Sep16
How Many Continents Are There?
on September 16, 2011 at 11:21 amThis is a lot like the Pluto brouhaha.
This is a lot like the Pluto brouhaha.
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Continent is an imprecise term taken the way they did. But it’s very precise if you go by a list. In which case, their are exactly seven. Just as their are seven seas (again if you go by list rather than some specification other than list.)
I don’t care if we change the meaning over time… I live in this time (mostly.)
I can accept Pluto as a minor plant as well as Ceres. Unless it’s a rogue, planets orbit stars and moons orbit planets. If it orbits a moon it’s just a satellite whether natural or artificial.
What makes something artificial since it is made of natural stuff? Design.
Australia is the only country that is also a continent. When citizens of other countries are at home, they are said to be “in country,” but Australians at home must also be incontinent….right?
The connections between North and South America and between Asia and Africa are both very narrow indeed, so ignoring the land bridges may well be reasonable. The situation with Asia and Europe is less clear; many people lump the two together as Eurasia.
We have always been at war with Eurafricasia — and in sheer numbers they’re kicking our ass.
But, how many colours are there in a rainbow??
I am astonished to discover that my (Brazilian-born) wife and I disagree on the number of continents! I had no idea…
Mfk +1
random words
That should have been
random wordsContinents:
N. America
S. America
Eurasia
Africa
Australia
Antarctica
Pellucidar
Pellucidar isn’t a continent. It contains maybe five continents–the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian, and maybe the Arctic (basically a negative of the outside world–oceans on the outside are continents on the inside, and vice versa). Perhaps the Pacific and the Atlantic continents could be divided up into smaller continents, the way Europe and Asia are on the surface. Note that the internal continents are all connected by land bridges–there are no island continents.
I don’t remember which continent has the moon overhead.
in sheer numbers
Otherwise known as a target rich environment.
The whole purpose of continents is to answer the question, “Where in the world…?” So Pellucidar is funny because it literally is.
I’m looking forward to the day when the question becomes, “Where in the solar system…?
It’s all pangaea anyway. What, they’re not still connected?
This reminded me of an old joke: What’s the contour integral around Western Europe? Zero. All the Poles are in Eastern Europe.
I once told that joke to a Pole and he told me in an insulted tone Poland is in central Europe.
Western Eastern Europe.
“What’s the contour integral around Western Europe? Zero. All the Poles are in Eastern Europe.”
Or: What’s the most common cause of Soviet-bloc airline crashes? All the Poles sitting on the right half of the plane.
I once told that joke to a Pole and he told me in an insulted tone Poland is in central Europe.
Funny, that was my immediate thought when I read the first paragraph.
Ever since my visit to Bulgaria in 1975, I’ve been careful to identify the countries from Poland to Bulgaria as comprising central Europe. The joke in the 1970′s was that this left the baffled Westerner sputtering “But that means the only Eastern European country is the Soviet Union!” — at which point our Middle-European friend would just smile. Doesn’t quite work, now, though, because of Ukraine, Belarus, etc…. come to think of it, do people in Belarus consider themselves central or eastern?