The invention of the globe is one of the greatest geographical discoveries. With its help, it is easier to remember the locations of continents and oceans, islands and seas, tropical forests and icy deserts. This item was created and improved by many scientists around the world. It has its own history, interesting and very ancient.
History of the globe
On Latin, globe means ball. We came up with it twice. The first time the inventor was attracted by love was not geography at all, but poetry, and this happened before our era, in the 2nd century.
Who invented the globe? The philosopher and philologist, Crates of Malos, could listen to the poem “Odyssey” all day long, and then plot the routes of the main character on the map. But this was not enough for Crates, because at that time it was already known that the earth has round shape. He took and painted the ball. It was he who first invented the globe.
This globe corresponded to the level of knowledge of that time, but still it was a real globe. Contemporaries appreciated his invention, but after a few centuries, descendants forgot Crates's globe.
Secondly, a copy of the earth was invented in 1492 in the city of Nuremberg. It was created with the aim of visually showing the geographical discoveries of Portuguese sailors.
The title of inventor was awarded to the scientist Martin Behaim. This globe was called the “Earthly Apple” - a metal ball no more than half a meter in diameter. There was no America on it yet, since the discovery of Columbus took place much later. There were no indications of latitude and longitude, but there were meridians and tropics, as well as short description countries Now the very first globe is carefully kept in the Nuremberg Museum.
A great many globes of the most unexpected sizes have been created from different materials and designs. But there are two instances that cannot be ignored.
The largest globe in the world
A giant globe with the name Eartha was created by DeLorme, a company that develops maps and GPS navigation systems. Its diameter is 12.6 meters, which is comparable to a four-story building. This creation is located in the USA, in the city of Yarmouth.
The globe consists of 792 map fragments. All of them are secured with hidden bolts on a huge frame constructed from 6 thousand aluminum pipes. But its highlight is not only its scale. It is housed in a glass building, and at night it is illuminated from the inside - it is a truly memorable sight.
On weekdays, anyone can take a picture of themselves against the backdrop of a huge world map. In addition, the masterpiece is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
America's Oldest Globe
Scientists have found that the globe is made from two halves of an ostrich egg, glued together with a natural polymer (shellac). The map is cut out on eggshells, and the carving itself is covered with blue paint. It was not possible to accurately identify the creator; there were no signatures on the item. Researchers suggest that the globe is related to the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci. There are sketches that are reminiscent of his work. It depicts: continents signed in Latin, various animals and even a shipwrecked sailor.
Map collector and philologist Dr. Missinet dates the find to 1504. And according to him, this globe is the first of those on which America was marked, and which has survived to this day.
Each of us has seen a globe at least once in our lives, in a store or in a school closet. A globe, according to S.I. Ozhegov’s dictionary, is “a visual aid - a rotating model globe or other spherical celestial body."
More precisely, a globe is an image of a map applied to a spherical surface that repeats approximate form Earth, preserving the similarity of contours and areas.
The globe has been created since ancient times. Among ancient writers one can find references to Crates of Mallus, who around 150 BC. ago created the “globe of the earth.”
But still, the oldest globe that has survived to our times is the “earth apple”, which was created by Martin Beheim in 1492, a German geographer from Nuremberg. It is he who is considered the creator of the globe. Martin Beheim was an outstanding scientist in Germany in the 15th century.
He gained his knowledge from sea expeditions and from the great astronomers of that time. When working on the “apple”, Martin used materials famous traveler Mark Polo and the Portuguese with whom he sailed along the coast of West Africa in 1484.
He subsequently received the position of court cartographer and astronomer in Lisbon, and it was to him that Christopher Columbus came for advice before his main discovery.
In 1490, finding himself in hometown Nuremberg, Martin met a travel and geographical science enthusiast, Georg Holzschuer, a member of the city council.
Georg was inspired by Beheim's stories about his African expedition and persuaded him to create a globe that would display all the knowledge of that modern cartography. At that time, this was a truly great discovery.
Work on the globe or the “Earthly Apple,” as the scientist himself called it, dragged on for four whole years. The metal ball, covered with parchment, was painted by a local artist from maps that Behaim gave him.
The boundaries of states and seas, as well as the coats of arms and flags of many countries, as well as elements starry sky, equator, meridians, south and north poles.
But of course, the accuracy of this globe cannot be judged, since it was based on ancient Greek knowledge about the world. Therefore, all locations of land objects on it are very approximate. Also, America is not depicted on this globe, since when the globe was finished, Columbus had not yet returned from his journey.
Subsequently, the globes were transformed, changed, and new knowledge brought from sea expeditions, simple travels or research by great scientists was added to the images on it. But it was Martin Behaim's globe that became the main prototype for modern globes.
And yet, the “Earth Apple” is a unique exhibit, a landmark of the Nuremberg German National Museum. It is there that it is still kept.
Planet Earth. View from space.
The caravel quickly cut through the heavy waves. The captain, having determined the position of the North Star and made calculations, bent over the globe - they had been sailing for many days, and only this globe and the stars could help determine where the ship was. Without a globe it is difficult to find the way to distant overseas countries. Many ships setting out on long voyages had a globe; it served as a map in those days. This continued until the 18th century. And then detailed sea charts and sailing directions appeared, and the globe lost its importance for navigation, but was very useful to schoolchildren. In the dictionary of the Russian language by S.I. Ozhegov we read: “The globe is a visual aid - a rotating model of the globe or other spherical celestial body.” Let us add that this model most correctly reflects and appearance The earth and the relationship of its parts.
Globes have been made since ancient times. Ancient writers mention Crates of Pergamum, who made a “globe of the earth” more than 2000 years ago. Unfortunately, no images of him have reached us. The oldest surviving globe is considered to be the “earth apple” with a diameter of 0.54 meters, created in 1492 by the German geographer Martin Beheim from Nuremberg. When working on the “apple,” he used materials from the famous traveler Marco Polo and the Portuguese who sailed along the coast of Africa. But there is no image of America on this globe, since it has not yet been discovered.
150 years have passed, and globes have become quite popular. In London, for example, pocket globes the size of an orange were sold relatively cheaply, with a map printed on the inside of the hemispheres. heavenly bodies, that is, the globe was simultaneously a model of the Earth and the starry sky. 
Vintage globe.
Gradually, the design of the globe became more complex. In the 16th-18th centuries, a clock mechanism began to be used, with the help of which the globe rotated around an axis and it was possible to determine the time anywhere on the globe. Sometimes such a globe was attached to a model of the Moon moving around it, and then it served not only as a universal clock, but also as a calendar. Many European monarchs considered it obligatory to have globes in their office, which were quite impressive in size, complex and richly decorated.
A unique globe with a diameter of about 3 meters is kept in St. Petersburg, which also serves as a planetarium. On its outer surface there is a map of the Earth, on the inner surface there is a map of the starry sky. The history of this globe is interesting. In 1713, Peter I traveled through the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein (now German territory). During his trip he visited Gottorp Castle. There he was struck by a globe of unusual size - and feet in diameter (3 meters 19 centimeters). It was claimed that the globe was made under the guidance of the famous traveler and geographer Adam Olearius. In gratitude for the military assistance provided by Peter I, the guardian of the young duke presented the curiosity to the Russian emperor. This huge globe was transported to St. Petersburg, cutting through forest clearings. Subsequently, it was placed in the building of the newly built Kunstkamera, and after its opening in 1719, many people came to look at the amazing exhibit.
In 1747, a fire broke out in the Kunstkamera, and among the exhibits damaged by the fire was a gift from the Duke. All that was left of the globe were burnt metal constructions. Wanting to hide from the royal court true dimensions After the damage suffered, the academy decided on its own to “build another ball of the same size as the first.” Several proposals were made, including by the famous mechanic-inventor Andrei Konstantinovich Nartov. In 1748, “compass master” Benjamin Scott and his assistant F.N. Tiryutin began work on his project. The work took 7 years, but, according to contemporaries, the new globe turned out to be “the best art ever.” Its map continued to be updated with the latest data related to geographical discoveries until the end of the 18th century. The ball was fixed on a metal axis, a table and a bench were installed inside, on which 10-12 people could sit to observe the movement of celestial bodies, like in a planetarium (on inner surface A star map was made on the globe).
In Russia, one of the first original globes was made at the end of the 18th - early XIX century Pskov deacon Karp Maksimov. The structure had a diameter of about 90 centimeters. This globe was probably given as a gift to the Russian Emperor, since until 1793 it was kept in the “Office of Peter the Great” in the Kunstkamera. M.V. Lomonosov, who headed the Geographical Department of the Academy of Sciences, paid great attention to the production of globes.
According to experts, the largest globe in the world is considered to be one made for the Paris Exhibition of 1899. Its diameter is 13 meters, and the length of the marked meridian is 40 meters, each millimeter corresponds to approximately a kilometer of the earth's surface. The weight of the globe was almost 10 tons (that’s what a modern bus weighs)! The globe rotated around its axis at a speed corresponding to the actual speed of rotation of the Earth. There were reliefs on it earth's crust, country borders, sea routes, railways, routes of famous travelers and even mineral deposits are indicated.
A much smaller globe, but also very large, is kept in Denmark.
Initially, it was a spherical reservoir for natural gas, but about 50 years ago, one artist decided, in order to attract tourists, to paint the geographical characteristics characteristic of our planet on the outer surface of the metal ball. symbols. The result was a huge globe.
Medieval scientist.
The giant globe was also created in our country. It stands on the astronomical platform of the Moscow Planetarium. A model of the globe, two and a half meters in diameter, is made of special materials developed specifically for this purpose. durable materials- fiberglass and polymers, painted with paints that are not afraid atmospheric precipitation(valleys are green, seas are blue, rivers are blue). 70 meters from the globe, on the roof of the building adjacent to the astronomical site, there is a second ball - this is a model of the Moon. Its diameter is 70 centimeters. These sizes were not chosen by chance. The result is a real mock-up Earth-Moon system, it is “only” 5 million times smaller than the real one.
If you have read M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” then you probably remember the globe of the “prince of darkness” Woland. The globe lived the life of the Earth. If any part of it became filled with blood, it means that a war has begun at the corresponding point on the globe. If you looked closely, you could see all the details of the battles - destroyed houses, dead people. But such a globe is the fantasy of a brilliant writer. What kind of globes are there in reality? A wide variety of Earth models are produced. The most common are political, reflecting the modern territorial division of the world, and physical, showing the physical and geographical structure of the Earth. Particularly unique are the so-called relief globes with sculpted, convex surfaces of mountains and hills. And these small balls, showing our planet as only astronauts see it, will probably serve people for a long time.
Take note
The largest island in the world is Greenland.
The highest continent on Earth is Antarctica, where the ice thickness in some places exceeds 4 kilometers. If all this ice melted, the sea level would rise by 60 meters.
The stormiest place in the world is located on the island of Java; lightning flashes there 322 days a year.
Most high mountain The world's largest volcano is Mauna Kea in the Hawaiian Islands. Its base is located under water at a depth of 5500 meters, and the top rises 4300 meters above sea level. In total, the distance between the base and the top is 9800 meters.
Many inquisitive people, wanting to find out who created the first globe, go to Wikipedia, leaf through encyclopedias, study reference books and come to the conclusion that this geographical instrument was originally made in Ancient Greece by the ancient philosopher Crates of Mallus. If you ask the same question to a specialist, he will “without hesitation” answer with confidence that the Globus navigation system was first used in the Soviet Union in 1961 during the landing of descent vehicles spaceships"East". Therefore, before finding out who created the first globe, it is necessary to decide what subject we're talking about– heavenly or earthly, about the surviving model or semi-legendary rumors about it.
Oral legends about who created the first globe
According to the officially recognized version, the first model of the spherical Earth was created by Crates of Mallus (Pergamon), who became famous in antiquity for his comments on Homer, writing “Correction of the Iliad and Odyssey.” At that time, there were disputes about the shape of our planet, and despite the fact that heretics were not persecuted at that time, the first globe in the form of a painted ball was greeted by contemporaries quite skeptically.
In Muslim literature, this invention is attributed to Jamal ad-Din, an astronomer from Bukhara, who, on the orders of Genghis Khan’s grandson Hulagu Khan, produced an armillary sphere, an astrolabe and a model of a globe in Beijing in 1267 as a gift to another Genghisid, Kublai Khan.
Unfortunately, only meager descriptions of these objects have survived to this day, without their images and indications of what was applied to the surface of the ball.
Surviving early globes
The oldest globe that has survived to this day is in the German National Museum (Nuremberg). It was created in 1493 - 1494 and was called the “Earthly Apple” (“Erdapfel”). It was later renamed the “Behaim Globe” after its creator, the German merchant Martin Behaim. When applying the cartographic situation on the surface of the copper ball, Ptolemy's maps as edited by Paolo Toscanelli were used. There is no image of the American continent on the globe, since its independence was proven by Amerigo Vespucci only 20 years after the creation of this instrument.
No less interesting is the question of who was the first globe depicting the celestial sphere. The authorship is attributed to the Indian metallurgist Muhammad Salih Tatawi, who cast it in India on the orders of one of the rulers of the Mughal dynasty.
What is the history of the creation of the globe?
- Globe (from Latin globus, ball) is a three-dimensional model of the Earth or another planet, as well as a model of the celestial sphere (celestial globe). The first globe was created around 150 BC. e. Crates of Mallus. The globe itself has not survived, but the drawing remains.
Most ancient globe, which has come down to us, was created in 1492 by the German scientist Beheim. He made it from calfskin, stretched tightly over metal ribs. Half the world is missing.
From another source
In the works of ancient writers it is mentioned that a certain Crates of Malos ancient Greek philosopher, follower of Aristotle and keeper of the Pergamon Library, back in the 2nd century BC. e. made a model of the Earth in the shape of a ball.
Neither this model itself, nor any of its images have survived to this day, but those who saw this globe said that Crates drew a single land on the ball, dividing it into parts by intersecting rivers, which were called oceans.
Therefore, the very first, at least the oldest of all surviving globes, is considered to be a spherical model of the Earth with a diameter of 54 cm, created by the German geographer, traveler and mathematician Martin Beheim in 1492, now located in the museum of the city of Nuremberg.
On the Earthly Apple, which is what Beheim called his brainchild (globes, from the Latin globus ball, copies of the Earth began to be called later), geographical ideas about the surface of the Earth on the eve of the discovery of the New World were displayed, based on data taken from the world maps of the ancient Greek scientist Ptolemy, who lived in the 2nd century.
Soon after their appearance, globes, which provide the most accurate cartographic representations and are in great demand among scientists and sailors, began to appear in the palaces of monarchs, cabinets of ministers and simply fashionable houses in Europe, becoming a symbol of enlightenment.
Dutch globes made by the Amsterdam masters of Blaeu were especially popular. They also created the model of the Earth that was presented to the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1672, the first in Rus'. The most famous of all foreign models of the globe is the Gottorp globe with a diameter of 311 cm, made by the German scientist Adam Oelschlegel in 1664, and in 1713 presented to Peter I.
Inside it housed a planetarium. Modern globes, on which, in comparison with the first ones, images of new lands discovered since then appeared, have moved from the area of functional use mainly to the area visual aid for schoolchildren.
http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/quiz/?item_id=342 - The first globe was created by the German scientist Martin Beheim
- The first globe was created by the German scientist Martin Beheim. His model of the Earth was published in I492, the year when Christopher Columbus set sail for the shores of fabulous India. Western way. The globe depicted Europe, Asia, Africa, which occupy about half of the entire surface of the Earth, and no Northern and South America, Antarctica, Australia. Atlantic and Pacific Oceans presented as a single water basin, and in place of the Indian Ocean there are the East Indian Ocean and the Stormy South Sea, separated by a vast archielag of islands. The outlines of the oceans and continents are far from reality, since the creation of the globe was based on information based on the ideas of ancient geographers and data from Arab and other travelers who visited the countries of the East, India and China.
- We usually believe that this happened in 1492, and we were talking about lands already known.
And the Greek Crates of Malos made a globe back in 150 BC. e. , and the matter affected not only known lands, but also only supposed ones.
PLATE WITH A DRAWING OF CARTES' GLOBE.
The oldest globe is located in Nuremberg and is called "BEHEIM"
In honor of the geographer and creator of the world's first globe, Martin Behaim, he created his own globe in 1492, when he was the chief navigator of Portugal.
MARTIN BEHEIM
With its help, he managed to reflect geographical ideas about the surface of the Earth just on the eve of the discovery of the New World. Behaim was helped in his work on the globe by the artist Georg Glockendon. The masters called their creation the Earth Apple. The word globe from the Latin ball appeared later. On a ball with a diameter of 54 cm, Beheim depicted the surface of the Earth in accordance with the maps of Ptolemy. Beheim did not yet know about the discoveries of Columbus, who went to look for India in the same 1492. True, information has been preserved that in the 2nd century BC. e. A model of the globe was built by the philosopher Crates of Malos, who was a student of Aristotle's students. But Crates's globe, if it existed, has not survived, and Martin Behaim's Earth's Apple, declared the oldest globe. Alas, the globe was used by scientists thousands of years before Beheim.
Celestial globes made of wood, stone and metal presented a picture of the starry sky. They served astronomers to explain the location of stars, and astrologers to interpret horoscopes. One of the companions of the god Apollo, Urania, the muse of astronomy, was depicted by the Hellenes with a star globe and a pointer in her hands...
In the 4th century BC. e. Greek astronomers made round model Earths with parallels and meridians. Images of the earth's globe were minted on coins, for example, Demetrius I Poliorcetes, a Macedonian king who ruled in the 4th - 3rd centuries. BC e.In 1672, the Netherlands sent a large globe to the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich as a gift. .
The St. Petersburg Lomonosov Museum has completed the restoration of the Gottorp globe-planetarium, which was the first exhibit of the Kunstkamera almost three centuries ago.
In the middle of the 17th century, a planetarium globe with a diameter of over 3 meters was made in the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein (Northern Germany). A map of the Earth was drawn on the outer surface of the globe, and a map of the starry sky on the inner surface. The stars were represented by gilded caps of copper nails. The ball had a fixed axis on which a wooden round table and a bench for 12 people.
In 1713 during Northern War Peter the Great, while at the theater of war in Holstein, received a planetarium globe as a gift. The globe became the first exhibit of the first Russian museum - the Kunstkamera.
PETROVSKY GLOBE
During the fire of 1747 it was badly damaged and was restored by masters Scott and Tiryutin. Later it was stored in a specially built room next to the Academy of Sciences, then in Tsarskoye Selo. During the Great Patriotic War The globe was taken to Germany by the Germans. After the war, the exhibit was discovered in the German city of Lübeck and returned to Leningrad by sea via Murmansk. The globe was in a deplorable state.
The canvas on which the earthly and celestial maps were drawn was torn in many places, the pictorial layer was damaged, and holes from rifle shots were discovered. In the post-war period, the globe was restored twice. But a comprehensive restoration of the globe was completed only this year. CONTINUATION IN Kommet..
