tiny lemmy 

France's longest border is with Brazil

c/map_enthusiasts · u/EfreetSK@lemmy.world · 576 points

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Comments

u/leopold@lemmy.kde.social · 4 points

The map only includes land borders. St Pierre and Miquelon are islands, so they have none. France has several small islands scattered around the world as legacy of the French Empire which are also absent from OP's map for the same reason. Saint Martin on the center left is a notable exception, since it's divided in two between France and the Netherlands.

u/ADTJ@feddit.uk · 7 points

Reading fail ![](https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/6cacd674-2920-487f-9a35-a3bdd18670ee.webp)

u/ADTJ@feddit.uk · 1 points

Could be or it's just counting the longest border they share

u/Troz@sh.itjust.works · 12 points

There isn't a 2nd number on the east side of Andorra so I think the 623 is the total with Spain.

u/ADTJ@feddit.uk · 22 points

I think it's just measuring the longest contiguous border.

The border with Spain has Andorra in the middle

u/myfavouritename@lemmy.world · 12 points

Yeah, you're honestly way out of line here.

Being correct is not a virtue. Other people are not impressed by how correct you are, or by how great a job you've done in correcting others.

Knowing more than others is not a virtue. Literally everyone knows less about some things than others; there is no super genius that is right or most knowledgeable about everything. For that reason (and many others), lack of knowledge is not a good reason to treat someone poorly.

You obviously care about the mechanics of clear communication. I believe that you can be better than this, that you can keep in mind *why* we communicate, not just *how*. You obviously know a lot about certain topics as well. I believe you can be better at how you demonstrate your knowledge. This time you showed off your knowledge to shame someone else. Maybe next time you could show off what you know by sharing it with someone in a helpful way.

Then people really would be impressed.

u/Cethin@lemmy.zip · 7 points

Wow, you're an asshole. Many borders are (or were) defined by positions of natural features though, so no you're wrong. They aren't completely made up by us. They are made up, but based on nature.

u/xantoxis@lemmy.world · 7 points

Wow, what the fuck happened to you to make you like this? It's a post about a map.

u/muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee · 2 points

It's called a synonym. Get yourself a Thesaurus and read it.

I too would avoid being the team with you, considering your commitment to being an asshole.

u/CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 points

Sure, but if you measure if a particle is spin up or spin down in a fixed measurement basis, physically rotate the particle, and then measure again the amplitudes change continuously. You could also measure it in another basis, which themselves form a continuous family, and get a similarly logical answer (although not independently of the first one). I don't know *much* about quantum field theory, but I do know that fields in it are continuous, just like they are in classical theories.

All in all, while quantum logic is part of what *makes* it continuous, I think I'd still stand by that it *is* continuous.

u/bunchberry@lemmy.world · 2 points

It is only continuous because it is random, so prior to making a measurement, you describe it in terms of a probability distribution called the state vector. The bits 0 and 1 are discrete, but if I said it was random and asked you to describe it, you would assign it a probability between 0 and 1, and thus it suddenly becomes continuous. (Although, in quantum mechanics, probability amplitudes are complex-valued.) The continuous nature of it is really something epistemic and not ontological. We only observe qubits as either 0 or 1, with discrete values, never anything in between the two.

u/Daxtron2@startrek.website · 2 points

Coastlines exist in the real world, they are by definition finite structures. You can only zoom in to them so far before the structure is no longer a coastline.

u/Daxtron2@startrek.website · 11 points

Literally from that page

The coastline paradox is often criticized because coastlines are inherently finite, real features in space, and, therefore, there is a quantifiable answer to their length.[17][19] The comparison to fractals, while useful as a metaphor to explain the problem, is criticized as not fully accurate, as coastlines are not self-repeating and are fundamentally finite.[17]

u/tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 6 points

I believe they were referring to this, where technically a coast could be seen as similar to fractals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox

u/Bassman1805@lemmy.world · 2 points

Fractals are not necessarily self repeating, they just contain detail at arbitrarily small scales.

u/muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee · 1 points

Fractals are not required to be self-repatiing. For example, the Mandelbrot set is a non-self repeating fractal pattern.

And please elaborate on how they are fundamentally finite.

u/Bassman1805@lemmy.world · 8 points

Coastlines are indeed fractals, and a similar argument could be made for any border defined by natural phenomena (so like, not the long straight US/Canada border).

u/CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 points

Well, quantum mechanics *is* continuous, just in a way that often maps to discrete things when measured. I'm sure someone has written a research paper on quantum law, but I wonder if anyone who *actually* knows quantum mechanics has.

u/noli@lemm.ee · 1 points

Your username is cursed, thanks for bringing that combination of words to life

u/muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee · 11 points

I was writing a bot and must have accidentally enabled it for my main account. Fuck im retarted.

Even Firefox's coloured containerisation can't fix stupid

u/CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 points

Actually, in this case, it's easily solved. Trying to measure an infinitely complex curve will never halt, answer found.

u/muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee · 15 points

Some borders drawn as straight lines on maps sure. But we also define borders by rivers and all sorts of other fractal things.

u/Lojcs@lemm.ee · 37 points

No, because borders are made up by humans and humans can't write down or even measure infinitely small

u/EddoWagt@feddit.nl · 21 points

You'll have to represent each border on the same scale, so no. Also, why are you being flagged as a bot?

u/CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 14 points

Yes, but non-coastal borders become nice curves at a certain resolution just because they're legally defined by points.

Coastal borders are legally vague AFAIK, since they're defined as a nautical mile from "the shore" or something like that, but when you're already on the ocean a matter of a few meters tends not to matter.

u/tal@lemmy.today · 7 points

*considers*

Well, they aren't fractal, that's for sure.

It *is* true that we could make borders more-closely-map to physical features, and that would increase the length somewhat.

And we can define borders however we want, so that's up to us.

But ultimately, matter is quantum, not continuous, so if we're going to link the definition of a border to some function of physical reality, I don't think that we can make a border arbitrarily long.

u/M137@lemmy.world · -15 points

Longest*

How did you get that wrong when it's correct in the title...?

And what you're talking about is not borders, it's coasts. Borders are much more specific since they're completely made up by us. They have very specific lengths.

It's actually impressive how much you got wrong in your comment. If I was in the same class as you, I would have worked hard to never be in the same group as you because it's pretty certain you've failed to understand many other simple and obvious things. I'm almost curious about what other things you've misunderstood.

u/CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 points

*Instead of grabbing the Azores for UTC -1, France figured it would be easier to just annex all of Portugal. Brazil was reportedly grateful to no longer have a whole extra timezone for that one -2 island, and also glad to hear that they annexed Portugal.*

u/tal@lemmy.today · 2 points

If you’re trying to collect them all you better not care about +12 vs -12.

*And thus it was that France invaded New Zealand's Chatham Islands and the United States Minor Outlying Islands.*

u/oleorun@real.lemmy.fan · 15 points

Yeah, agreed. Span = bridge. It's gotta be contiguous across all timezones. Otherwise it's a fact that France exists in many timezones, but not all.

Still an impressive graphic.

u/groet@feddit.org · 35 points

But what does that mean?

Does Australia span all timezones? Take its zone of UTC+9:30 and then go all the way around the globe to the east until you hit UTC+8 which is also Australia. Congrats you passed through all timezones and are in Australia again.

u/Eheran@lemmy.world · 25 points

So you only need 2 areas in 2 time zones and boom you span all of them? How would you define "span" for something like this on a globe?

u/Zagorath@aussie.zone · 41 points

They misspoke and bizarrely doubled down when corrected, but they are touching upon an interesting fun fact. That it's always daytime somewhere in France.

u/roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 points

I didn't realize French territory is so widespread.

So if the U.K. ever complies with the UN and the ICJ and relinquishes control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the sun will set on the British empire, but not on France.

That'll be funny as fuck and I hope France never misses an opportunity to point it out.

u/Skua@kbin.earth · 7 points

It is in the _most_ timezones of any country, so I expect that that's the idea they were half-remembering

u/CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 points

There's pretty much nothing right along the international date line, regardless of country. If you're trying to collect them all you better not care about +12 vs -12. As you can see your options are also limited for -1 and -2.

Unrelatedly, I'm curious what the story is with Central vs. Mountain time in Nunavut. That's quite the wasp-waist for such a vast, mostly empty area.

u/tal@lemmy.today · 72 points

I'm pretty sure that French territory doesn't span all time zones on the globe.

*hits Wikipedia*

Yeah. They're in a lot, but certainly not all.

French territory:

![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/France_in_the_World_%28%2BAntarctica_claims%29.svg/2560px-France_in_the_World_%28%2BAntarctica_claims%29.svg.png)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_the_World_(%2BAntarctica_claims).svg

Time zones:

![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/World_Time_Zones_Map.svg/2560px-World_Time_Zones_Map.svg.png)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/World_Time_Zones_Map.svg

Take, say, UTC+8, to pick one arbitrary zone.

u/nawa@lemmy.world · 61 points

Honestly I'm more surprised that the border with Belgium is longer than the border with Spain

u/someguy3@lemmy.world · -1 points

Italy surprises me. Austria too, but I guess that juts in can really add up.