Who needs an address or just coordinates?

Text and symbols are not the only means to assign location in maps.  A choice of coordinate systems is scientifically calculated but is subject to a tension between precision and the map literacy of potential readers.  Coordinate systems that express longitude and latitude are “decrees, minutes, and seconds” (for example, my address in degrees, minutes, and seconds: 39°02'23.0496", -094°34'56.8596" or “decimal degrees,” (for example my address in decimal degrees: 39.039736,-94.582461)

 In case the Air Force or the CIA want to know, my address is FJLK25050238. The thousands of coordinate systems available express this same location differently, and will result in minimally different positions on a computer-based mapping system.  

Philosophers and scientists have taken millennia to refine the mathematical calculations to make this precision possible.  The refinement has now made maps and cartography anachronistic because devices understand those coordinates alone.  Anyone could with some training navigate by these coordinates without the use of a map, which now are a secondary representation of them rather than the primary expression of them.

The coordinate converter for this information is found at http://www.earthpoint.us/Convert.aspx

Drone Me!