Sphere vs Elliptical - What's the difference?
sphere | elliptical |
(mathematics) A regular three-dimensional object in which every cross-section is a circle; the figure described by the revolution of a circle about its diameter .
A spherical physical object; a globe or ball.
* Milton
* 2011 , Piers Sellers, The Guardian , 6 July:
* 1635 , John Donne, "His parting form her":
(historical, astronomy, mythology) Any of the concentric hollow transparent globes formerly believed to rotate around the Earth, and which carried the heavenly bodies; there were originally believed to be eight, and later nine and ten; friction between them was thought to cause a harmonious sound (the music of the spheres ).
*, vol.1, p.153:
* 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , I.6:
(mythology) An area of activity for a planet; or by extension, an area of influence for a god, hero etc.
(figuratively) The region in which something or someone is active; one's province, domain.
* 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.20:
(geometry) The set of all points in three-dimensional Euclidean space (or n -dimensional space, in topology) that are a fixed distance from a fixed point .
(logic) The extension of a general conception, or the totality of the individuals or species to which it may be applied.
To place in a sphere, or among the spheres; to ensphere.
* Shakespeare
To make round or spherical; to perfect.
In a shape reminding of an ellipse; oval.
* 1876 , Edward Roth (translator), ,
Of, or showing ellipsis; having a word or words omitted.
(of speech) Concise, condensed.
* 1903 , ,
* early XX c. , , by O. Henry
(mathematics, rare)
Being flat and in the shape of a twice-symmetrical ellipse; oval.
As nouns the difference between sphere and elliptical
is that sphere is sphere while elliptical is (astronomy) an elliptical galaxy.As an adjective elliptical is
in a shape reminding of an ellipse; oval.sphere
English
(wikipedia sphere)Alternative forms
* (archaic) * sphear (archaic)Noun
(en noun)- Of celestial bodies, first the sun, / A mighty sphere , he framed.
- So your orientation changes a little bit but it sinks in that the world is a sphere , and you're going around it, sometimes under it, sideways, or over it.
- Though cold and darkness longer hang somewhere, / Yet Phoebus equally lights all the Sphere .
- It is more simplicitie to teach our children[t]he knowledge of the starres, and the motion of the eighth spheare , before their owne.
- They understood not the motion of the eighth sphear from West to East, and so conceived the longitude of the Stars invariable.
- They thought – originally on grounds derived from religion – that each thing or person had its or his proper sphere , to overstep which is ‘unjust’.
Synonyms
* (object) ball, globe, orb * (region of activity) area, domain, field, orbit, sector * (in geometry) (''topology ) * See celestial sphere * See celestial bodyDerived terms
* blogosphere * sphere of influence * sphere of interestSee also
* ball (in topology ) *Mathworld article on the sphere*
Verb
(spher)- The glorious planet Sol / In noble eminence enthroned and sphered / Amidst the other.
- (Tennyson)
Anagrams
* * ----elliptical
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Having admitted that the projectile was describing an orbit around the moon, this orbit must necessarily be elliptical ; science proves that it must be so.
- If he is sometimes elliptical and obscure, it is because he has so much to tell us. --
- Browning's dark and elliptical mode of speech, like his love of the grotesque, was simply a characteristic of his, a trick of his temperament, and had little or nothing to do with whether what he was expressing was profound or superficial.
- He was called a tramp; but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveller, a naturalist and a discoverer.