Abstract
THE illustrious scholar Gerbert (A.D. 940-1003), afterwards Pope under the name of Sylvester II., was apparently the first of the schoolmen who illustrated his theoretical lessons on astronomy by the use of globes, which he constructed with his own hands. About the year A.D. 1700 George Graham invented a machine to show the movements of the earth and planets about the sun, a copy of which was made for Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrery. Hence the name of an apparatus very useful for illustrating lessons in astronomy, although Sir John Herschel did call orreries “very childish toys.” But surely the difficulty in teaching astronomy is to make the young pupil think in three dimensions. What are we going to do when the relativists would have us imagine phenomena in four dimensions?
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