High Dive

We are finally done with Small World. Hurray!

Next up is the High Dive Unit. The High Dive is the first unit from our IMP4 book. Some students have an IMP4 book already. If you did not get a book, you will get pick it up on Wednesday.

Has anyone read the book, The Devil in the White City? I heard its really good. Its set in Chicago during the World's Fair in 1893. During that World's Fair, George Washington Gale Ferris debuted the Ferris wheel. While in the planning stages, fair organizers thought that Ferris was a lunatic and was dubbed "The Man with Wheels in his Head."

The World's Fair Ferris wheel was built on the Midway Plaisance, by the University of Chicago. This was no ordinary Ferris wheel.

From The Alleghenian newspaper: "It is almost impossible either by picture or description in words to give you an idea of what this wheel is like. A mere statement of its dimensions, 250 feet in diameter, 825 feet in circumference, 30 feet broad and weight more than 4,000 tons, does not mean much to the average mind. It may help the reader to understand what the structure is like if I say that the highest point of the wheel is as far from the ground as the top of one ten-story building would be if it were put on the roof of another building of equal height...There are thirty-six cars on the wheel. Each is 27 feet long, 9 feet high and 13 feet broad. .. Each car will seat, on revolving chairs, forty passengers. Therefore the thirty-six cars will seat 1,440 passengers. But with standing room occupied the wheel has a capacity of 2,000 persons."

Here and here are a couple of more links describing the Ferris wheel.