Midsphere
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A middle sphere or region.
"For rescue or personnel-transfer purposes, the midsphere could also, like DSRV, be equipped with a transfer bell."
- 2 The sphere which, if it exists, is tangent to every edge of a given polyhedron and with respect to which the polyhedron's vertices are the inversion poles of the planes of the faces of its dual polyhedron (and vice versa).
"The edges are omitted as irrelevant to the present argument, but the midspheres are still included because Kepler rather casually substitutes the midsphere for the insphere of the octahedron, since it happens to give a value closer to the observed distance."
- 3 The sphere, between two given spheres, by which each of the latter may be inverted into the other.
"1994, Tim Gallagher, Bruce Piper, Chapter 7: Convexity Preserving Surface Interpolation, Nickolas S. Sapidis, Designing Fair Curves and Surfaces, page 179, For any two circles (spheres) there always exists at least one midcircle (midsphere) which inverts the two given circles (spheres) into each other. in the older literature this is also known as the circle (sphere) of antisimilitude. […] The center of a midcircle (midsphere) is the center of similitude of two given circles (spheres). […] Clearly the midcircle (midsphere) of two equal circles (spheres) is the midline (midplane) between the two, which is partial justification for calling inversion in a circle or sphere reflection in a circle or sphere."
- 4 A supposed realm between earth and heaven. Vedic, uncountable
"This celestial river (Nadī) transforms into [the] terrestrial one (sindhu) after falling from heaven (midsphere) in the form of rain-drops."
Example
More examples"For rescue or personnel-transfer purposes, the midsphere could also, like DSRV, be equipped with a transfer bell."
Etymology
From mid- + sphere.
Related phrases
More for "midsphere"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.