Invisible Lines
This is the line that divides the world, not that you would know it unless pointed out; most people walked straight past it on their way to a nearby viewpoint overlooking the city of London.
The meridian line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich separates the east and west hemispheres, an invisible line that silently choreographs the dance of time and space across the globe. It marks the Prime Meridian of the world, Longitude Zero, an arbitrary line against which time is measured around the world.
The story of the meridian line is a tale of science, power, and intrigue. In 1884, the world's powers convened in Washington DC to try and solve a problem. Until then, each country measured time and position from different points on the planet, leaving global coordination in chaos. The need for a single, universal meridian line was clear. Greenwich in London was chosen thanks to a combination of historical naval significance, international diplomacy — and no small amount of strong-arming by Great Britain. Since then, the meridian has set a constant in a world of variables, a fixed point from which we measure our journeys around the sun.
But as I stood astride the meridian line, one foot in the eastern hemisphere, the other in the west, I wondered whether this arbitrary line of imaginary division has a greater significance in an increasingly divided real world. It represents one of the first times in history when the whole world put aside our differences and sought to come together to find, quite literally, a common ground. Choosing the meridian line was an endeavour to unify a fractured world through science and mutual agreement. Used every second of every day, all over the world, it remains a symbol of international cooperation that the world has struggled to find ever since.
Then again, maybe it really is just an invisible line between the north and south poles, and the differences between us are equally as artificial.
