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Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 21:15:27 -0600
From: Geoffrey Forbes <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Geographical center of the continents
Sender: Geoffrey Forbes <[log in to unmask]>



Hi!

I recently read a very entertaining book called "Tuva or Bust!" by Ralph Leighton.  It is about the late Nobel laureate Caltech professor Richard Feynman and his friend, Ralph Leighton.  In the 1980s they tried for several years to get through the Soviet beureacracy to visit Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva (Respublika Tyva) in Russia.  An unnamed "traveler" had gone there in the 19th-century and erected a monument to the geographic center of Asia.  Wondering how this person might have determined Kyzl to be the center of Asia, Leighton copied maps of Asia of various projections, pasted them to cardboard and cut them out, finally balancing each on the head of a pin.  He determined that this 19th century traveller must have done just that:  a map from the 1850's in Gall's stereographic projection balanced perfectly!  I guess that's one way to do it!

Feignman and Leighton then used a mathematical formula to pinpoint the center of Asia, and they came up with 45 deg. 31" N and 86 deg. 59' E, "in the middle of some sand dunes in the Dzungarian Basin--about 115 miles north of Urumchi...but more than 500 miles southwest of Kyzyl."

That's my two cents worth.

All the best,

Geoffrey Forbes
Director of Operations

East View Cartographic, Inc.
3020 Harbor Lane N
Minneapolis, MN 55447-5137
U.S.A.
Tel (763)550-0961
Fax (763)559-2931
www.cartographic.com
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