I completely forgot that the center of the earth that I was going to go through in an asbestos suit after digging down to it isn’t a hot liquid iron, it is actually an enormous crystal of iron and nickel! Now how do I get around that? I’ll have to bore through the crystal. Also, I wonder if it a big cube, as I presume most metals crystalize in the cubic system?
OK, I’ve got it. Antipodes (meaning “opposite feet”) means the point directly across the globe. Antiscians (meaning “opposite shadow”) means any point along the same longitude as you, but in the opposite (north or south) hemisphere; or more specifically, the point along the same longitude but opposite latitude. And antecians (meaning “opposite dwellers”) is the point along the same latitude, but opposite longitude. (though at least one other source gives it the same definition as antiscians). A follow-up question: is there a website where I can find my antipodes/antiscians/antecians by keying in my co-ordinates? From just looking on a map, I find it hard to tell whether my antiscians is in Argentina or in Chile, or whether my antecians is in China or in Mongolia. Any help before I start digging?
They are easy enough to compute:
Your antipodal point - switch the sign on your latitude number, subtract your longitude from 180 and switch sign.
eg. I’m at about 37 N, 122 W. My anyipodal point is about 37 S, 58 E in the Indian Ocean SE of Madagascar.
The other two simply involve holding one coordinate constant, and switching the sign on the other.
Oh, your antecians point would be 180 - your longitude with the sign switched, if I take the meaning correctly. Sorry about that. I’m then assuming you have access to a map with decently marked longitude / latitude lines.
And don’t I love having an “anyipodal” point … that’s a good word. It out to mean something.
yabob, that’s my prob. I don’t have a good, close map of either Mongolia or Patagonia, and I can’t find a place on the web with these maps.
I still have a paper atlas lying around. I’ll bet if you dig through the appropriate category at yahoo you can find an online map reference that has longitudes and latitudes marked on them.