Word: spheres
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...goal for the juniors and seniors at Watertown High in Watertown, Mass., is to mount a thimble-size metal earth on a coat hanger in the middle of a melon-size clear-plastic sphere that is supposed to be the universe. The students then use Magic Markers to trace onto the universe a computer-drawn map of a few hundred of the brightest stars in the night sky. They draw a line around the sphere to represent the ecliptic, or path of the sun through the constellations, and then they are ready for some gnarly astronomy...
...crescent and a gibbous moon -- a waxing gibbous, at that. Barry Lyons solves the mystery of the moon's phases for a visitor by drawing an impromptu diagram. "What was the moon last night?" Petricone bellows. "A waxing crescent," Karyn Woodbury shoots back as she assembles her celestial sphere. "What about tonight?" Petricone pushes. "A first quarter," pipes another voice...
...globes are awkward to carry around. And no matter what gimmick is used, drawing the surface of a sphere on a flat plane results in distortion. Anyone who tries to flatten the whole peel of an orange can imagine the difficulty. The features of a globe cannot be transferred accurately to a flat map. If the shapes of continents are correct, the sizes are wrong; a system that is accurate at the equator is hopeless at the poles...
...former Bunting Institute fellow said that educated women today are assuming increasingly complex roles in both family life and the professional sphere...
...only one member of the rules committee, which decided last winter to make pitchers toe the line. Then he changes the subject. "Remember what Seaver did at the end of the ceremony?" After a brief speech, the future Hall of Famer jogged to the pitching mound, the sphere of so many of his triumphs, and acknowledged wave after wave of ovations. "I'll tell you," Giamatti says, "that's one of my all-time baseball memories...