Physical globe: learning the basics of geography. Interesting facts about the globe Globe definition for children
The globe is an exact copy of our planet, but reduced by millions of times. Without this model it is very difficult to imagine a science such as geography. The globe was “invented” back in the 15th century, but even today it is actively used in various spheres of human life.
What is a globe?
It should be recognized that the first cartographic image of the Earth's surface was a map. Or rather, it was a drawing of the area drawn on the wall of the cave. Globes appeared much later, when people realized the scale of our planet and found out that it has a spherical shape.
What is a globe? What are the main properties of this method of depicting the earth's surface?
Every student should know the answer to the question “what is a globe”. Translated from Latin, the word globus means “ball”. Thus, a globe is an image of the earth's surface, which preserves the geometric shape of our planet, as well as all the lines, areas and contours of the depicted objects. The only clarification: all this is reduced by millions of times.
Compared to a geographic map on a globe, all distortions of the earth's surface are minimal. Continents, oceans, seas and islands on it fully correspond to their location on the globe, a degree grid consisting of lines helps to accurately plot all geographical objects on the globe
Properties and uses of the globe
The main properties of the globe include the following:
- the sphericity of the Earth is preserved;
- the relative position of the poles, parallels and meridians is preserved;
- the scale is the same in all areas of the model;
- the shapes of all figures on the earth's surface are not distorted.
Throughout the 17th-18th centuries, globes were actively used by sailors, travelers and discoverers. Now they are used exclusively in scientific and educational (much more often) activities. The school globe is an integral attribute of any geography classroom.
Globe history
The oldest globe that has survived to this day dates back to 1492. It was created by a German scientist and traveler. He took the data of Ptolemy and Toscanelli as a basis. Beheim's globe is kept in a museum in Nuremberg. Since America had not yet been discovered at that time, in its place Beheim depicted the eastern tip of Asia, as well as many non-existent islands.
However, the very first globe, according to written ancient references, was made 1700 years ago. Its author was Aristotle's student - the ancient Greek thinker Crates. He created a spherical one, which, however, has not survived to this day. But other ancient philosophers describe that it depicted a continuous land, divided into four parts by two perpendicularly intersecting rivers.
Varieties of globes
- small (up to 60 cm in diameter);
- medium (from 60 to 120 cm);
- large (over 120 cm in diameter).
In addition to terrestrial ones, there are also globes of other celestial bodies of the Solar System (Moon, Mars, Mercury, etc.), as well as the starry sky. Ball-shaped models of our planet can also be made from different materials. It can be plastic, paper, glass or stone.
Conclusion
So what is a globe? Now you can easily answer this question. This is a model of the Earth that exactly repeats its shape, without distorting the areas and contours of objects on all parts of the surface. It is believed that the very first globe was created by the German scientist Martin Beheim in 1492. However, the earliest mentions of such devices date back to the third century BC.
According to the definition, a globe is a three-dimensional model of the Earth or some other planet: Mars, Mercury and others. A model of the celestial sphere is also presented. If we look at history, the first such design was created in 150 BC and was not much like modern globes. The globe differs from maps in that it makes it possible to obtain data about the surface with a minimum number of breaks and distortions. However, a small scale does not always allow a qualitative examination of a certain area.
Types of globes:
Political globe. If you decide to buy a political globe, you will be able to find out the political structure of the planet. The borders of countries, capitals, cities, important sea and land routes, and much more are indicated. The main convenience of such a model is accurate cartographic data: meridians, parallels, polar circles, tropics. For ease of viewing, countries are painted in different colors; You may be interested in replacing plumbing fixtures.
Geographic globe. This type is the most popular. You could meet him at school, college or institute. The user, viewing such a globe, will be able to see the location of continents, rivers, lakes, mountains, oceans and other physical objects. In some cases, the names of large cities and capitals are applied to the surface. The geographic model is the most accurate miniature model of planet Earth;
Celestial globe. Another name for this species is star. Used by astronomers to study the starry sky - the location of constellations, major planets and other objects in outer space. The location of each object occurs at the place on the globe where this object can be seen from the ground;
Relief globe. Thanks to this design, the user will be able to study the topography of the planet's surface. This texture makes it possible to study rock textures and other physical objects.
As for the globes of other planets, they can also be of different types. You can also buy a backlit globe of various sizes, showing the movement of satellites around the planets.
The earth has the shape of a ball. This was finally proven when artificial satellites flew around the Earth in all directions. They received photographs of the Earth, clearly showing the convexity of the earth's surface (Fig. 33).
Parts of the world, oceans, seas, rivers, mountains and other geographical objects are marked on the globe. On the globe you can see that most of the earth's surface is occupied by oceans. There are four oceans: Quiet, Indian, Atlantic, Arctic.
Huge areas of land, washed on all sides by the waters of the oceans, are called continents or continents. There are six continents on the globe: Eurasia, North America, South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia.
A continent or part of a continent together with nearby islands is called a part of the world. There are six parts of the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australia, Antarctica. As you can see, on one continent of Eurasia there are two parts of the world: Europe and Asia. The conventional border between these parts of the world is drawn along the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, north of the Caucasus Mountains along the Kuma-Manych depression, and the Black Sea.
The first globes were created back in Ancient Greece. During the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries in 1492, the first globe that has survived to this day was created. It showed only the continents of the Old World. As different parts of the Earth were studied, more and more accurate globes were created.
If the globe is cut in half along one of the meridians, you will get two hemispheres, each of which will depict half of the surface of the globe.
It is more convenient to use such hemispheres, since you can immediately see the surface of the entire globe. On the globe, only the part that faces the observer is visible. If the hemispheres are shown on a plane, on paper, then this will be a map of the hemispheres, which is placed in atlases.
But it is impossible to depict a hemisphere on a plane without it crumpling into folds and, in some places, tearing apart. True, you can cut the globe along the meridians into shares (Fig. 35) and make a map from these shares (Fig. 36). It is clear that distortions are inevitable on such a map, and they increase in the direction from the Equator to the poles. Therefore, when you need to find out the distance between two points, it is advisable to do this using a globe, since it almost exactly repeats the shape of the Earth.
The degree grid (parallels and meridians) are conditional lines; they do not exist on the very surface of the Earth. They are carried out on a map and globe so that it is possible to accurately indicate where this or that geographical object is located, where travelers are located. Meridians and parallels help navigate, that is, determine your position on the ground and on the map in relation to the sides of the horizon. Parallels and meridians are located perpendicular to each other.
Conventional lines of the poles, equator, tropics and polar circles are also drawn on globes and maps. There is also a conventional date line.
Degree grid
December 22, V winter solstice day, the sun's rays fall vertically down over Southern Tropic— parallel to 23.5° S, and the Sun does not set over Southern Arctic Circle at latitude 66.5° S. It's summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The sun does not appear above the Antarctic Circle on June 22, during the Southern Hemisphere winter. Twice a year March 21 And September 23, the rays of the Sun fall vertically down over the equator and uniformly illuminate the Earth from pole to pole. In these days of spring and autumn equinox day and night last 12 hours everywhere.
Date line
Geographic coordinates
Geographical coordinates any point is called its latitude and longitude. The coordinates of any place on the earth's surface can be determined from a globe or a map. And vice versa, knowing the coordinates of a geographical object, you can find its place on a map or globe.
One of the greatest discoveries in geography is the invention of the globe, with the help of which it is easier to remember the location of oceans, seas, continents, islands, tropical forests, icy deserts, etc. Subsequently, this amazing object was improved by numerous scientists around the world. It has its own ancient and quite fascinating history.
Who created the first globe? Passions still rage around this invention.
What is a globe?
Globe from the Latin word globus means ball.
This is an image of a map on the surface of a ball, preserving the similarity of the contours and the ratio of sizes (areas). There are different geographical globes that display the surface of the Earth, the lunar surface, celestial globes, etc.
Before the idea of a spherical object appeared, the first celestial globes had already been created. These spherical images of the starry sky were already known in Ancient Egypt.
History of the globe
The first globe appeared before our era (2nd century), and it was created by one inventor who was very fond of poetry. It was a learned philologist-philosopher named Crates of Malos. He could listen to the poem “Odyssey” for days, and often after listening to it, he would plot on the map all the routes along which the main character walked. And at that time it was already known about the spherical shape of the earth, so he painted the ball.
Although this object corresponded to the level of knowledge of those times, it was a real globe. It was well appreciated by his contemporaries, but for several centuries, who was the author of the first globe was forgotten.
In 1492, another globe was created in Nuremberg (Germany) to visually depict the geographical discoveries of Portuguese sailors. Thus, the scientist received the title of the first inventor of the globe.
That globe was called the “Earth Apple.” It represented a ball made of metal, no more than 50 cm in diameter. It should be noted that the continent of America was not yet on it, due to its discovery by Columbus at a later time. Also, there were no latitudes and longitudes on the globe yet, but there were tropics and meridians, and there was a short description of the countries. Now the first globe (1492) is kept in the Nuremberg Museum.
From those ancient times to the present day, a large number of the most unique, even unexpected, globes have been created, with amazing sizes, designs and materials. But two of these specimens cannot be ignored here: the largest and the most unusual and the oldest.
Who created the first globe - the largest in the world
The American company DeLorme has created a giant globe called Eartha. This organization develops maps and GPS navigation systems.
The diameter of the globe is 12.6 meters, which is the height of a 4-story building. Now this unique creation is located in the city of Yarmouth in America.
The giant globe consists of 792 map fragments fastened together with hidden bolts on a large frame. The last element was constructed from 6 thousand aluminum pipes. The peculiarity of this magnificent structure is that it is housed in a glass building and is illuminated from the inside, which gives it an extraordinary appearance.
This masterpiece is included in the Guinness Book of Records.
American oldest globe
Who created the first globe in America? The next similar item described here is also the oldest.
Scientists have established that it is made from halves of an ostrich egg glued together with shellac (a natural polymer). The card itself is carved into the shell.
But to the question of who created the first globe depicting America, we can answer that this is unknown. Why?
The globe, made from a huge ostrich egg, is the first to depict America, and it has survived to this day. But it was not possible to establish the exact date and its creator, due to the absence of any signs or signatures on the object.
Scientists have an assumption that this globe was created in the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, since there are certain sketches characteristic of the works of the great artist. This item depicts continents signed in Latin, various animals, and even a man-sailor who was shipwrecked.
Dr. Missinet (philologist and map collector) believes that the find dates back to 1504.
Celestial globe
Who created the first celestial globe? Many versions exist. For example, in Naples there is a statue of Atlas (marble), dating back to the 3rd century BC. On his shoulders the hero holds a sphere with the image of constellations. There is an opinion that it also has a prototype - the globe of Eudoxus of Cnidus (Greek astronomer).
However, existing information about the existence of Earth globes in the ancient period is not entirely reliable. This means that there are still many reasons for controversy on this matter.
The model closest to the figure of the Earth is the globe. Globes differ from maps in that their mathematical construction uses different mathematical laws than map projections.
Globe (from lat.globe - ball)- a reduced spherical model of the Earth, another planet or celestial sphere with a cartographic image of its surface, preserving the geometric similarity of the contours and the ratio of areas.
Just like for a map, when compiling a globe, conventional signs and laws of generalization of objects and phenomena are used. Like maps, they differ in subject matter (general geographical and thematic - political, geological, etc.), scale and purpose (educational, reference, etc.).
1.4.1 Properties of the globe;
1. Geographic maps take into account the features of the Earth's shape. She represents geoid- an irregular figure that cannot be described by a single algorithm. The closest geometric figure to the geoid is an ellipsoid of revolution. Why did they conventionally take the Earth as a ball to construct a globe? Because the difference in the axes of the earth's ellipsoid is too small - only about 43 km. At a very small scale of the model, this value can be neglected. Most often, globes of scales 1:80,000,000 - 1:30,000,000 are used. The difference in the length of the ellipsoid axes at these scales will be from 0.5 to 1.5 mm. It is almost impossible to maintain such a difference in axes when creating a globe, so globe- ball. Unlike a map, this is the most accurate model of the Earth.
2. The surface of the globe as a rule, flat. Relief globes are rarely made, most often only individual parts of a large-scale model of the Earth. On a 1:30,000,000 scale globe, the highest mountain system, Chomolungma (8848 m), would have a height of 0.34 mm. Of course, it is almost impossible to achieve such a difference in heights on the surface of a relatively small ball, and there is no need for it. Consequently, a flat (rounded) surface of the globe is practically justified.
3. If we take the globe as a ball, then its axes will be equal in all directions, and meridians and parallels- circles. This is easy to explain: the line of intersection of the surface of a ball with a plane in any direction is a circle. If the section plane passes through the center of the Earth, then a large circle is formed. The large circles are the lines of the meridians and the equator. The radii of all meridians are equal to each other.
If the plane cutting the ball does not pass through the center of the Earth, then the lines of intersection of it with the plane form small circles. All parallels, except the equator, are small circles, the centers of which lie on the axis of rotation of the Earth. Their radii decrease from the equator to the poles.
4. Angles between meridians And parallels -straight at any point on the globe, i.e. they correspond to the angles between them on the surface of the Earth. Consequently, there are no errors in the depiction of angles between directions on the globe.
5. Globe scale V any point of it is the same, therefore, the intervals between parallels on all meridians and between meridians on one parallel are equal (the latter decrease from the equator to the pole). The constancy of the globe scale indicates the absence of errors in the lengths of lines in any direction, i.e. the distance measured on the globe is true.
6. The absence of errors in line lengths and angles allows you to build any figure on the surface of the globe, similar the same figure on the surface of the Earth. Thus, we can say that the globe transmits without distortion of object shapes - seas, continents, countries, swamps, forest contours, etc.
7. In the absence of distortions in the angles and lengths of lines at any point on the globe The values and areas are not distorted. They will be proportional to the corresponding areas on the Earth's surface.
The main user of globes is school. The globe gives schoolchildren, especially younger grades, a visual representation of the Earth, the shapes and relative sizes of continents and oceans. Globes of different scales can be used in schools. However, preference should be given to 1:30 scale globes 000 000, since their content can be easily read from the back desks of the class.
Globes are also used in other fields of activity, for example, in navigation - water, air, space. The latter uses self-orienting globes to determine the location of the spacecraft at a given time.
Using the globe, you can plan airplane flight routes from one point on Earth to another. To do this, you need to attach a thread to the beginning and end of the route on the globe and pull it tight. The thread will lie exactly along the arc of a large circle - this will be the shortest distance between points, which is called optodromia.
If we transfer the orthodrome to the map at the intersections with the lines of the geographic grid, then in almost all cases we will get a long curved line.
Taking into account the properties of the globe discussed above, namely the absence of distortion in all directions, we can conclude that the difference in the lengths of the lines on the globe and the map is the amount of distortion on the map.
Along with the globes of the Earth, globes of the Moon and planets are made, as well as globes of the celestial sphere, depicting the celestial sphere with the brightest stars on a grid of equatorial coordinates.
Globes, made of plastic, with internal lighting, convey the political and administrative division of the globe against a general geographic background.
