, a slightly altercated model based on a previous framework. In fact, the precise motive behind John Moirs creation of the pseudo-cylindrical Times projection in 1965 is still slightly unclear. As chief drafter for Bartholomew and Sons Limited, a family-operated British mapmaking company, it is understood that Moir designed the Times in order to replace various interrupted projections that had been created earlier, by Bartholomew himself.2 Moirs decision to name his creation most likely stemmed from the fact that it would be featured in a company publication called The Times Atlas. The time gap between Bartholomews most recent design in 1948 and Moirs in 1965, however, seems suspicious.3 An available

Claudius Ptolemy wrote about the Earth as a sphere in his monumental work, Geography in 150 A.D (Snyder, 1) 2 Besides his year of birth and death (1906-1988) and his hometown, Edinburgh, no further information was available in the various sources used about John Moir (Snyder, 213) 3 Bartholomews most recent pseudo-cylindrical map projection was the Atlantis projection, 1948 (Snyder, 281)

alternative or supporting explanation for the necessity of a new pseudo-cylindrical projection relates to pressure from a competitor. A decade prior in 1955, a man named Guy Bomford also introduced a pseudo-cylindrical projection, which he deemed a modified Gall. A few years later, it became incorporated into another atlas published in Britain The American Oxford Atlas. Similar to the 1855 Gall projection that a majority of its properties had been based upon, the modified Gall featured straight, equally spaced parallels and equally spaced curved meridians. Bomford adjusted this map projection from the original, however, by slightly compressing the meridians along the equator to reduce enlargement at high latitudes. When examining the properties of the Times projection developed by Moir in the years following, it is apparent that he incorporated many features of this modified Gall, with the exception of two differences. The Times has sinusoidal meridians that are more curved than those used by Bomford, resulting in further reductions to area and shape distortion. In addition, the spacing between the parallels in the Times projection increases with distance from the equator; this adjustment represents another attempt to counter the larger distortions at higher latitudes. Overall, the Times projection can be summarized as a pseudo-cylindrical projection with equally spaced, concave meridians (exception being the central meridian, which is straight) and parallels that increase in space when further from the equator. Resultantly, there is only moderate distortion in shape and direction, while area increases in distortion at latitudes further away from forty-five degrees North and South. These parallels are also worth noting in the context of the Times projection as along them, distance is correct in scale. Lastly, Moirs careful preservation of a somewhat rectangular shape allows the Times to effectively function as a world map. It can be deduced that a combination of the need to replace Bartholomews interrupted map projections and the pressure to respond to an innovative move made by a competing mapmaking company contributed to the inception of the Times projection in 1965 by John Moir.

A closer examination of the projection gives significant insight into how map design has evolved over the past centuries. While modern models are clearly more sophisticated, there is no denying that they are still rooted in early forms. Improvements in technology and an increased breadth of mathematical theory have contributed to the incremental innovation that defines the progression of map design. In the case of the Times projection, its most ancient root links it to the first cylindrical model developed prior to the Renaissance.4 Much later, the creation of the Galls Stereographic in 1855 fell into the same family of cylindrical models. Representing an advancement in map design with pseudo-cylindrical models, Bomford presents his modified Gall projection a century later and is closely followed by Moir, with the Times projection. Although its usefulness is limited to world maps only, researching the Times projection nonetheless provides crucial insight into the history of cartography itself.5

4 5

This projection was formally called an equi-rectangular projection (Snyder, 5) Examples of the usage of the Times projection in The Times Atlas are included in the appendix

Bibliography:
1. Snyder, John Parr. Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1997. Print. 2. Grafarend, Erik W., and Friedrich W. Krumm. Map Projections: Cartographic Information Systems. Berlin: Springer, 2006. Print. 3. Bartholomew, John. The Times Atlas. London: Times, 1980. Print. 4. "ArcGIS Desktop Help 9.3 - Times Projection." 302 Found. Web. 04 May 2012. http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Times_projection 5. "ArcGIS Desktop Help 9.3 - Gall's Stereographic." 302 Found. Web. 04 May 2012. http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Gall's_Stereographic 6. "Times Projection." Times. Web. 04 May 2012. http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/knowledgebase/geocalccom/appendix/projections/times

Appendix:
(A.1) The Times projection

(A.2) Image taken from The Times Atlas of a Times projection used in a physiographic world map