Map Authentically Reveals How 'All Roads Result in Rome'?

The proverb “All roads lead to Rome” is alleged to have originated in relation to the Roman monument referred to as the Milliarium Aureum, or golden milestone. Erected by Caesar, the purpose was stated to be on the heart from which all distances within the Roman Empire had been measured.

Within the twenty first century, the outdated adage was revamped when a graphic began circulating in 2015 that claimed to point out how all roads nonetheless, in a way, result in Rome within the fashionable period.

One such iteration was shared once more to X on Aug. 6, 2024. On the time of this publication, the picture had acquired greater than 62.6 million views.

Whereas the picture proven above was created in 2015 utilizing real information, its creators describe it as a “information visualization challenge that explores the idiom, ‘all roads result in Rome.'” In different phrases, the picture is healthier described as an infographic or “information artwork,” not a real highway map.

For these causes, we now have rated this declare as a “Combination.”

Snopes traced the map to a web site revealed by Philipp Schmitt, an artist and designer, on which he describes the map as having been made with antidisciplinary designer Benedikt Groß. The map was made whereas the 2 had been on the former research facility moovel Lab.

In a December 2015 put up, Groß described the challenge as follows:

The result is each info visualization and information artwork and unveils mobility patterns at a really massive scale. The visualizations had been created utilizing routing algorithms on current road infrastructure from the town to continent scale. The ensuing pictures carry insights into the methods through which highway infrastructure replicate regional, political and geographical conditions.

The challenge is a thought experiment that reveals almost half one million methods an individual might get to Rome from main Western European cities.

Although the challenge web site is not on-line, an archived version from January 2021 is out there by way of the Wayback Machine.

To start, the crew aligned beginning factors in a greater than 10-million-square-mile grid protecting all of Europe. Every cell within the grid contained a place to begin to one of many crew’s “journeys to Rome.”

There are then 486,713 beginning factors to achieve Rome. So, the crew created an algorithm that calculated one route resulting in Rome for each analyzed European start line. The crew wrote:

The calculation and presentation of those completely different routes is predicated on completely different items of open supply software program. GraphHopper was our central instrument for routing our journeys. In complete GraphHopper ran 20 hours whereas calculating all of the routes displayed on the maps. GraphHopper works with Open Street Map information, which has additionally been important for our challenge. The calculation and presentation of those completely different routes is predicated on completely different items of open supply software program. GraphHopper was our central instrument for routing our journeys. In complete GraphHopper ran 20 hours whereas caluculating all routes displayed on the maps. GraphHopper works with Open Street Map data, which has additionally been essetial for our challenge.

On the time of the challenge in 2015, it took GraphHopper on the crew’s MacPro greater than 5 hours to calculate the greater than 400,000 European routes to Rome.

“The maps as an final result of this challenge are someplace between info visualization and information artwork, unveiling mobility at a really massive scale,” wrote the crew. 

Hayley Drennon, a senior analysis assistant at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who isn’t affiliated with the challenge, additional confirmed that the picture is predicated on “an algorithm that highlights all roads main to some extent.”

Drennon likens the map to “six levels from Kevin Bacon” or “Bacon’s Regulation,” an idea based mostly on the notion that everybody on this planet is linked by six or fewer acquaintances.

“Any massive metropolitan metropolis may have main roads coming into it. We are able to additionally say that ‘all roads result in Paris’ or ‘each highway in America results in Atlanta,” Drennon instructed Snopes. “As a result of, let’s be trustworthy, roads are like a circulatory system.”

The Rome map was introduced on the 2016 IEEE Visualization Conference, an annual gathering on scientific visualization, info visualization, and visible analytics administrated by the IEEE Laptop Society Technical Committee on Visualization and Graphics. Map creators Groß, Schmitt, and Raphael Reimann are listed on page 18 of the convention agenda.

Snopes additionally discovered a project description (full textual content seen here) submitted to the 2016 IEEE VIS convention with extra details about the challenge. Its summary learn:

The proverb ‘all roads result in Rome’ is, by a more in-depth look, a really attention-grabbing suggestive mobility assertion. The aim of the ‘Roads to Rome’ was to search out an automatic approach to visualize this saying. Through the technique of discovering the proper strategies and approaches the authors encountered a number of inspiring additional threads of concepts. The authors created maps utilizing algorithms for routing from a number of begins to a single vacation spot and likewise a number of locations. The researchers additionally used the developed methodology on a small scale to visualise mobility community diagrams of chosen cities. The ensuing pictures will not be solely visually intriguing, but in addition permit conclusions about how highway infrastructure displays regional, political and geographical conditions.

Within the challenge description, the authors confer with the maps as “information artwork” used to “incorporate the aesthetics of artwork whereas basing on the ideas of actual world routing and enormous scale information processing.”

In different phrases, the challenge aim was to “discover an automatic approach to visualize the proverb,” all roads result in Rome.

The crew concludes its work with a disclaimer:

The completely different maps and figures being the results of ‘Roads to Rome’ present how mobility at scale may be visualized. Protecting in thoughts, that this challenge is a borderline case of ‘data-art’ it does permit interpretations, however needs to be dealt with with care when making selections needing laborious proof for instance in infrastructure planning. However, since intently linked to actual datasets it may be seen as an excellent entry level for mobility discussions, particularly regarding road networks, politics and geography.

Collectively, the Rome map – in addition to these made by the crew to depict different European and American cities – present how mobility at scale may be visualized.

(Groß, Schmitt, Reimann )

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