the coastline paradox.
In: Earth Science
Suppose you want to measure the circumference of a circle. Obviously, the edge is round. But your ruler is straight. So, you measure as best as you can with your straight rules. Now, if the ruler is just the right length, you can measure 4 times round the edge, and you’d think the circle was actually square. So, you switch to a smaller ruler. This time, you get a pentagon. The length is closer to being correct, but still wrong. So, you switch to a shorter ruler. Now, your measured ‘circumference’ is longer still, but still not right. As you measure with smaller and smaller rulers, you get better and better estimates which keep increasing, but the straight edge can never match a circle.
Coastlines aren’t straight. They’re full of all sorts of wiggles, bays, coves etc. If a straight edge can’t measure a circle properly, how can it measure a coastline? Depending on the scale of the map (the length of the ruler), you can get vastly different values.
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