Atlas

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The first king of Atlantis. Son of Poseidon and Cleito.

Supposedly the Atlantic Ocean and Atlantis were named after him.

ATLAS will use LHC to study proton-proton interaction, to improve the fundamental understanding of matter and forces. One of the primary goals is to understand the nature of mass.

To process all the data generated ATLAS will use GriPhyN.

I have used Atlas to refer to myself. I picked up the usage from a Spider Robinson short story (not a Callahan's story). The meaning is a figurative analogy - one who has the world on their shoulders. A person with the world on their shoulders wants to change the world, to make a difference -- and feels extremely guilty about every shortcoming and self-perceived failure within them.

Being an Atlas in this sense tends to mean that you're overwrought and overstressed about things that you have no control over and things you cannot change (the past is a good example of one of these). There is one thing an Atlas must do if they want to accomplish things -- and that is let it go.

As Webster 1913 says, the use of this image in Gerhardus Mercator's book of maps was the origin of the term atlas in that sense. I don't know how long this image was around before then, but it might well have been contemporary (post-Columbus), rather than going back all the way to classical mythology.

When did people start believing the earth was spherical? It is ascribed to the Pythagoreans, but I don't know how widely accepted it was in ancient Greece, or whether it was just esoteric theory then.

In the original myth, Atlas stood upon the earth, and on his shoulders carried the heavens, or more accurately carried the pillars that held up the heavens. He was Mount Atlas, or the Atlas Mountains in what is now Morocco.

One story says that Perseus met him there and turned him to stone with the head of Medusa.

But in a different version he was alive when he held up the heavens. Hercules came to him seeking the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. He agreed to hold up the heavens while Atlas went off to fetch the apples. Atlas of course could hardly believe his luck. Hercules, being a strong man, was not exactly known for brains. So Atlas went off chuckling, got the apples, and planned to tell Hercules, sorry mate, you're it now, I'm off to disport with the nymphs. (He did at some point father Calliope and the Pleiades.)

So Hercules said yeah, okay... er, excuse me, I've got a bit of an itchy shoulder. This pad is slipping. I just need to adjust it. Do you mind just holding the heavens up again while I do it?

Hint: What did I tell you about strong men? You've never heard of the Twelve Labours of Atlas, have you?

A male figure holding up the roof of a building is called an atlantid (or telamon), as the female is called a caryatid.

The Greek root is tla- 'to bear'. Cognate Germanic words are the archaic English thole 'to bear, to suffer patiently' and German geduldig 'patient'. Also the Latin root tol- as in tolerate, and the participle tlat- which was suppletive for fero 'I bear': but the stem got its consonants simplified to lat-, so you got pairs like transfero 'I carry across', translatum 'carried across'.

Discovered by            R. Terrile 
Date of Discovery        1980
Distance from Saturn     137,670 km
Radius                   18.5 × 17.2 × 13.5 km
Mass                     ???
Orbital Eccentricity     0.000
Orbital Inclination      0.3°
Orbital Period           0.6019 day
Rotational Period        ???
Density (gm/cm3)         ??? 

Tiny, irregular Atlas orbits Saturn near the outside of the A ring. Saturn's rings are identified by letters, ascending from the inside out. Atlas is Saturn's second closest satellite. Atlas's location within a ring makes it a shepherding moon. This means it limits the size of its nearby ring through gravitational forces. It was discovered by means of imagery from the Voyager 1 probe.

Sources:
NASA.gov
space.com

Ατλας

A giant, the son of Iapetus and the sea-nymph Clymene (or in some versions of the sea-nymph Asia). He was the brother of Menoetius, Prometheus and Epimetheus, 'the men of violence' (Table 25 and Table 38). According to some traditions he was the son of Uranus and thus the brother of Cronus. He belongs to the generation of monstrous and unbridled divinities which preceded the Olympians. He took part in the struggle between the Gods and the Giants and Zeus sentenced him to carrying the vault of the sky on his shoulders as a punishment. His dwelling was generally regarded as in the very far west, in the country of the Hesperides, though it was sometimes said to be 'among the Hyperboreans'. Herodotus was the first person to refer to Atlas as a mountain in North Africa. Perseus was said to have turned Atlas into a rock on returning after slaying the Gorgon, by confronting him with Medusa's head.

Atlas is said to have had several children: the Pleiadeas and the Hyades by Pleione, and the Hesperides by Hesperis. Dione was also regarded as his daughter and his sons were Hyas and Hesperus. Late conjectures regarded Atlas as an astronomer who taught men the laws governing celestial bodies and he was deified for that reason. Sometimes it was said that there were three separate figures, all known as Atlas, one African, one Italian and one Arcadian, the father of Maia and hence the grandfather of Hermes. For the Atlas who gave his name to Atlantis, see Atalantis.

{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}

Table of Sources:
- Hesiod, Theog. 507ff.
- Hom. Od. 1, 52ff.; 7, 245
- Aeschylus, PV 348, 425f
- Pind. Pyth. 4, 289ff. (516ff.)
- Euripides, Ion 1ff.; HF 402
- schol. on Apoll. Rhod. Arg. 3, 106; 1, 444
- Ovid, Met. 2, 296; 6, 174
- Apollod. Bibl. 1, 2, 3; 2, 5, 11
- Hyg. Fab. 150
- Hdt. 4, 185
- Serv. on Virgil, Aen. 8, 134
- See also Heracles.

At"las (#), n.; pl. Atlases (#). [L. Atlas, -antis, Gr. , , one of the older family of gods, who bears up the pillars of heaven; also Mt. Atlas, in W. Africa, regarded as the pillar of heaven. It is from the root of to bear. See Tolerate.]

1.

One who sustains a great burden.

2. Anat.

The first vertebra of the neck, articulating immediately with the skull, thus sustaining the globe of the head, whence the name.

3.

A collection of maps in a volume

4.

A volume of plates illustrating any subject.

5.

A work in which subjects are exhibited in a tabular from or arrangement; as, an historical atlas.

6.

A large, square folio, resembling a volume of maps; -- called also atlas folio.

7.

A drawing paper of large size. See under Paper, n.

Atlas powder, a nitroglycerin blasting compound of pasty consistency and great explosive power.

© Webster 1913.

At"las, n. [Ar., smooth.]

A rich kind of satin manufactured in India.

Brande & C.

© Webster 1913.