Random Thought #179

I was over at a friend's house the other day and we were looking at a globe. You know, those spinning round balls representing the earth? I know....it seems like ever since Google Maps came around, we never even think about a globe anymore, but we were talking about lines of Latitude and Longitude. The interesting thing that I never considered before was that the lines of Latitude are parallel to the equator so naturally the lines of Longitude are parallel to the Prime Meridian right? WRONG! They actually all intersect at the north and south poles. You would necessarily think this at first because we're used to looking at maps on a 2-D plane and all of the Latitudinal and Longitudinal lines intersect at right angles. Since they are all perpendicular to each other, that makes since on a 2-D plane, but we don't live on a 2-D plane, we live on a 3-D sphere, so in order for the lines to be perpendicular, one of the sets of lines cannot be exactly parallel to the base point (Equator or Prime Meridian). Since the earth is magnetic (bi-polar) and we have normal spans of night and day, the Longitudinal lines take the hit. I guess I never considered it before, but it was just kind of an "aha" moment. Interesting how things are designed just right.