Pocket Globes: The Whole World in Your Hand

blogs.loc.gov

52 points·Thevet··7 comments

About the author: Neely Tucker is a writer-editor in the Library’s Office of Communications. He manages the Library of Congress blog and writes for LCM, the Library’s magazine. Before joining the Library in 2019, he spent 17 years at The Washington Post, primarily as a roving national reporter based in the Style section. He was a foreign correspondent for the Detroit Free Press for most of the 1990s, working in more than 60 countries or territories in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

What a life!

I feel old :) Like many french kids in the early 80's I had one as a pencil sharpener: https://picclick.fr/rare-ancien-taille-crayon-1940-50-globe-...

I have this glass sphere model of the universe [1] showing galaxies as tiny bubbles. It’s beautiful and humbling (it represents about 1/100 of the observable universe).

[1] https://www.cinks-labs.de/products/the-universe-in-a-sphere?...

So, it's clear glass containing a 3D model of the local universe? I'd love to know how they make them. (The website doesn't say much, although the linked Kickstarter says "Captured Into Glass With a High-Powered Laser".)

> I'd love to know how they make them.

The term you are looking for is is "sub-surface laser engraving" or "bubblegram".

You can find more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegram

Or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOrby692Uag

I was wondering whether pocket globes like these are still available today. The closest I could find so far are 4.5" globes from MOVA: https://www.movaglobes.com/shop/?size=5452

Brings back memories of my childhood (always wanted one in the late 90s)…time to get one!

There are a lot of (physical) things that have faded away since smart phones became ubiquitous, I hope they make a come back and we move to a slower pace again

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