# Quotes and talking points

## Short quotes for captions / headlines

> "Looking at the world as it really is."

> "Every projection is an opinion. Choose it consciously."

> "I wanted to see the planet printed on a sheet of paper at real sizes."

> "School maps have shaped our mental image of the world for generations. It's time to revise them."

> "Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland. Mercator doesn't show that. This map does."

## Medium quotes (for cutlines and longer texts)

> "I started from the problems I noticed as a user, not from previous teams of cartographers. I wanted to get there from a personal and pragmatic standpoint, not a mathematical one. The work has been manual and laborious — someone will surely refine it computationally."

> "It is not the definitive map. It is **one** proposal. The goal is not to replace every projection — it is to offer a concrete alternative to Mercator in classrooms."

> "AuthaGraph divides the sphere into triangles. Dymaxion into icosahedra. I divide it into real geographic regions — India, Arabia, Madagascar... — because they are the units the human brain already recognises as things."

## Talking points (for interviews)

### On the problem
- Mercator was designed in 1569 for maritime navigation. It was never intended to show the world "as it is".
- Even so, it is the map that dominates schools, textbooks and services like Google Maps.
- The consequences are real: most people leave school believing Greenland is larger than Africa. It isn't — it's 14 times smaller.
- Antarctica appears as a strip at the bottom of the map or disappears entirely. But it is just another continent.

### On the solution
- Instead of applying a single transformation to the entire sphere, we divide the world into 23 geographic pieces.
- Each piece is projected from its own centre, preserving its internal proportions.
- Pieces chain around real boundaries: Arabia rotates around Sinai, Eurasia around the Strait of Hormuz.
- The result is a conventional rectangular map where each continent has its real shape and size.

### On the process
- We did not start from other alternative projections (AuthaGraph, Dymaxion). The solution was reached from scratch, deliberately seeking a new approach.
- Once the result was reached, it was indeed compared with precedents to position the proposal.
- The work has been manual and laborious: hundreds of iterations, case-by-case adjustments, seams painted by hand to disguise discontinuities.

### On the goal
- The goal is not technical, it is pedagogical: for this map to enter classrooms as an alternative to Mercator.
- The maps are freely available (CC BY-SA 4.0) for schools, textbooks, the press.
- Collaboration is welcome with educational publishers, schools and cultural institutions.

### On why the code is not open source
- The **maps** are free to use. That is the important part.
- The **code** is shared on demand for serious projects.
- The proposal is a personal and aesthetic contribution, not a technical tool open to infinite versions.
- The intent is to preserve the coherence of the original proposal.

## Anti-quotables (what not to say)

- ❌ "My map is the correct / definitive / error-free one." → Mosaic-23 has acknowledged limitations.
- ❌ "Mercator is bad / false / unfair." → Mercator has its use; the problem is having chosen it for educational contexts.
- ❌ "I'm a professional cartographer." → The author is an independent personal initiative. This is a strength of the narrative, not a weakness.
- ❌ "I have revolutionised cartography." → It is one contribution among many. The revolution would come if it enters classrooms.
