engineering

Globe Museum

Globe Museum is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Globe Museum rather than just read about it. In short: The Globe Museum (German: Globenmuseum) is a museum in the Palais Mollard, Vienna, Austria, part of the Austrian National Library. It was opened in 1956, and is the only public museum in the world devoted to globes, being three-dimensional models of Earth or other celestial bodies, or spherical representations of the celestial sphere.

Key takeaways

Globe Museum belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Globe Museum to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Globe Museum from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Globe Museum (German: Globenmuseum) is a museum in the Palais Mollard, Vienna, Austria, part of the Austrian National Library. It was opened in 1956, and is the only public museum in the world devoted to globes, being three-dimensional models of Earth or other celestial bodies, or spherical representations of the celestial sphere.

History As early as the 19th century, there was a globe collection within the Vienna Imperial Library, the forerunner to the Austrian National Library. The globes in this collection were acquired either as purchases or as gifts (for example, Vincenzo Coronelli created two globes especially for Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1658 to 1705, with each globe having an engraved portrait of the Emperor and an inscription). In 1921, the geographer, Eugen Oberhummer, conducted an inventory of the collection and found eight globes of various sizes (both terrestrial and celestial), and two armillary spheres. In 1922, these globes were transferred to the National Library's map collection where, by 1948, there were already 28 globes. In the annual report of the director of the collection in 1948, it was noted that the globes were among the collection's most rarely used items. In 1956, the National Library opened the Globe Museum with a total of 63 exhibits. Its foundation collection was a combination of the imperial collection and the collections of the International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes, and the cartographer Robert Haardt, who had been instrumental in the museum's establishment. The museum was originally housed in the Augustinian tract of the Hofburg in Josefsplatz, Vienna, as part of the National Library's map collection. In 1970 and 1986, the museum was allocated new rooms within the same tract. During the museum's first 30 years, its collection grew to 145 items by purchase, gift and exchange with other museums. By 1996, the museum had 260 exhibits. Since the end of 2005 the museum has been accommodated at the Palais Mollard in the Herrengasse.

Collection There are now approximately 600 terrestrial and celestial globes in the collection, and around 200 of them are constantly on display. The majority of them date from before 1850. The oldest item in the collection is the terrestrial globe of Gemma Frisius (circa 1536). Highlights are the globes of Vincenzo Coronelli (110 cm (43 in) diameter) and a pair of globes by Gerard Mercator from 1541 and 1551. Further objects in the collection include armillary spheres, planetary globes, astronomical instruments, and instruments in which a globe represents a component, such as planet machines (orreries), tellurions and lunariums.

References

Sources Mokre, Jan; Allmayer-Beck, Peter E (publisher) (2005). The Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library. Wien: Bibliophile Edition. OCLC 500454860.

External links

Globe Museum website (in English) Globe catalogue of the Austrian National Library Archived 2010-10-16 at the Wayback Machine (in German) Globe Museum in Austria-Forum (in German) Pictures of the museum on Flickr Michael Frank: Globenmuseum. Der Nabel der Welt. Article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1 December 2005 (in German).

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Globe Museum

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Globe Museum claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Globe Museum before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Globe Museum ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Globe Museum

In research: Globe Museum appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Globe Museum in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Globe Museum is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 establishments in Austria, 20th-century architecture in Austria, Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Globe Museum outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Globe Museum in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Globe Museum means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Globe Museum out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Globe Museum in simple terms?

Why does Globe Museum matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Globe Museum?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Globe Museum.