[remotemass (OP)]

Hello, I have some ideas to share about an international postcode system using cubic meters. Each postcode location would be quite small, that is, the size of a cubic meter. Each postcode location would be a cube in a grid of cubes with an edge of 21 million cubes. This would total 9,261,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubes. All cubes would be numbered, using 22 algarisms (21m^3= 22 digits).

The website is on github, you can visit going to: CubicPostcode.com

This would have many applications; particularly cool with augmented reality, semantic web and new ways of world mapping for propriety house register and real estate.

9,261,000,000,000,000,000,001 to 9,999,999,999,999,999,999 could be codes used for moving items, like telephone numbers, ISBNs, RFIDs or IP addresses. Everyone would get used to this string codes of 22 algarisms.

Looking for someone that could collaborate with me in the algorithm design and code implementation.

Work in progress with a little script in Python that converts cube number into XYZ cartesian coordinates, In case you might be interested we have also HTML5 / JS code to convert GPS <-> XYZ cartesian coordinates in meters.

Check our github repositories.

In case you ask, I know about "what3words", sure, but it is a proprietary system. Also, the words get clunky and there are many languages that don't use the English alphabet making it much more clunky. Algarisms are much more widely used and better for a universal, compact and unambiguous system. Also, my proposed cubic postcode includes all places on Earth volumetrically, not just the surface and creates an interesting aesthetical appeal for monument architectonical creations.



Also if we used 22 algorisms strings for everything, including phone numbers, we would not need international prefixes in our phone numbers. We could use these 22 algarism strings for everything, including phone numbers without prefix, etc. as described in the cubicpostcode website.



What3words is interesting but slightly flawed. Being proprietary makes it more likely to be widely adopted as they can afford advertisement and infrastructure development. But still, I think this system is much better. Simple, compact, universal and elegant.

Daniel Alexandre, BEng (Hons)
London, UK
bicomplex@gmail.com

CubicPostcode

[evan_au]

Watch out for continental drift - some locations would need to change postcodes every decade or so...

[Bored chemist]

All cubes would be numbered, using 22 algarisms

You need to explain your term

And you need to take care about how you spell it.

Also if we used 22 algorisms

Also, (and perhaps more importantly) you seem to be proposing labeling every cubic metre
But, of those 9,261,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubes only those on the surface are of any importance to most people.
That's  about 500,000,000,000,000
So about 99.999% of the "addresses" you propose will never be used.

If I want to specify the position 1 metre north of where your autopilot will take you if you forget to set it than I can say it's 0 degrees 0 minutes and 0.00 seconds East and 0^o , 0' 0.03" North
By convention,I can abbreviate that
0 0 0, E 0 0 0.03 N
That's a lot fewer digits than your proposed system.
Of course, locally, I can do even better and define a grid.
A grid reference in the UK will give your position to a metre with 10 digits and even less messing about.
(Adding a few more digits for altitude will keep the pilots happy.)
So you have proposed a long and massively wasteful  system.

[remotemass (OP)]

I feel like a naked scientist now that my spelling errors were spotted. :-(

Yes, and by that logic even on the surface you would not need to map most of the places as they would be in the oceans, in the desert, Siberia and Poles.

But if you think that most of us will be living in virtual reality videogames like Minecraft maybe you can feel the beauty of it. If you had a replica of planet Earth in a VR game like Minecraft you could teleport quickly to any place and spot the exact origin of the last earthquake!

And let's be realistic. A system that looks a lot like a 22 digits phone number is much simpler for most people.
Who cares about seconds degrees north-east complications. Just use 22 numbers for everything and even birds will get it.

See the beauty!

[alancalverd]

I wouldn't bother to communicate with anyone who thought video games were interesting.

We use continuous sexagesimal map coordinates for most GPS navigation these days. N550218W0014122  is the midpoint of Newcastle runway within 5 m in each direction. The beauty of this system is that it maps directly onto a spherical earth and if you know your present coordinate, you can see immediately if you need to go north, south, east or west to get there. If you add 2 more digits you are within a couple of feet of your destination, as shown by several videos of cruise missiles flying down chimneys. Experiments with drone delivery systems suggest that this is entirely adequate for all freight and mail services, and it is consistent with every map drawn since the Babylonians invented it.

Lots of psychologists have considered the problem of remembering strings of numbers. For most people, 7 digits can be recalled fairly easily but errors occur with more, so breaking up the map reference with N and W actually reduces the error rate - rather handy when it all goes tits-up and the nice radar man gives you a new autopilot setting over a crackly radio.

What would be useful would be a unique identifier for every person. 11 digits will suffice for everyone to have a phone number. You keep this on a key that you can plug into your mobile, office or house phone, or any public telephone or borrowed phone, so any call you make is billed to your account, you can be reached (if you want to be) anywhere in the universe, and if you send an emergency call, you can be found by the rescue service tracing the location of the  landline or the GPS coordinate sent by your mobile.  I proposed this scheme some years ago for a campus where people moved around between offices, labs and workshops, and it was successfully  implemented in software but I think the  universal hardware key would be even more convenient.

[Bored chemist]

A system that looks a lot like a 22 digits phone number is much simpler for most people.

How long would it take you to memorise, for example, the first 22 digits of pi squared?

Clearly a shorter number is much better.
You can achieve that by not wasting digits  labelling every few tons of rock.

[remotemass (OP)]

You don't need to memorize the strings of 22 algarisms.
You see, the long number in a debit or credit card is 16 digits.
Nobody knows their own card number from the top of their head but still, it is super convenient if you need to quickly spell it to a tele-operator. It is still compact and simple.
And on top of that, you have to realize that, for instance, if you are in Cambridge and you start saying the digits in a GPS device, after eight or nine digits the computer will be giving you auto-complete suggestions, and every new digit you add will restrict even more the possibilities - as described in the website.

Also, when you sign a real estate tenancy for your house all the 22-digits cubes can be listed easily in the contract and you will be able to see the edges of the cubes with AR glasses.

This is a project of great dimension for the whole planet, civilization, and life on Earth.
It is a bit like the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. You have to put it into perspective and give it its true dimensions to see the beauty of it.
It is a whole new wonder on Earth. A whole new scale and standard for the world.

Maybe architects can better see the beauty and true dimension of this project and endeavor.

[Bored chemist]

Also, when you sign a real estate tenancy for your house all the 22-digits cubes can be listed easily in the contract and you will be able to see the edges of the cubes with AR glasses.

That would be a huge waste of effort, wouldn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuius_est_solum,_eius_est_usque_ad_coelum_et_ad_inferos

[alancalverd]

And on top of that, you have to realize that, for instance, if you are in Cambridge and you start saying the digits in a GPS device, after eight or nine digits the computer will be giving you auto-complete suggestions,

I hope not. To land at Cambridge without breaking the plane you have to be at  N521218E0001030, between 49.3 and 51.3 ft altitude when you cut the engine. After 8 or 9 digits your cube could still be in France or at 100,000 ft.

However if I simply enter "EGSC" into my existing GPS it will avoid known obstacles and take me there at the correct altitude, and if I had a TBM950  (what better way to spend a couple of million?) even land the plane. 

[remotemass (OP)]

The Radius of Earth is: 6,371,000 meters.

If we desperately wanted to have less than 22 digits we could, for instance, map only the cubes between altitude
29,000 meters high (above the sea) and into 71,000 meters deep down (the sea level). To round it up.

We would for that matter map the counting of our cubes in the volume between a sphere A and a sphere B. With a volume of (A-B):
50,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 50 billion billion = 50 quintillion = 5 * 10^19 (20 digits).

Volume of the big sphere A = 4/3 * PI * r^3 = 4/3 * PI * (6400000)^3 = 1.1 * 10^21 m.

Volume of the small sphere B = 4/3 * PI * r^3 = 4/3 * PI * (6300000)^3 = 1.05 * 10^21 m.

We would get down to 20-digits postcodes. I think it would be a bad idea to do such a sacrifice.

[Bored chemist]

less than 22 digits

"fewer"

We would get down to 20-digits postcodes.

How long would it take you to memorise, for example, the first 22 20 digits of pi squared?

Why not stop being silly?
Most of us are on the surface of the earth.
So, for most things you only need a latitude and longitude to specify location.
Everybody  is used to that idea, and you can do it with 12 digits.

And, if you need to specify the altitude, you can do so.

Why are you suggesting that we make things more difficult than the  current system, just so you can label zillions of tons of rocks that will never see the light of day?

[remotemass (OP)]

There is also the possibility that the spacetime continuum has more than the three spatial dimensions that we live in and that we learn to move physical objects into a higher spatial dimension that allow us to observe every single location of the interior of our planet Earth or that we learn to find it out with spiritual development of psychic and/or supernatural abilities and senses we don't have yet developed in the physical universe. There is a great chance that dowsing pendulums using smart tech tracking and communication with supercomputers in a grid with superintelligence will also allow us to sense and detect the composition of every single cube.

[Bored chemist]

spiritual development of psychic and/or supernatural abilities and senses we don't have yet developed

Please don't clutter up the site with that sort of nonsense.
This is a science page.