Social media users have been trying to wrap their heads around this map, which shows that it is possible to sail directly from India to the US in a completely straight line.
Novice sailors could theoretically set sail from India and arrive 8,000 miles later in far eastern Alaska without touching the rudder or touching land once.
Your globe-spanning journey takes you within eight miles of the coast of Madagascar, passing through Antarctica as you pass icy King George Island before crossing the entire Pacific Ocean.
Although ocean currents and Antarctic ice sheets could make this route virtually impossible, many commenters on the post shared on X (formerly Twitter) user Epic Maps were surprised by this discovery.
Even Elon Musk, CEO of X, was impressed and simply said, “Woah.”
Social media users have been trying to wrap their heads around this map, which shows that it is possible to sail directly from India to the US in a completely straight line
Other commenters, meanwhile, seemed to be preparing for an adventure of their own, noting that the route “got pretty close to Antarctica” and that they had “always wanted to explore that place.”
But if this card seems a little less simple, you wouldn’t be alone.
Commenters on X (formerly Twitter) were skeptical about what appears to show a clearly curved line.
“This sentence is far from straight,” said one confused commenter, while another added: “but that’s not straight.”
Other social media users wondered if the mapmaker really knew what he was talking about, asking “Do you all know what a straight line is?”.
But even though it may not look straight on a two-dimensional map, this line is actually “straight” when drawn on a globe.
Obviously you can’t have a line on a sphere that is perfectly straight in all dimensions – that would be like trying to wrap a ruler around the surface of the globe.
What it means to say that a line is straight on the surface of a sphere is that it does not turn left or right, but makes a continuous line in one direction.
Instead of a ruler, this would be like wrapping an elastic band or string around the globe. If you put that bond in the right place, it could connect Alaska and India without touching other pieces of land.
Although ocean currents and Antarctic ice sheets could make this route virtually impossible, many commenters on the post shared on X (formerly Twitter) user Epic Maps were surprised by this discovery. Even Elon Musk, CEO of X, was impressed and simply said: ‘Woah’
Not everyone was so convinced by the map, with one user joking: ‘this line is far from straight’
The secret behind this baffling puzzle lies in the way we make and read maps.
Every time you want to render a 3D object in 2D, you must “project” the surface of that object onto the flat surface.
For most of our maps we use a type of mathematical transformation called the Mercator projection to represent the spherical Earth on a flat surface, which is much more practical for navigation than a globe.
The Mercator projection was invented in 1569 by the Flemish cartographer Geradus Mercator and became popular because of its usefulness for maritime navigation.
The Mercator projection allows sailors to use latitude and longitude to plot a straight course and preserves the shape of land masses even though the size of countries is greatly distorted.
Because our flat maps use this projection, straight lines like this route called “great circles” appear to curve.
This is the same reason that international flights seem to take long detours rather than flying in a ‘straight’ line to their destination.
However, the route from India to Alaska is not even the longest possible straight sea journey in existence.
In 2012, a Reddit user from Kepleronlyknows claimed he had found the longest possible straight sea voyage stretching nearly 20,000 miles (32,089 km) from Pakistan to Russia. The route passes through the needle between Madagascar and Mozambique before descending below the southernmost point of South America
In 2012, a Reddit user from Kepleronlyknows claimed he had found the longest possible straight sea voyage stretching nearly 20,000 miles (32,089 km) from Pakistan to Russia.
The route passes through the needle between Madagascar and Mozambique before descending below the southernmost point of South America.
Inspired by this message, computer scientists Rohan Chabukswar of the United Technologies Research Center in Ireland and Kushal Mukherjee of IBM Research in India developed an algorithm that could find the longest possible routes on Earth.
Not only did they prove Kepleronlyknows right, but they also went a step further and found the longest possible straight-line journey over land.
So if you’re planning your next road trip, you can drive the epic 11,241 km (6,984 mi) route from Fujian, China to Portugal without ever turning the wheel.