|
spinning
spinning the drawing out, twisting, and winding of fibers into a continuous thread or yarn. From antiquity until the Industrial Revolution, spinning was a household industry. The roughly carded fiber was at first held in one hand and drawn out and twisted by the other hand. The earliest tools were ...
Read more
|
|
gyrocompass
gyrocompass Navigational aid incorporating a continuously driven gyroscope. The spinning axis of the gyroscope is horizontal and its direction indicates true n, irrespective of the course or attitude of the craft. See also compass...
Read more
|
|
gyroscope
gyroscope , symmetrical mass, usually a wheel, mounted so that it can spin about an axis in any direction. When spinning, the gyroscope has special properties. Many spinning objects exhibit some of these properties; the rotation of the earth about its axis gives it the properties of a huge gyroscope...
Read more
|
|
roulette
roulette , game of chance popular in gambling casinos, and in a simplified form elsewhere. In gambling houses the roulette wheel is set in an oblong table. Its outer area is marked off into 37 (in Europe) or 38 (in the United States) spaces, each of which has retaining walls so that a small ball may...
Read more
|
|
helicopter
helicopter type of aircraft in which lift is obtained by means of one or more power-driven horizontal propellers called rotors. When the rotor of a helicopter turns it produces reaction torque which tends to make the craft spin also. On most helicopters a small rotor near the tail compensates for t...
Read more
|
|
|
top
top toy with a tapering point on which it can be made to spin. Tops were known in antiquity and appeared in Europe during the Middle Ages; they are used today in many different regions of the world by both primitive and advanced societies. The principle of its motion is utilized in the gyroscope ....
Read more
|
|
|
Ashikaga
Ashikaga , city (1990 pop. 167,686), Tochigi prefecture, central Honshu, Japan. An old silk-weaving center, it is famous for its spinning and nylon textile industries. The city is also the ancestral home of the Ashikaga shoguns (1338-1597). It has an ancient school (probably founded 9th cent.), whic...
Read more
|
|
|
Fair Isle
Fair Isle island, c.3 sq mi (7.8 sq km), off N Scotland, southernmost of the Shetland Islands . It is known for its knitted hosiery of bright, many-colored design and for its bird sanctuary.
...
Read more
|
|
|
Crab Nebula
Crab Nebula diffuse gaseous nebula in the constellation Taurus; cataloged as NGC 1952 and M1, the first object recorded in Charles Messier's catalog of nonstellar objects. It is the remnant of a supernova that was observed in 1054 by Chinese and Arab astronomers to be as bright as Venus; markin...
Read more
|
|
harvestman
harvestman arachnid, often called daddy longlegs because of its eight long, slender legs. The harvestman has a rounded or oval body possessing glands that give off an acrid scent. Its food consists of a variety of organic materials, including fluids from fruits and vegetation, animal tissue, and ev...
Read more
|
