Calliope articles from November 2007

Calliope archives from November 2007

What's a map? Why maps? That's easy--to get from A to B. Right? Yes, but actually the answer should include much more. Maps are mini-books, filled with information about the world and how humans see it. And, it's that information that makes map reading and mapmaking fun! Here's why ...(MUSINGS)
November 1, 2007... A good map is both a useful tool and a magic carpet to faraway places --Anonymous An easy question, you say: A map is a picture of the world or, at least, some part of it. Yes, but--and it is a big but--it is not an ordinary picture....

'Mountains of gold'.
November 1, 2007... An old map caught Sami el-Raghy's attention. The year was 1992, and el-Raghy, an Australian businessman, was on vacation in Egypt. What interested him most were the gold mines depicted on the map of the Eastern Desert, between the Nile River...

Medieval monsters.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When we use maps today, usually we are trying to get from point A to point B. Medieval people viewed these documents from a completely different perspective. Their wildly inaccurate maps were not practical aids for...

The age of exploration.
November 1, 2007... The Age of Exploration's greatest prize--the continent of Africa--could not be kept secret for long. This was especially true after it took center position on a new world map drawn by a Portuguese cartographer whose name remains unknown to this...

Greek, and Roman maps.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the sixth century B.c., the Greeks envisioned the world as a sphere and made both flat maps and qlobes. Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.), who worked at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, even calculated the size of...

The Cortes map.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... The Cortes Map: This 1524 depicts the thriving Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, based on the eyewitness account of Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Reading the directions.(ACTIVITY)
November 1, 2007... Imagine that you are lost in the woods. You have a map, but you cannot find any landmarks. Which direction should you turn? What you need is a compass, a navigational tool that people have been using for hundreds of years. In China,...

What's a projection?
November 1, 2007... Cartographers would certainly find their job much easier if the earth were like a paper towel roll or an ice cream cone and not like a sphere. Why? Because you can wrap a sheet of paper snugly around a cylinder or a cone until the ends meet...

Jiangxi map.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... Jiangxi Map: A 19th-century cartographer used brilliant blues and greens to create this visually stunning image of Jiangxi Province in southeastern China. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Choosing shape or size.(ACTIVITY)
November 1, 2007... To understand what happens when cartographers project a sphere onto a flat plane, try the following activities. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BASEBALL STRETCH 1. Cut a sheet of tissue paper into a 7" square. 2. Wrap the paper tightly...

Expressions.(FUN WITH WORDS)
November 1, 2007... "to give a wide berth to" A nautical expression whose source is unknown, it became popular in the 1600s, following the Age of Exploration. Seamen used the term "berth" to mean "operating room for a ship." Thus, to give a wide berth meant...

What's with the "graphs"?(WORD ORIGINS)(Table)
November 1, 2007... Have you ever noticed how many English words include the letters g-r-a-p-h? For example, in this issue, we talk a lot about cartographers and geography. But there are many other examples: telegraph, phonograph, monograph. Let's first trace the...

Clocking longitude.
November 1, 2007... SCRAPE! CRACK!--Two noises sailor never wants to hear. They ore he sounds of a ship hitting land unexpectedly. Before 1761, they often were heard by those who had lost their way because they did not know at what longitude their vessel was. ...

London Glove.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... London Glove: Fashion Fashion and map fans will enjoy this map of London on a glove created for the 1851 Great Exhibition. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It's a matter of degree.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Have you ever seen a photograph of our planet from outer space? Some people say the earth resembles a big blue marble, but without the many lines we see on a globe. What do these markings represent? The lines...

Are you a sharp eye?(ACTIVITY)
November 1, 2007... See if you can spot the 15 differences in these two maps. Answers are on page 47. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Navigating by the stars: make a cross-staff and find your latitude.(ACTIVITY)
November 1, 2007... Of all the stars we see from the northern hemisphere, the North Star is unique. Long ago people named it Polaris, for it always stays close to the celestial North Pole. In the 1400s, sailors used Polaris to help locate their position on the...

Arpanet map.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... Arpanet Map: In 1983, the Internet consisted of only 88 computers, linked as shown in this diagram-like map. [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

Leo Belgicus map.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... Leo Belgicus Map: This map of Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg in the shape of a lion has proved one of the most enduring cartographic expressions of patriotism. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mary Morton Cowan's work has appeared in...

Truths and untruths in cartography.
November 1, 2007... For more than 2,000 years, cartographers used more than mere geography to define the world. Religious, social, political, and economic forces of the time shaped each mapmaker's perception and depiction of reality. As a result, maps have often...

Piri Reis.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... Piri Reis: This 17th-century Ottoman map, with north at the bottom, shows the Nile River snaking through Egypt. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Sounding out: the sea's secrets.
November 1, 2007... Oceanographers sometimes use spaceships to make their charts of the world's waterways. While taking measurements from the sky to make a map of the ocean may sound ridiculous, actually, it is quite the opposite. Why take measurements from...

Venice.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... Venice: This stunning engraving of the Italian city of Venice by Jacobo de Barbari dates to A.D. 1500 and set a new artistic standard for urban views. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Ask Calliope.(ASK ME!)
November 1, 2007... [?] What is the name of the fluid said to flow through the veins of the Greek gods? --Melvin, Web post [!] The Greek deities had ichor in place of blood. This divine liquid was said to grant the gods and goddesses their immortality....

Dear editor.
November 1, 2007... Dear Editor, [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I recently read the December issue of CALLIOPE titled "The Genius of Caesar," and I loved it. I especially liked the articles "Et Tu, Brute?" and "What Day Is It?" because I'm really interested in...

Mapping the moon.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... If you were a mapmaker and had the opportunity to name a lunar crater, what name would you choose? What if you had to name every one of them? One might assume that lunar mapping is a recent invention, but, in the 17th century, it was a hot...

Martian mysteries and more.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] How do scientists map Mars and its moons, our moon, and other objects in outer space? This is not a new question. For thousands of years, humans have looked at the night sky and wondered about the planets that...

Underground.(OTHER COOL MAPS)
November 1, 2007... Underground: This first poster-sized map of the London Underground from 1933 was groundbreaking in its graphic simplicity. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Earth.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Earth by the Smithsonian and editor-in-chief James F. Luhr (DK, 2005, www.dk.com) has all the information you might want about Planet Earth. A great variety of maps, along with charts and diagrams, enhance the text...

Maps and Mapmaking.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Maps and Mapmaking by Rebecca Stefoff (Oxford, 1995, www.oup-usa.org) offers a wealth of information in a compact, well-written, well-researched format that includes alphabetical entries of people, places, and sites accompanied by well-chosen...

Zoo in the Sky.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Zoo in the Sky by Jacqueline Mitton (National Geographic Society, 1998, www.nationalgeographic.com) simply and in an interesting-to-read manner explains how to "read" the stars that make up such constellations as the Great Bear, Scorpion, Leo,...

Cobblestone resources.
November 1, 2007... Materials that complement this issue's theme, "Where in the World?" and are available from Cobblestone Publishing include: Are We There Yet? (FAC0511) Maps and Mappers (APP0511) Marvelous Maps (ASK0504) Maps (FAC9003)

On the net.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Here's a site titled "The Mathematics of Cartography," and it has links that will answer almost any question you have ever had about maps and mapmaking: http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/pres/map/index.html For a...

The map knows all.(FROM PAST TO PRESENT)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When you use the Internet to look up directions to your friend's house or ride in a car with a global positioning system (GPS) navigation device, have you ever wondered how the system knows where to go? Let's...