Why it's impossible to measure England's coastline

Re:Why it's impossible to measure England's coastline by hleszek on Monday April 13, 2026 @10:08PM (#47760428)

I completely understand why measuring the length of coastlines is not possible but surely measuring a trail should be doable quite easily, you could simply use a gps tracker and it would be precise enough.

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Re:Why it's impossible to measure England's coastline by ozyschmozy on Monday April 13, 2026 @10:25PM (#47760533)

Beginning of the 3rd paragraph agrees with you:

> But while the length of the newly designed path is easily measurable, the coastline that it follows is not.

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Re:Why it's impossible to measure England's coastline by sublinear on Monday April 13, 2026 @10:28PM (#47760548)

I think the idea is to show we don't know the exact lengths of any paths that aren't constructed from our handful of mathematically known curves and must approximate using them instead.

If you measure with GPS coordinates, you still run into the same problem. The number of points plotted onto a curve affects the result, and then you are possibly also adding more error than you'd have compared to tracing from aerial photos.

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