What is "atlas"

Atlas \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 tlh^nai 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;

   Note: supposed to be so called from a picture of Atlas supporting the world, prefixed to some collections. This name is said to have been first used by Mercator, the celebrated geographer, in the 16th century.

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, see Atlas powder in the vocabulary; a blasting compound containing nitroglycerin.

Atlas \At"las\, n. [Ar., smooth.] A rich kind of satin manufactured in India.
--Brande & C.

1580s, Titan, son of Iapetus and Clymene, supposed to uphold the pillars of heaven, which was his punishment for being the war leader of the Titans in the struggle with the Olympian gods. The name in Greek perhaps means "The Bearer (of the Heavens)," from a-, copulative prefix, + stem of tlenai "to bear," from PIE root *tele- "to lift, support, weigh." Mount Atlas, in Mauritania, was important in Greek cosmology as a support of the heavens.

"collection of maps in a volume," 1636, first in reference to the English translation of "Atlas, sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi" (1585) by Flemish geographer Gerhardus Mercator (1512-1594), who might have been the first to use this word in this way. A picture of the Titan Atlas holding up the world appeared on the frontispiece of this and other early map collections.

n. 1 (context Greek god English) son of Iapetus and Clymene, war leader of the Titans ordered by the god Zeus to support the sky on his shoulders; father to Hesperides, the Hyades, and the Pleiades; king of the legendary Atlantis. 2 (context astronomy English) a moon of Saturn 3 (context astronomy English) a crater in the first quadrant of the moon 4 (context astronomy English) a triple star system in the Pleiades open cluster (M45) also known as 27 Tauri 5 (context warfare US English) Intercontinental ballistic missile

An atlas is a collection of maps.

Atlas may also refer to:

Atlas is an inner satellite of Saturn.

Atlas was discovered by Richard Terrile in 1980 (some time before November 12) from Voyager photos and was designated . In 1983 it was officially named after Atlas of Greek mythology, because it "holds the rings on its shoulders" like the Titan Atlas held the sky up above the Earth. It is also designated .

Atlas is the closest satellite to the sharp outer edge of the A ring, and was long thought to be a shepherd satellite for this ring. However, now it is known that the outer edge of the ring is instead maintained by a 7:6 orbital resonance with the larger but more distant moons Janus and Epimetheus. In 2004 a faint, thin ring, temporarily designated , was discovered in the Atlantean orbit.

High-resolution images taken in June 2005 by Cassini revealed Atlas to have a roughly spherical centre surrounded by a large, smooth equatorial ridge. The most likely explanation for this unusual and prominent structure is that ring material swept up by the moon accumulates on the moon, with a strong preference for the equator due to the ring's thinness. In fact, the size of the equatorial ridge is comparable with the expected Roche lobe of the moon. This would mean that for any additional particles impacting the equator, the centrifugal force will nearly overcome Atlas's tiny gravity, and they will likely be lost.

Atlas is significantly perturbed by Prometheus and to a lesser degree by Pandora, leading to excursions in longitude of up to 600 km (~0.25°) away from the precessing Keplerian orbit with a rough period of about 3 years. Because the orbits of Prometheus and Pandora are chaotic, it is suspected that Atlas's may be as well.

An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a map of Earth or a region of Earth, but there are atlases of the other planets (and their satellites) in the Solar System. Furthermore, atlases of anatomy exist, mapping out the human body or other organisms. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic features and political boundaries, many atlases often feature geopolitical, social, religious and economic statistics. They also have information about the map and places in it.

In Greek mythology, Atlas (; ) was the Titan god of endurance and astronomy, condemned to hold up the sky for eternity after the Titanomachy. Although associated with various places, he became commonly identified with the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa (modern-day Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia). Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Asia or Clymene. He had many children, mostly daughters, the Hesperides, the Hyades, the Pleiades, and the nymph Calypso who lived on the island Ogygia. According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod Atlas stood at the ends of the earth towards the west.

In contexts where a Titan and a Titaness are assigned each of the seven planetary powers, Atlas is paired with Phoebe and governs the moon.

Hyginus emphasises the primordial nature of Atlas by making him the son of Aether and Gaia.

" Atlantic Ocean" means "Sea of Atlas", while " Atlantis" means "island of Atlas".

In anatomy, the atlas (C1) is the most superior (first) cervical vertebra of the spine.

It is named for the Atlas of Greek mythology, because it supports the globe of the head.

The atlas is the topmost vertebra and with the axis forms the joint connecting the skull and spine. The atlas and axis are specialized to allow a greater range of motion than normal vertebrae. They are responsible for the nodding and rotation movements of the head.

The atlanto-occipital joint allows the head to nod up and down on the vertebral column. The dens acts as a pivot that allows the atlas and attached head to rotate on the axis, side to side.

The atlas's chief peculiarity is that it has no body. It is ring-like and consists of an anterior and a posterior arch and two lateral masses.

The atlas and axis are important neurologically because the brain stem extends down to the axis.

In classical European architecture, an atlas (also known as an atlant, or atlante or atlantid; plural atlantes) is a support sculpted in the form of a man, which may take the place of a column, a pier or a pilaster. The Roman term for such a sculptural support is telamon (plural telamones or telamons).

The term atlantes is the Greek plural of the name Atlas – the Titan who was forced to hold the sky on his shoulders for eternity. The alternative term, telamones, also is derived from a later mythological hero, Telamon, one of the Argonauts, who was the father of Ajax.

The caryatid is the female precursor of this architectural form in Greece, a woman standing in the place of each column or pillar. Caryatids are found at the treasuries at Delphi and the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens for Athene. They usually are in an Ionic context and represented a ritual association with the goddesses worshiped within.

Atlantes express extreme effort in their function, heads bent forward to support the weight of the structure above them across their shoulders, forearms often lifted to provide additional support, providing an architectural motif.

Atlantes and caryatids were noted by the Roman late Republican architect Vitruvius, whose description of the structures, rather than surviving examples, transmitted the idea of atlantes to the Renaissance architectural vocabulary.

In mathematics, particularly topology, one describes a manifold using an atlas. An atlas consists of individual charts that, roughly speaking, describe individual regions of the manifold. If the manifold is the surface of the Earth, then an atlas has its more common meaning. In general, the notion of atlas underlies the formal definition of a manifold and related structures such as vector bundles and other fibre bundles.

Atlas is a triple star system in the Pleiades open cluster (M45). It is also known as 27 Tauri.

The primary component, Atlas A, is a blue-white B-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +3.62. It is a spectroscopic binary whose components have magnitudes of +4.1 and +5.6. The binary makes one orbit every 1250 days. Atlas also has a dimmer magnitude +6.8 companion, Atlas B, at a separation of 0.4 arcseconds or at least 52 astronomical units away.

Atlas is an album by the Mexican Avanzada Regia electropop band Kinky. It was released on December 2, 2003 on Nettwerk.

Track 2, "The Headphonist" features vocals by John McCrea, lead singer of the American band CAKE.

Atlas is a comic book series by cartoonist Dylan Horrocks.

It is published by Drawn and Quarterly.

Atlas is a popular monthly Turkish magazine, with accentuated photographic and other imagery content, covering a range of subjects from geography and environment to history and culture.

The magazine is part of Doğan Media Group (Doğan Holding), although the editorial board is fairly autonomous. The magazine has been published since 1992.

Atlas is a prominent lunar impact crater that is located in the northeast part of the Moon, to the southeast of Mare Frigoris. Just to the west is the slightly smaller but still prominent crater Hercules. Northeast of Atlas is the large Endymion.

The inner wall of Atlas is multiply terraced and the edge slumped, forming a sharp-edged lip. This is a floor-fractured crater with a rough and hilly interior that has a lighter albedo than the surroundings. Floor-fractures are usually created as a result of volcanic modifications.

There are two dark patches along the inner edge of the walls; one along the north edge and another besides the southeast edges. A system of slender clefts named the Rimae Atlas crosses the crater floor, and were created by volcanism. Along the north and northeastern inner sides are a handful of dark-halo craters, most likely due to eruptions. Around the midpoint is a cluster of low central hills arranged in a circular formation.

Atlas, in comics, may refer to:

• Atlas, an alias used by Erik Josten, a Marvel Comics character also known as Power Man and Goliath
• Atlas (DC Comics), a DC Comics character
• Agents of Atlas, a Marvel Comics team
• Atlas (Drawn and Quarterly), a comic book series by Dylan Horrocks
• Atlas Comics, two comic book publishers:
  • Atlas Comics (1950s), a comics company associated with Marvel Comics
  • Atlas/Seaboard Comics, a comics company associated with Seaboard Periodicals

It may also refer to:

• " The Coming of Atlas", a DC Comics storyline featuring Superman and the return of the DC Atlas character

Atlas were a New Zealand rock band which was formed in 2005 and disbanded in late 2008.

In April 2005, in Hollywood, California, producer Hank Linderman ( The Beach Boys, Eagles) introduced New Zealand rocker Ben Campbell (a former member of the band Zed) and his sister Beth Campbell (a backing vocalist for the band Chicago), to 19-year-old American solo artist Sean Cunningham. Together with Joe McCallum, the group decided to form the band Atlas.

Located in Auckland, New Zealand, Atlas released their single " Crawl" in 2007, and on 5 March, "Crawl" debuted at #9 before moving up to claim the top spot of the Official New Zealand Music Chart the next week, where it stayed for a total of seven weeks. Their next single was "Magic 8".

Atlas released their debut album Reasons for Voyaging on 19 November 2007, entering the Official New Zealand Music Chart the following week at #4, which was its peak position.

Atlas (not to be confused with several other companies who used the same name) was a Greek company based in Rentis that produced three-wheel trucks and other metal structures. In business between 1967 and 1972, it used (often rebuilt) Volkswagen engines, as well as German Ford axles. Cabs were made of glass-fiber reinforced composite. Two different models were produced.

The Atlas was a mini-car made in France in 1951. Originally known as La Coccinelle, it used a single-cylinder engine of a mere 175 cc capacity. The fiberglass body seated two, the maximum speed said to be over .

Atlas is the name of several fictional characters, comic book superheroes and deities published by DC Comics. Jack Kirby's Atlas debuted in 1st Issue Special #1, (April 1975), and was created by Jack Kirby.

The Atlas Computer was a joint development between the University of Manchester, Ferranti, and Plessey. The first Atlas, installed at Manchester University and officially commissioned in 1962, was one of the world's first supercomputers, considered to be the most powerful computer in the world at that time. It was said that whenever Atlas went offline half of the United Kingdom's computer capacity was lost. It was a second-generation machine, using discrete germanium transistors. Two other Atlas machines were built: one for British Petroleum and the University of London, and one for the Atlas Computer Laboratory at Chilton near Oxford.

A derivative system was built by Ferranti for Cambridge University. Called the Titan, or Atlas 2, it had a different memory organisation and ran a time-sharing operating system developed by Cambridge University Computer Laboratory. Two further Atlas 2s were delivered: one to the CAD Centre in Cambridge (later called CADCentre, then AVEVA), and the other to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE), Aldermaston.

The University of Manchester's Atlas was decommissioned in 1971, but the last was in service until 1974. Parts of the Chilton Atlas are preserved by National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh; the main console itself was rediscovered in July 2014 and is at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, near Oxford. CADCentre's Atlas 2 was decommissioned in late 1976.

Atlas is a 1961 action-adventure Peplum film directed by Roger Corman, filmed in Greece. Corman's regular screenwriter Charles B. Griffith wanted to title the film Atlas, the Guided Muscle based on the first American intercontinental ballistic missile the SM-65 Atlas.

Atlas is a bronze statue in front of Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, New York City, across Fifth Avenue from St. Patrick's Cathedral. The sculpture depicts the Ancient Greek Titan Atlas holding the heavens. It was created by sculptor Lee Lawrie with the help of Rene Paul Chambellan, and it was installed in 1937.

The sculpture is in the Art Deco style, as is the entire Rockefeller Center. Atlas in the sculpture is tall, while the entire statue is tall, as high as a four-story building. It weighs , and is the largest sculpture at Rockefeller Center. The North-South axis of the armillary sphere on his shoulders points towards the North Star as seen from New York City.

When Atlas was unveiled in 1937, some people protested, claiming that it looked like Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Later, painter James Montgomery Flagg said that Atlas "looks too much as Mussolini thinks he looks".

The piece has since been appropriated as a symbol of the Objectivist movement and has been associated with Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957).

It has been featured in almost every episode of the television series 30 Rock, appearing in numerous establishing shots depicting the 30 Rockefeller Plaza building, where the series is set.

Most Rainforest Cafe locations have a statue resembling this one in a waterfall with a fountain, with the words "Rescue the Rainforest" in green neon letters across the equator of the globe.

Atlas may refer to a number of sailing ships;

• Atlas (June 1801), a 435-ton merchant ship built in South Shields in 1801, that transported convicts to Port Jackson in 1802 and 1819. She was wrecked outside Pulicat, India on 9 May 1820.
• Atlas (December 1801 ship), a 547-ton merchant ship built in Quebec in 1801, that transported convicts to Port Jackson in 1802.
• Atlas (1811), a 501-ton merchant ship built in Whitby in 1811, that transported convicts to Port Jackson in 1816 and disappeared in 1817.

"Atlas" is a song by the American experimental rock band Battles. The song is the second track of Battles' debut album Mirrored, and was released as the lead single on April 2, 2007. "Atlas" received critical acclaim and was included on many critics' year-end and decade-end best songs lists. It was included in the video games LittleBigPlanet and Major League Baseball 2K8. The song was also used by Dodge for their advertisement of the 2013 Dodge Dart, and most recently by Quicken Loans during their Super Bowl 50 commercial for their advertisement of their "Rocket Mortgage" program.

Atlas is the fourth album by Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive. It was recorded in Los Angeles, California and was released on 26 October 2012 through Epitaph Records. On 9 September 2012, Parkway Drive released the album's first single, "Dark Days" along with a music video. On 17 September 2012, Parkway Drive released a 10-second teaser of "Old Ghost / New Regrets" in an interview with Winston McCall on the ABC radio program, The Doctor. On 16 October, "Old Ghost / New Regrets" was released by Parkway Drive through the Epitaph Records YouTube channel. On 23 October, the full album became available to stream on the Epitaph Records YouTube channel.

The band first started touring in support of the album in Europe between 13 November 2012 and 1 December 2012 with opening bands Emmure, The Word Alive and Structures. On 13 December they embarked on their second album release tour, to New Zealand and Australia. Atlas debuted at No. 3 on the Australian ARIA albums chart and achieved an ARIA Gold certification for 35,000 shipments in January 2013. In the US, it charted at No. 32 on the Billboard 200, and has sold 63,000 copies in the US as of September 2015. The record received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its depth and sound.

Atlas is the third studio album by American indie rock band Real Estate, released on March 4, 2014 on Domino Records.

The Atlas car was built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1906–1907. The Atlas Automobile Company was established on College Avenue in the East End of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in late 1906 in a "fireproof garage." It was a four-cylinder car rated at 25/30 hp with shaft drive and a 3-speed sliding gear transmission. It was offered as a touring car or runabout. The firm was out of business by the next year.

The Atlas car was built in Springfield, Massachusetts from 1907-1911 (and became the Atlas-Knight for 1912–1913).

After Harry Knox left the company that had been building Knox cars in Springfield, he established the Knox Motor Truck Company in 1905 to produce Atlas commercial vehicles. His former partners at his previous firm took him to court over the name. After he was forbidden from using the Knox name, he formed the Atlas Motor Car Company in late 1907.

Atlas is a bipedal humanoid robot primarily developed by the American robotics company Boston Dynamics, with funding and oversight from the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The robot is designed for a variety of search and rescue tasks, and was unveiled to the public on July 11, 2013.

Atlas is the debut album of the alternative dance group, RÜFÜS, released in Australia under Sweat It Out on 9 August 2013. The album debuted at number 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart on 25 August 2013. The album includes the singles "Take Me", "Desert Night", "Tonight" and "Sundream".

Atlas is an opera in three acts composed by Meredith Monk who also wrote the libretto and choreographed the dances. It is scored for 18 voices and a small chamber orchestra which includes a shawm and a glass harmonica. The story is very loosely based on the life and writings of the explorer Alexandra David-Néel and is told primarily through wordless vocal sounds with brief interjections of spoken text in Mandarin Chinese and English. The opera was co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia. It premiered at Houston Grand Opera in February 1991, followed by performances that same year in Philadelphia and Minneapolis. It subsequently toured in the US and Europe and had its New York premiere in May 1992 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

A full-length recording of the opera, Atlas: An Opera in Three Parts, was released in 1993 by ECM Records.

"Atlas" is a song written and recorded by British alternative rock band Coldplay for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, the soundtrack to the 2013 American science-fiction adventure film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It was released digitally as the lead single from the soundtrack on 6 September 2013 worldwide, and on 8 September in the United Kingdom. The song was accompanied by a lyric video, which also premiered on 6 September.

"Atlas" has charted in 16 countries and reached top ten positions in three of them, and has also received mostly positive reviews from music critics. The ballad, which is the first song ever written and recorded by Coldplay for a film, won the Hollywood Song Award at the 17th Hollywood Film Awards, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

Atlas is a company, based in Minsk, Belarus, which makes household appliances, and also the brand of those appliances. It is one of the leading manufacturers of household appliances in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The company consists of three plants, the oldest and most important being the Minsk Refrigerator Plant , which produces household and commercial refrigerators and freezers, and by which name the entire enterprise is sometimes called. An abbreviated name for this plant is MZKh , and Minsk is a former brand used for the refrigerators.

In addition Atlas owns and operates the Baranovichi Machine-Tool Plant (which produces compressors, technological systems for plastics processing, and conveyor systems) and the Household Appliances Plant (which produces washing machines and other electrical appliances).