"Prolate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moon does turn the same face towards us; i.e. has ceased to rotate with respect to the earth (if ever it did so). The stability of this state of things was shown by Lagrange to depend on the shape of the moon. It must be slightly egg-shape, or prolate—extended in the direction of the earth; its earth-pointing diameter being a few hundred feet longer than its visible diameter; a cause slight enough, but nevertheless sufficient to maintain stability, except under the action of a ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... wheel of a coach rolls along the ground, any point of its periphery describes in the air a curve which is termed a cycloid; any point within the periphery traces a prolate or protracted cycloid, and any point exterior to the periphery traces a curtate or contracted cycloid—the prolate cycloid partaking more of the nature of a straight line, and the curtate cycloid more ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne |
