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Laputa
Laputa uh·poo·tuhis a flying island described in the 1726 book ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. It is about in diameter, with an adamantine base, which its inhabitants can manoeuvre in any direction using magnetic levitation. The island is the home of the king of Balnibarbi and his court, and is used by the king to enforce his rule over the lands below. Location Laputa was located above the realm of Balnibarbi, which was ruled by its king from the flying island. Gulliver states the island flew by the “magnetic virtue” of certain minerals in the grounds of Balnibarbi which did not extend to more than above, and beyond the extent of the kingdom, showing the limit of its range. The position of the island, and the realm below, is some five days' journey south-south-east of Gulliver's last known position, 46° N, 183° E (i.e. east of Japan, south of the Aleutian Islands) down a chain of small rocky islands. Description The island of Laputa is described as be ...
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Laputa - Grandville
Laputa [luh·poo·tuh] is a Floating cities and islands in fiction, flying island described in the 1726 book ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. It is about in diameter, with an adamantine base, which its inhabitants can manoeuvre in any direction using magnetic levitation. The island is the home of the king of Balnibarbi and his court, and is used by the king to enforce his rule over the lands below. Location Laputa was located above the realm of Balnibarbi, which was ruled by its king from the flying island. Gulliver states the island flew by the “magnetic virtue” of certain minerals in the grounds of Balnibarbi which did not extend to more than above, and beyond the extent of the kingdom, showing the limit of its range. The position of the island, and the realm below, is some five days' journey south-south-east of Gulliver's last known position, 46° N, 183° E (i.e. east of Japan, south of the Aleutian Islands) down a chain of small rocky islands. Descript ...
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Gulliver's Travels
''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. Swift claimed that he wrote ''Gulliver's Travels'' "to vex the world rather than divert it". The book was an immediate success. The English dramatist John Gay remarked: "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." In 2015, Robert McCrum released his selection list of 100 best novels of all time in which ''Gulliver's Travels'' is listed in third place as "a satirical masterpiece". Plot Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. ;4 May ...
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Lindalino
Lindalino is a fictional city from the 1726 satirical novel ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. Lindalino successfully revolted against the flying island of Laputa. The name Lindalino is a play on words of Dublin. Laputa had several methods of enforcing obedience from its subject towns. The island could be made to hover over a city indefinitely, depriving them of sunlight and rain. In more extreme situations, this would be combined with dropping large rocks on the inhabitants. Finally, the Laputans had the ability to lower their island directly onto a town, utterly destroying it. This was exceedingly rare, due to the risk it would pose to the integrity of Laputa itself. As a result of oppressions and tribute demanded from them by Laputa, the Lindalinians rebelled against their governor and constructed tall towers at each of the four corners of the city. On top of these, they placed powerful lodestones, or magnets. The result of this was that when Laputa approached them, ...
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Lagado
Lagado is a fictional city from the 1726 satirical novel ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. Location Lagado is the capital of the nation Balnibarbi, which is ruled by a tyrannical king from a flying island called Laputa. Lagado is on the ground below Laputa, and also has access to Laputa at any given time to proceed in an attack or defense. It is located in the centre of the kingdom, some 150 miles from that land's Pacific coast. Description Lagado is poverty stricken like the rest of the nation. The king had invested a great fortune on building an Academy of Projectors in Lagado so that it shall contribute to the nation's development through research, but so far the Academy has yielded no result. The author has vividly described bizarre and seemingly pointless experiments conducted there, for example - trying to change human excretion back into food and trying to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers or teaching mathematics to pupils by writing propositions on wafers and cons ...
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Balnibarbi
Balnibarbi is a fictional land in Jonathan Swift's 1726 satirical novel ''Gulliver's Travels''. it was visited by Lemuel Gulliver after he was rescued by the people of the flying island of Laputa. Location The location of Balnibarbi is illustrated in both the text and the map at the beginning of part III of ''Gulliver's Travels'', though they are not consistent with each other. The map shows Balnibarbi to be an island to the east of Japan and to the northeast of Luggnagg. The text states that the kingdom of Balnibarbi is part of a continent which extends itself "eastward to that unknown tract of America westward of California and northward of the Pacific Ocean", and places it southeast of Luggnagg, which is "situated to the North-West" Gulliver gives his last known position (taken the morning “an hour before” he was captured by the pirates who set him adrift) as 46°N 183°(E) (i.e. east of Japan, south of the Aleutian Islands) and was picked up by the inhabitants of Laputa ...
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Moons Of Mars
The two moons of Mars are Phobos and Deimos. They are irregular in shape. Both were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall in August 1877 and are named after the Greek mythological twin characters Phobos (fear and panic) and Deimos (terror and dread) who accompanied their father Ares into battle. Ares, god of war, was known to the Romans as Mars. Compared to the Earth's Moon, the moons Phobos and Deimos are small. Phobos has a diameter of 22.2 km (13.8 mi) and a mass of 1.08 kg, while Deimos measures 12.6 km (7.8 mi) across, with a mass of 2.0 kg. Phobos orbits closer to Mars, with a semi-major axis of and an orbital period of 7.66 hours; while Deimos orbits farther with a semi-major axis of and an orbital period of 30.35 hours. History Early speculation Speculation about the existence of the moons of Mars had begun when the moons of Jupiter were discovered. When Galileo Galilei, as a hidden report about his having observed two bumps on the si ...
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Flying Island
In speculative fiction, floating cities and islands are a common trope, which range from cities and islands that float on water to ones that float in the atmosphere of a planet by purported scientific technologies or by magical means. While very large floating structures have been constructed or proposed in real life, aerial cities and islands remain in the realm of fiction. Seaborne cities and islands Seaborne floating islands have been found in literature since Homer's ''Odyssey'', written near the end of the 8th century BCE, described the island of Aeolia. They reappear in Pliny the Elder's '' Natural History'' of the 1st century CE. Richard Head‘s 1673 novel '' The Floating Island'' describes a fictional island named Scotia Moria. In ''The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle'', the characters sail to a floating island, which later becomes fixed in place. In the DC comics story of Wonder Woman, Themyscira is a group of floating islands. In Jules Verne‘s ''Propeller Island'', the cha ...
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Floating Cities And Islands In Fiction
In speculative fiction, floating cities and islands are a common trope, which range from cities and islands that float on water to ones that float in the atmosphere of a planet by purported scientific technologies or by magical means. While very large floating structures have been constructed or proposed in real life, aerial cities and islands remain in the realm of fiction. Seaborne cities and islands Seaborne floating islands have been found in literature since Homer's ''Odyssey'', written near the end of the 8th century BCE, described the island of Aeolia. They reappear in Pliny the Elder's '' Natural History'' of the 1st century CE. Richard Head‘s 1673 novel '' The Floating Island'' describes a fictional island named Scotia Moria. In ''The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle'', the characters sail to a floating island, which later becomes fixed in place. In the DC comics story of Wonder Woman, Themyscira is a group of floating islands. In Jules Verne‘s ''Propeller Island'', the c ...
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Phobos (moon)
Phobos (; astronomical naming conventions, systematic designation: ) is the innermost and larger of the two moons of Mars, natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos (moon), Deimos. The two moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. It is named after Phobos (mythology), Phobos, the Greek mythology, Greek god of fear and panic, who is the son of Ares (Mars) and twin brother of Deimos (deity), Deimos. Phobos is a small, irregularly shaped object with a mean radius of . Phobos orbits from the Martian surface, closer to its Primary (astronomy), primary body than any other known Natural satellite, planetary moon. It is so close that it orbits Mars much faster than Mars rotates, and completes an orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes. As a result, from the surface of Mars it appears to rise in the west, move across the sky in 4 hours and 15 minutes or less, and set in the east, twice each Mars sol, Martian day. Phobos is one of the least reflective bodie ...
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Adamant
Adamant in classical mythology is an archaic form of diamond. In fact, the English word ''diamond'' is ultimately derived from ''adamas'', via Late Latin and Old French . In ancient Greek (), genitive (), literally 'unconquerable, untameable'. In those days, the qualities of hard metal (probably steel) were attributed to it, and ''adamant'' became as a result an independent concept. In the Middle Ages adamant also became confused with the magnetic rock lodestone, and a folk etymology connected it with the Latin , 'to love or be attached to'. Another connection was the belief that adamant (the diamond definition) could block the effects of a magnet. This was addressed in chapter III of ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'', for instance. Since the contemporary word ''diamond'' is now used for the hardest gemstone, the increasingly archaic term ''adamant'' has been reduced to mostly poetic or anachronistic use. In that capacity, the name, and various derivatives of it, are frequently u ...
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Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ...
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Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller islands. Most of the Aleutian Islands belong to the U.S. state of Alaska, but some belong to the Russian Federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Kamchatka Krai. They form part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying a land area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km2) and extending about westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, and act as a border between the Bering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Crossing 180th meridian, longitude 180°, at which point east and west longitude end, the archipelago contains both the westernmost part of the United States by longitude (Amatignak Island) and the easternmost by longitude ( ...
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