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Waldo Tobler Quotes

1930–2018 United States

Waldo Rudolph Tobler (16 November 1930 – 20 February 2018) was an American-Swiss geographer and cartographer, regarded as one of the most influential geographers and cartographers of the late 20th century and early 21st century.

United States
Geographers

Also known as: Waldo R. Tobler

Random Waldo Tobler quote

7 quotes

The conceptualization of a map as a data-storage medium leads directly to the concept of it as a computer input element.

Soldiers have medals, scholars have publications.

I invoke the first law of geography: everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things

Philosophically, the phenomenon external to an area of interest affects what goes on in the inside; a sufficiently common occurrence as to warrant being called the second law of geography.

Science proceeds by detecting structures embedded in observational data. It is no simple matter to separate these general structures from the specific details.

It seems that some basic tasks, common to all cartography, may in the future be largely automated, and that the volume of maps produced in a given time will be increased while the cost is reduced.

Maps are generalized representations since it is clearly impossible to display reality in all its complexity at a reduced scale. Not too surprisingly, map makers are unable to provide explicit abstract statements about the process of map generalization, but some empirical evidence suggests constancy of information content per map centimeter squared, regardless of map scale.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Waldo Tobler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.