The London Underground

The London Underground map is one of the most elegant pieces of design in the world, and is a great demonstration of topology too. Geographical distances between stations are sacrificed for clarity in showing the relationship between the different train lines and their stations.

But what does the tube map look like when placed on a geographical map? Simon Clarke in 2000 produced the map below. Simon's original pages seem to have disappeared, so I've taken the original image I saved years ago and put it here.


I'm not alone in admiring the quirks of the London Underground, so Geoff at geofftech.co.uk has produced a wide array of different versions of the well known maps.Owen Massey has a very thorough collection of tube map links that have distracted me no end.

"No astronomy please, we're British!"

In one of the most spectacular own goals in science, politicians have decided that pulling out of Gemini is a sensible cost cutting measure for British science. Of course, cutting all British astronomers out of a northern hemisphere large aperture telescope might have caused some heated debate - so it was done without consultation with any of the astronomers.

The fiasco is being followed in close detail over here.

By terminating our support contract several years early, Britain demonstrated that they weren't to be trusted in large international collaborations - in addition to making trivial cost savings, the STFC had the steel cojones to ask to be kept in Gemini but at a reduced level. Gemini (quite rightly) told Britain to go take a long walk off a short pier.