dayton is not in ohio

The class that I TA for is currently doing a mapping project. They are supposed to come up with some kind of autobiographical map. There are several shows in Chicago dealing with the same idea such as William Pope L. at the Art Institute and Mapping the Body at the MCA, as well as one on maps in general at the Field Museum. They all correspond to the Festival of Maps taking place this winter in Chicago.

As is often the case when I TA, I came up with my own, (not autobiographical) idea. I may develop it into something more, but for the time being I decided to see what would happen if I began plugging the Illinois Lottery Mega Millions Jackpot numbers (six numbers between one and fifty-six) into Google Earth, as GPS coordinates. I chose the north and western hemispheres since this is where the lottery takes place. After discovering that most of them were located in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, I decided to plot the boundary of all possible lottery combinations. To find the four corners I plugged in the following lottery coordinates: (1 2 3 N 4 5 6 W) (1 2 3 N 56 55 54 W) (56 55 54 N 53 52 51 W) (53 52 51 N 1 2 3 W). I then plotted a path connecting these locations and creating a boundary. I ended up with a trapezoid that covers approximately 12 million square miles. The lower boundary sits right on the equator, and the Mid Atlantic Ridge runs right down the middle.

Each unique combination of numbers represents about 1000 square feet. But there is some empty space in there because numbers can’t be repeated, meaning, finally, that within this 12 million square mile area there are 176 million evenly-spaced 1000 sq/ft parcels of land (or mostly ocean, in this case) that you can stake your claim to for one U.S. Dollar. Being a visual/spacial person this gives me a much better idea of how ridiculous the odds are for winning the lottery. It’s like guessing exactly where our current apartment is located if given an area about the size of, oh… Asia.

Next I plan on plugging in all of the winning combinations for 2007 and seeing where that takes me… I’m also gonna buy a few tickets.