A modern raised-relief world globe

A globe is a three-dimensional scale model of Earth (terrestrial globe) or other spheroid celestial body such as a planet, star, or moon. It may also refer to a spherical representation of the celestial sphere, showing the apparent positions of the stars and constellations in the sky (celestial globe). The word "globe" comes from the Latin word globus, meaning round mass or sphere.

Terrestrial and planetary[link]

A globe is the only representation of the earth that does not distort either the shape or the size of large features; flat maps are created using a map projection that inevitably introduces an increasing amount of distortion the larger the area that the map shows. A typical scale for a terrestrial globe is roughly 1:40 million.

Sometimes a globe has surface texture showing topography; in these, elevations are exaggerated, otherwise they would be hardly visible. Most modern globes are also imprinted with parallels and meridians, so that one can tell the approximate coordinates of a specific place. Globes provide the best view of Earth today.

Celestial[link]

A German celestial globe c.1770

Celestial globes show the apparent positions of the stars in the sky. They omit the Sun, Moon and planets because the positions of these bodies vary relative to those of the stars, but the ecliptic, along which the Sun moves, is indicated.

A potential issue arises regarding the "handedness" of celestial globes. If the globe is constructed so that the stars are in the positions they actually occupy on the imaginary celestial sphere, then the star field will appear back-to-front on the surface of the globe (all the constellations will appear as their mirror images). This is because the view from Earth, positioned at the centre of the celestial sphere, is of the inside of the celestial sphere, whereas the celestial globe is viewed from the outside. For this reason, celestial globes may be produced in mirror image, so that at least the constellations appear the "right way round". Some modern celestial globes address this problem by making the surface of the globe transparent. The stars can then be placed in their proper positions and viewed through the globe, so that the view is of the inside of the celestial sphere, as it is from Earth.

History[link]

The "Erdapfel" of Martin Beheim is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. The Americas are not yet included. 1491-1493. Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg

The sphericity of the Earth was established by Hellenistic astronomy in the 3rd century BC, and the earliest terrestrial globe appeared from that period. The earliest known example is the one constructed by Crates of Mallus in Cilicia (now Çukurova in modern-day Turkey), in the mid-2nd century BC.

No terrestrial globes from Antiquity or the Middle Ages have survived. An example of a surviving celestial globe is part of a Hellenistic sculpture, called the Farnese Atlas, surviving in a 2nd century AD Roman copy in the Naples Museum, Italy.^[1]

Early terrestrial globes depicting the entirety of the Old World were constructed in the Islamic world.^[2][3] According to David Woodward, one such example was the terrestrial globe introduced to Beijing by the Persian astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, in 1267.^[4]

The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is the Erdapfel, created by Martin Behaim in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1492.^[1] A facsimile globe showing America was made by Martin Waldseemueller in 1507. Another early globe, the Hunt-Lenox Globe, ca. 1507, is thought to be the source of the phrase "Here be dragons". Another "remarkably modern-looking" terrestrial globe of the Earth was constructed by Taqi al-Din at the Istanbul observatory of Taqi al-Din during the 1570s.^[5]

An unusually high proportion of vintage 20th century world globes feature the Australian town of Birdum, which no longer exists but once held an important position at the end of the Northern Australian Railway.

Globus IMP electro-mechanical devices including five-inch globes have been used in Soviet and Russian spacecraft from 1961 to 2002 as navigation instruments. In 2001, the TMA version of the Soyuz spacecraft replaced this instrument with a virtual globe.^[6]

Manufacture[link]

A short, 1955, Dutch film showing the manufacture of globes

Traditionally, globes were manufactured by gluing a printed paper map onto a sphere, often made from wood.

The most common type has long, thin gores (strips) of paper that narrow to a point at the poles,^[7] small disks cover over the inevitable irregularities at these points. The more gores there are, the less stretching and crumpling is required to make the paper map fit the sphere. From a geometric point of view, all points on a sphere are equivalent – one could select any arbitrary point on the Earth, and create a paper map that covers the Earth with strips that come together at that point and the antipodal point.

A thermoplastic globe hemisphere, before the excess plastic has been trimmed off.

Modern globes are often made from thermoplastic. Flat, plastic disks are printed with a distorted map of one of the Earth's Hemispheres. This is placed in machine which molds the disk into a hemispherical shape. The hemisphere is united with its opposite counterpart to form a complete globe.

A globe is usually mounted at a 23.5° angle on a meridian. In addition to making it easy to use this mounting also represents the angle of the planet in relation to its sun and the spin of the planet. This makes it easy to visualize how days and seasons change.

Notable examples[link]

• The Unisphere in Queens, New York, at 120 feet (36.6 m) in diameter, is the world's largest global structure.
• Eartha, currently the world's largest rotating globe (41 ft or 12 m in diameter), at the Delorme headquarters in Yarmouth, Maine
• The Mapparium, three-story, stained glass globe at the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, which visitors walk through via a 30-foot (9.1 m) glass bridge.
• The Babson globe in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a 26-foot-diameter (7.9 m) globe which originally rotated on its axis and on its base to simulate day and night and the seasons
• The giant globe in the lobby of The News Building in New York City.
• The Hitler Globe, also known as the Führer globe, was formally named the Columbus Globe for State and Industry Leaders. Two editions existed during Hitler's lifetime, created during the mid-1930s on his orders. (The second edition changed the name of Abyssinia to Italian East Africa). These globes were "enormous" and very costly. According to the New York Times, "the real Columbus globe was nearly the size of a Volkswagen and, at the time, more expensive." Several still exist, including three in Berlin: one at a geographical institute, one at the Märkisches Museum, and another at the Deutsches Historisches Museum. The latter has a Soviet bullet hole through Germany. One of the two in public collections in Munich has an American bullet hole through Germany. There are several in private hands inside and out of Germany. A much smaller version of Hitler's globe was mocked by Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, a film released in 1940.^[8]

Gallery[link]

• 

  Top view of 1765 de l'Isle globe

• 

  The Unisphere, attributed to "uribe"/Uri Baruchin

• 

  1594, Mechanised Celestial Globe

• 

  A Globus IMP navigation instrument from a Voskhod spacecraft.

• 

  Eartha, the largest rotating globe in the world.

• 

  A map of Mars that circulated commercialy in the 19th century. It is an example of how maps are printed in order to be folded around a sphere to form a globe.

• 

  Muhammad Salih Tahtawi of Sindh, headed the task of creating a massive, seamless celestial globe using a secret wax casting method in the Mughal Empire, the famous celestial globe of Muhammad Salih Tahtawi is inscribed with Arabic and Persian inscriptions and was completed in the year 1631.^[9][10]

• 

  Multitouch spherical Globe with digital EARTH based on multitouch software

See also[link]

• Armillary sphere
• Cartography
• Dymaxion map
• Emery Molyneux
• Google Earth
• NASA World Wind
• Johannes Schöner globe
• Virtual globe
• Voskhod Spacecraft "Globus" IMP navigation instrument

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2003.
2. ^ Medieval Islamic Civilization By Josef W. Meri, Jere L Bacharach, page 138-139 - available via google books - http://books.google.com/books?id=H-k9oc9xsuAC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=al-Ma%3Fmun%3Fs+globe&source=bl&ots=TSmSiEUZXk&sig=NGzhTsbRRoSmH4UiPQCh0Y1sO_c&hl=en&ei=NMxYSvbsBeS6jAfNjNwa&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8
3. ^ Covington, Richard (2007), Saudi Aramco World, May–June 2007: 17–21, http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/the.third.dimension.htm, retrieved 2008-07-06 
4. ^ David Woodward (1989), "The Image of the Spherical Earth", Perspecta (MIT Press) 25: 3–15 [9], JSTOR 1567135 
5. ^ Soucek, Svat (1994), "Piri Reis and Ottoman Discovery of the Great Discoveries", Studia Islamica (Maisonneuve &#38) 79 (79): 121–142 [123 & 134–6], DOI:10.2307/1595839, JSTOR 1595839 
6. ^ Tiapchenko, Yurii. "Information Display Systems for Russian Spacecraft: An Overview". Computing in the Soviet Space Program (Translation from Russian: Slava Gerovitch). http://web.mit.edu/slava/space/essays/essay-tiapchenko1.htm. 
7. ^ http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/globe.jpg
8. ^ "The Mystery of Hitler's Globe Goes Round and Round", by Michael Kimmelman, September 18, 2007. Accessed September 18, 2007.
9. ^ Savage-Smith, Emilie (1985), Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction, and Use, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 
10. ^ Kazi, Najma (24 November 2007). "Seeking Seamless Scientific Wonders: Review of Emilie Savage-Smith's Work". FSTC Limited. http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?articleID=832. Retrieved 2008-02-01. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Globe

• ppmglobe - generate strips to glue onto a sphere
• 3D VRML globe
• 3D Java Globe with coastlines, parallels, meridians, etc.
• How to orient a globe in homothetic position to the Earth

Jim Parsons
Parsons at Comic Con in 2009
Born	James Joseph Parsons (1973-03-24) March 24, 1973 (age 39) Houston, Texas, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Houston (BA) University of San Diego (MA)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1994–present

James Joseph "Jim" Parsons (born March 24, 1973) is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Sheldon Cooper on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, with his performance often cited as a significant reason for the program's success.^[1][2][3] He has received several awards for his performance, including the Television Critics Association award for the highest individual achievements in comedy,^[4] the National Association of Broadcasters Television Chairman's Award for a significant breakthrough in a specific art discipline,^[5] two consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series^[6] and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy.

Early life[link]

Parsons was born and raised in Houston, Texas, the older of two children.^[7] After playing the role of the Kola-Kola bird in a school production of The Elephant's Child at age six, Parsons was determined to become an actor.^[7][8] The young Parsons was heavily influenced by sitcoms, particularly Three's Company, Family Ties, and The Cosby Show.^[9] He attended Klein Oak High School in Spring, Texas, a northern suburb of Houston. Parsons points to a role in Noises Off during his junior year as the first time "I fully connected with the role I was playing and started to truly understand what it meant to be honest on stage".^[7]

After graduating from high school, Parsons received an undergraduate degree from the University of Houston. He was prolific during this time, appearing in 17 plays in 3 years. He was a founding member of Infernal Bridegroom Productions, and regularly appeared at the Stages Repertory Theatre.^[10] Parsons enrolled in graduate school at the University of San Diego in 1999.^[10] He was one of seven students accepted into a special two-year course in classical theater, taught in partnership with the Old Globe Theater. Program director Rick Seer recalled having reservations about admitting Parsons, saying, "Jim is a very specific personality. He's thoroughly original, which is one reason he's been so successful. But we worried, ‘Does that adapt itself to classical theater, does that adapt itself to the kind of training that we're doing?' But we decided that he was so talented that we would give him a try and see how it worked out."^[11] Parsons enjoyed school, and told an interviewer that he would have pursued a doctorate in acting if possible: "school was so safe!...you frequently would surprise yourself by what you were capable of, and you were not surprised by some things."^[12] Parsons graduated in 2001^[11] and moved to New York.^[10]

Career[link]

In New York, Parsons worked in Off-Broadway productions and made several television appearances. In a much-discussed 2003 Quiznos commercial, Parsons played a man who had been raised by wolves and continued to nurse from his wolf "mother".^[10] He had a recurring role on the television show Judging Amy^[13] and appeared on the television series Ed.^[10] Parsons also had minor roles in several movies, including Garden State and School for Scoundrels.^[14]

Parsons has estimated that he auditioned for between 15 and 30 television pilots, but on many of the occasions when he was cast, the show failed to find a television network willing to purchase it.^[10] The exception came with The Big Bang Theory. After reading the pilot script, Parsons felt that the role of Sheldon Cooper would be a very good fit for him.^[7] Although he did not feel any sort of relationship with the character, he was enchanted by the dialogue structure, the way the writers "brilliantly use those words that most of us don't recognize to create that rhythm. And the rhythm got me. It was the chance to dance through that dialogue, and in a lot of ways still is."^[9]

In his audition, Parsons so impressed series creator Chuck Lorre that Lorre insisted on a second audition to see if Parsons could replicate the performance.^[10] Parsons was cast as Sheldon Cooper, a genius physicist with nonexistent social skills who interacts with his other nerdy friends and the attractive waitress who lives across the hall.^[10] The role requires Parsons to "rattle off line after line of tightly composed, rhythmic dialogue, and then do something with his face or body during the silence that follows."^[10] Parsons credits his University of San Diego training with giving him the tools to break down Sheldon's lines.^[7]

Television critic Andrew Dansby compares Parsons' physical comedy to that of Buster Keaton and other silent film stars. Lorre praises Parsons' instincts, saying that "You can't teach that."^[10] Lorre describes Parsons' "great sense of control over every part of his body, the way he walks, holds his hands, cocks his head, the facial tics" as "inspired".^[14] Reviewer Lewis Beale describes Parsons' performance as "so spot-on, it seems as if the character and the actor are the same person."^[9] Parsons admits that the work is "more effort than I ever thought a sitcom would take. And that's really the fun of it."^[9]

In August 2009, Parsons won the Television Critics Association award for individual achievement in comedy, beating Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, and Neil Patrick Harris.^[9][15] He was nominated for Emmy awards in 2009 and 2010, winning in 2010 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.^[16] In September 2010, Parsons and costars Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco signed new contracts, guaranteeing each of them $200,000 per episode for the fourth season of The Big Bang Theory, with substantial raises for each of the next three seasons. The three were also promised a percentage of the show's earnings.^[17] In January 2011, he won the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Comedy (the award was presented by co-star Cuoco).

In 2011, Parsons appeared with Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and Rashida Jones in the comedy film The Big Year. It was released in October.^[18] That same year, he appeared as the human alter ego of Walter, the newest Muppet introduced in The Muppets.^[19]

On May 18 2012, Parsons began appearing on Broadway as Elwood P. Dowd in a revival of Harvey.^[20][21]

Personal life[link]

Parsons lives in Los Angeles.^[22] In an interview for a New York Times article in May 2012, he said he is gay, having been in a relationship for ten years.^[23][24]

Stage appearances[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011)

• The Balcony
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1994) .... Rosencrantz
• La Ronde (1995)
• Endgame (1995) .... Clov (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Marat/Sade (1995) (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Guys and Dolls (1996) .... Rusty Charlie (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Eddie Goes to Poetry City (1996) .... Eddie (New York Theatre)
• Jack and the Future Is In Eggs (1996) .... Father Jack
• Othello (1996) (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Suicide in B-flat (1996) (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Woyzeck (1996) .... Doctor / Horse's Head (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• The Cherry Orchard (1997) .... Yasha, a young man servant (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Chili Queen (1997) .... Buddy (Stages Repertory Theatre, World Premiere)^[25]
• Camino Real (1997) .... Baron (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Last Rites (1997) .... Tiger Clean (Infernal Bridegroom Productions, World Premiere)^[25]
• Threepenny Opera (1998) .... MacHeath (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Below the Belt (1998) .... Dobbitt
• In the Jungle of the Cities (1998) .... J. Finnay (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Tamalalia 3: The Cocktail Party (1998) .... Psychotic psychiatrist (Infernal Bridegroom Productions, World Premiere)^[25]
• King Ubu is King (1998) .... Tom, Mister Nice Guy (Infernal Bridegroom Productions, World Premiere)^[25]
• The Pitchfork Disney (1998) .... Presley Stray (Stages Repertory Theatre)
• Marie and Bruce (1999) .... Herb / Fred / Waiter (Infernal Bridegroom Productions)^[25]
• Tamalalia 4: The Camp-Out (1999) (Infernal Bridegroom Productions, World Premiere)^[25]
• Da (2001) (Old Globe Theatre)^[26]
• What Happened Was (2002) .... Jackie (The Paradise Theatre)
• The Castle (2002) .... Jeremiah (Manhattan Ensemble Theatre)^[27]
• Tartuffe (2002) .... Valère (La Jolla Playhouse)^[28]
• The Love for Three Oranges (Gozzi) (2004) .... Prince Tartaglia (La Jolla Playhouse)^[29]
• The Normal Heart (2011) .... Tommy Boatwright (John Golden Theatre)^[30]

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

Music videos[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]