The Great Wheel

Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of America in 1492 while searching for a route from Europe to the East Indies. And while he did not find the route to the East Indies, his voyage did show that the world was very large and round.

Four hundred years later, at a celebration of Christopher Columbus and his voyages to the New World, the top attraction was a very large, round wheel. How appropriate.

It was at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago Illinois–the Chicago World’s Fair–and the attraction was the world’s first Ferris wheel.

The designer was George Washington Gale Ferris, a civil engineer. He called his creation an Observation wheel. His motivation for the idea was to create something more impressive than the Eiffel Tower, which had been the central attraction at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair.

At the time of the Chicago World Fair, his Observation Wheel was an engineering sensation. Weighing 2,079,884 pounds, it could carry 2,160 passengers. During the six months that the fair was open, 1,453,611 people paid to ride Mister Ferris’s wheel.

And today, Observation wheels, or as they are now called, Ferris wheels, can be found around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PK

 

Ideas define us, our past, our present, and most importantly, our future.
–Last line of The Idea Miners: The Lost Lake Dig

Credits:
Columbus Discovering America, Tom noll, Public Domain
London, England- Oxyman, Creative Commons
Paris, France- David Monniaux, Creative Commons
Nanchang, Jiangxi, China- Saganaga, Creative Commons
Tokyo, Japan- SElefant, Creative Commons

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An apple

While browsing the internet recently, I came across  information on a joint partnership between NASA and the DLR (German Aerospace Center) called GRACE that got me thinking about apples. In particular, Sir Isaac Newton and apples.

You have probably heard the story about Newton and the apple, and how he harvested the idea of gravity when an apple fell from a tree and hit him on the head. It turns out an apple didn’t actually hit him on the head, but a falling apple was the spark the got him thinking. (You can read about it here.)

Okay you say, but what’s the connection between this thing called GRACE and apples?

Well, GRACE stands for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment. So the “Gravity” in GRACE led me to thinking of Newton, and that led me to the apple story.

But the really cool thing that caught my attention in the first place, was an image of the earth created by GRACE.

The GRACE mission was to accurately map variations in the Earth’s gravity field and this image is part of the results.

What an image! Beautiful. I’m sure Sir Isaac Newton would agree. And in a way, it all started with an apple falling from a tree.

Three and a half centuries ago an apple fell from a tree. Sir Isaac Newton saw it and harvested the idea of gravity. Now today we have maps of the Earth’s gravity field thanks to the award-winning work of the GRACE project team.

And it doesn’t stop with GRACE. The work of GRACE will benefit society and the world’s population into the future. Amazing!

PW

 

Ideas define us, our past, our present, and most importantly, our future.
–Last line of The Idea Miners: The Lost Lake Dig

Credits:
 Apple photo - Glysiak (Own work) Creative Commons 
 Earth Gravity Model image - NASA/JPL/University of Texas Center for Space Research, Creative Commons

 

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