[Openstreetmap] Formula for EPSG:4362 and questions to mercator projection?

[Immanuel Scholz]

Hi,

can someone explain me the formula for the projection "EPSG:4362" used in 
WGS84?

It looks a bit like a mercator projection but with the pole not as much 
distorted... ?



And when we are on it: The mercator projection can not project the north- and 
south pole correctly. A picture of the whole world would be infinite in 
height.

How comes, that there are maps of the whole world in mercator projection?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mercator-proj.jpeg

Are there a standard at which latitude the projection stops? If I stop at +-85 
degree of latitude, I get a map with roughly equal dimension in width and 
height. Is the "border latitude" for mercator somewhere there?

Or is some kind of magic used to project the near-pole regions in mercator 
projection and the formular at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection is simple wrong?


Ciao, Imi.