Fun with "ANTIPODES"

My company's flagship submarine is Antipodes, so we get many questions about the name's origin. There are many historical answers, but here is my favorite:

The term "antipodes" comes from the mathematical field of geometry and refers to a point on a sphere that is diametrically opposed to another. For example, if you place the index finger of your left hand anywhere on a basketball and place the index finger of your right hand at the point on the basketball directly opposite along an imaginary line through the center, then your right index finger will be on the "antipodes" of your left index finger (and vice versa). Another way to imagine this is to look at a (now) old-fashioned desk globe that spins along an axis held by a stand at the North and South Poles ... they are each the "antipodes" of each other.


Enough math! What does this have to do with a submarine?!

Well, our planet is a sphere that happens to be mostly covered in water. Because of the geographic distribution of land mass, less than 4% of land has a land-based antipodal point. This means that just about every human settlement on Earth has its antipodes somewhere in an ocean ... which can be explored only in a submarine. Hence the name. Make sense?

Here is a map that helps visualize the rarity of finding land-land antipodal pairs:


For a fun interactive exercise, check out this Google Maps mash-up that allows you to find the antipodal point of any location on the planet!