atlas

Atlas, in Greek mythology

Atlas (ăt`ləs), in Greek mythology, a Titan; son of Iapetus and Clymene and the brother of Prometheus. When the Titans were defeated, Atlas was condemned to hold the sky on his shoulders for all eternity—a mythical explanation of why the sky does not fall. Hercules shouldered the burden in exchange for Atlas fetching him the apples of the Hesperides. He is identified with the Atlas mountains in NW Africa. He was the father of Calliope and the Pleiades.

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atlas, in geography

atlas, in geography, collection of maps or charts. It usually includes data on various features of a country, e.g., its topography, natural resources, climate, and population, as well as its agriculture and main industries. In astronomy, a star atlas is a collection of maps or photographs covering much or all of the celestial sphere and showing the locations of stars and other objects. Although the first known atlas was compiled by the Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2d cent. A.D., its modern form was introduced in 1570 with the publication of Theatrum orbis terrarum by the Flemish geographer Abraham Ortelius. In 1595 his close friend Gerardus Mercator published Atlas sive cosmographicae. Its frontispiece was a figure of the titan Atlas holding a globe on his shoulders. The name Atlas subsequently came to be applied to volumes of maps and information in this format.

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Atlas, in astronomy

Atlas, in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XV (or S15), Atlas is a small, irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body measuring about 25 mi (40 km) by 12.5 mi (20 km); it orbits Saturn at a mean distance of 85,544 mi (137,670 km), and has an orbital period of 0.6019 earth days—the rotational period is unknown but is assumed to be the same as the orbital period. Atlas was discovered by Richard J. Terrile in 1980 from photographs taken by Voyager 1 during its flyby of Saturn. Atlas is probably a shepherd satellite (a moon that limits the extent of a planetary ring through gravitational forces) of Saturn's A ring.

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atlas

Collection of maps or charts, usually bound together. The name derives from a custom—initiated by Gerardus Mercator in the 16th century—of using the figure of the Titan Atlas, holding the globe on his shoulders, as a frontispiece for books of maps. Abraham Ortelius's Epitome of the Theater of the World (1570) is generally thought to be the first modern atlas. Atlases often contain pictures, tabular data, facts about areas, and indexes of place-names keyed to coordinates of latitude and longitude or to a locational grid with numbers and letters along the sides of maps.

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atlas

Male figure used as a column to support an entablature, balcony, or other projection, originating in Classical architecture. Such figures are posed as if supporting great weights, like Atlas bearing the world. The related telamon of Roman architecture, the male counterpart of the caryatid, is also a weight-bearing figure but does not usually appear in an atlas pose.

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Atlas

In Greek mythology, the strong man who supported the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. He was the son of the Titan Iapetus and the nymph Clymene (or Asia) and the brother of Prometheus. According to Hesiod, Atlas was one of the Titans who waged war against Zeus, and as punishment he was condemned to hold aloft the heavens.

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Atlas

Microsoft's AJAX functionality in its ASP.NET Web server development system. It includes a library of scripts (client scripts) that make Web pages work like local applications. See AJAX. See also Baby.

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atlas

1. Anatomy the first cervical vertebra, attached to and supporting the skull in man

2. Architect another name for telamon

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atlas [′at·ləs]

(anatomy)

The first cervical vertebra.

(mapping)

A collection of charts or maps kept loose or bound in a volume.

(mathematics)

An atlas for a manifold is a collection of coordinate patches that covers the manifold.

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Atlas [′at·ləs]

(astronomy)

The innermost known satellite of Saturn, which orbits at a distance of 85 × 10³miles (137 × 10³kilometers), just outside the A ring, and has an irregular shape with an average diameter of 20 miles (30 kilometers).

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Atlas

Titan condemned to support world on his shoulders. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 13]

See : Giantism

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Atlas

Titan condemned to bear heavens on shoulders. [Gk. Myth.: Walsh Classical, 38]

See : Strength

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ATLAS - Abbreviated Test Language for Avionics Systems