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Google Earth In 4D

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wasting-the-morning-away dept.

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.

8 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. A link to Google Earth would have been useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://earth.google.com/earth4.html

  2. 4D debate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, but the surface of the Earth is a 2D manifold, a function of radius parameterized by two angles. So, this is only 3D.

    I hate that I know that.

  3. If it's not spatial it's not 4D by Jekler · · Score: 3, 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!

    1. Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The idea of time as a 4th dimension has been propagated erroneously.

      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 observer can be partly temporal and partly spatial to another observer. This is known as the "relativity of simultaneity". Mathematically, there is no unique way of slicing 4D spacetime into 3D space + 1D time; there are infinitely many ways of doing so, each corresponding to a different observer.

  4. Re:Medieval London here I come! by mikael · · Score: 3, Informative

    They may not have had satellite imagery, but many artists and painters were hired to draw maps and paintings of the city to precise scale in perspective view.

    Here is a supersized scan of a medieval map 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 of London.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  5. Re:today's maps will be historical by famebait · · Score: 3, Informative

    The "darkness" of the dark ages is severely exaggerated. True, the loss central power resulted in a lot of warring that had previously been confined to the outer frontiers of the empire, but most of the other "bad things" about it were equally present in roman society. The roman empire was not as enlightened and civilized a time as many seem to think. Their great strength was in military strategy and administration, but there was very little technological and philosophical progress (compared to its duration) from what the greeks already had. In fact the middle ages were much more productive in that department.

    --
    sudo ergo sum
  6. Re:today's maps will be historical by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Informative

    You see, that's my point. When Rome fell things got worse for a while, but their technology, their teachings, their culture, even their political system, all of it either continued to be used or was preserved and reused later. In modern times, there wouldn't even be any dark ages because it would require the destruction of not just the US, but also Canada, Australia, all of Europe, and much of Asia. No matter what, human-kind will continue marching upwards. There's only a few things that could really affect us as a race, and that's either global nuclear warfare, massive change in solar activity, or getting hammered by a really big asteroid.

  7. Re:Google and Wikipedia = sum of human knowledge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Simple, when all this human knowledge and culture come from one central location and this central location determines what you can and cannot get access to. I wonder how many people will get the red stapler reference if all copies of the movie Office Space are deleted and you wait a generation or two. Imagine removing all the references to the word stapler and red and only allow people to communicate with each other using words which are sanctioned in the central database. Good and plentiful access to only one record in a database does not make a fully informed user/human being. Think before you reply.