this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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For example on wikipedia for Switzerland it says the country has an area of 41,285 km². Does this take into account that a lot of that area is actually angled at a steep inclination, thus the actual surface area is in effect larger than what you would expect when looking onto a map in satellite view?

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[–] geogle 94 points 4 months ago (10 children)

No. It's a flat approximation. The short answer is that once you take account for topography, your answer will always grow with surface resolution, and thus the actual surface area of rough topography is undefined.

[–] niktemadur 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

I would imagine that the area increases significantly, a type of example of what they say about fractal coastlines theoretically being able to have a perimeter of infinite length.

EDIT: it just occurred to me that theoretically, if measuring area with a different scale, a country like Bhutan could claim to have as much surface area as... say Australia.

Or both are infinite, but since one fits inside the other, I'm getting into that weird mathematical study of infinities within infinities.

[–] Dultas 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Gabriel's horn / painter's paradox is a good one too.

[–] SLVRDRGN 1 points 4 months ago

Never heard of it before, that's another mind melter. How does the volume of the horn end up to neatly be pi ?? YouTube link I found.

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