The Deceptive Power of Maps (with Paulina Rowinska)

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

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Summary

How can the state of Colorado have nearly 700 sides? Why is a country's coastline as long as you want it to be? And how is it that your UPS driver has more routes to choose from than there are stars in the universe? Listen as mathematician Paulina Rowinska talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the mathematical tricks hiding in plain sight with every map we use. From the Mercator projection that warped how we see the world to the London Tube map that reinvented urban navigation, they discuss how distorting geography shapes our ability to navigate reality.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.2	Today's June 9th, 2025, and my guest is mathematician and author Paulina Rovinska.
0:44.6	Her book, which is our topic for today, is Mapmatics, a mathematician's guide to navigating the world.
0:51.7	Paulina, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:55.8	Hello, happy to be here.
1:01.1	Now, I should start by saying that I happen to be a map lover. I always have loved maps.
1:07.3	I love different kinds of maps. I'm not a collector, but when I had more room in my life physically, I would save lots of maps that I just happen to love because I like the idea of
1:12.5	having them. But I want to let listeners know that this is not going to be a discussion about
1:18.9	just the kind of map that comes to mind when you hear that word. There's a little about that.
1:24.3	We'll talk about it. But what you mean, Paulina, by by a map and what the rest of us mean by a map is not the same. So this is a very wide-ranging book across science, business, everyday life, medicine. And it's really about a map as a representation of reality and not what we normally think of as a thing that you fold up that used to keep in your car to help you find out where to go.
1:52.0	Is that a fair summary?
1:54.7	Yes, there's definitely more to maps than I felt before writing the book.
1:59.9	So there are very different types of maps and how I
2:03.4	think about the map and how also many mathematicians think about the map is a representation of
2:10.3	reality, so kind of the model of reality. And it can be the, yeah, the map, although I don't know how many people still have the paper folded maps.
2:20.8	I think this is, you know, less and less popular way to use maps.
2:28.3	Mostly on our phones, which is also a type of a map.
	...

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