The Mathematics That Transforms the World Collection: Digital Maps and Non-Euclidean Geometry (issue no. 4 RBA)

Digital maps have become a common tool in everyday life: we use them to orient ourselves when we travel, to find the nearest restaurants to our home, and to know where traffic is likely to pass along our itinerary. The availability of such versatile and powerful mapping and geolocation systems would not be possible without non-Euclidean geometry, born from the desire to represent the Earth's surface, in all its complexity, on a flat surface.

Japanese researchers used mathematics to determine the dispersion of radioactive contamination after the Fukushima nuclear accident.