Infiniti isn't a mathematical quantity or "number" that we can use like that. It's more of a concept than anything. You could say that there are an infinite amount of places in the US, and in the world, for that matter.

Yes I was thinking about that when I posted it!

I mean, colloquially, those places are on the other "side" of the world. If we think of what the other "side" means when talking about a sphere that rotates about an axis, the other "side" makes people think of the other "vertical" hemisphere when sliced along the rotational axis.

From a North American standpoint, take a city like Denver at 105 deg W. If you centre a vertical hemisphere over that longitude, then that hemisphere's borders would be at 90 deg either way. So from 15 deg W to "195 deg W" (15 deg E).

This ends up being a point off the west coast of the UK in line with the western coast of Africa all the way around to east of Japan.

While this is a technical definition I just made up, it sort of aligns with what people mean when they say "other side of the world".

Interesting. I'm in a North American city and someone said, most likely in a hyperbolic way, that London UK is on the "other side of the world". And I thought, well, technically, any point in the northern hemisphere will have it's opposing location in the southern hemisphere. Then I was curious on the exact point, and led me here!

I a number!

People tell me Pluto isn't a planet and I'm like, no shit, it's a dog.

It's 4% is land-to-land, meaning 96% isn't land-to-land. But that 96% could still be land-to-water, or water-to-land, or water-to-water.

Thanks! This was one of the more humorous maps out there.

Just a product of where the land is situated. Nothing really "created" this statistic in the sense that the land ended up in certain spots and this statistic represents the state we are in today.

But, I also think it's a combination of aliens and magnets.

I believe the Pacific is as high as 42% or something like that. It's massive! Go look on a globe and stare right at the middle; the whole hemisphere is pretty much ocean!

Makes it more bonkers to think about how old sailors could navigate to the tiny Hawaiian islands right in the middle of nowhere.

It would actually be interesting to see how this number has changed over time (and how it will change). With Pangea, it would've been something like 0% since the land was all on one side of the world. Maybe this number will grow in the future?? (Like millions of years haha)

Same! I guess if you think about it logically, if you pick any spot on the globe, there's a 30% chance it's land. Thus, there's probably a 30% chance that the spot on the opposite side is land (just thinking in terms of a homogenous surface). Multiply those together and you get a 9% chance of land-on-land action.

So I guess 3-4% as estimated isn't crazy, but it's only half as likely as we would expect it to be.

I think you're both right. "96% of the surface of the earth has an antipodal point that is not land-to-land". Or has at least one point being water.

Someone made a quip about a city being on the "other side of the world" and I was curious what these direct overlaps looked like. Turns out they are called "antipodes". Here is the Wikipedia page that goes into some detail as well. And here is a cool tool you can use to see what is directly on the other side of the world from where you are!

I found it amazing that only 15% of land has an antipode that is also land. And if you account for only 30% of the Earth's surface being land, this works out to only 4% of the Earth's surface having two points antipodal that are both on land.

It's just a product of how the land and water are laid out, but it's really cool!

They both can be "one of".

The article says "7 are missing today" which implies that 23 are accounted for.