Calipers

A caliper (British spelling also calliper, or in plurale tantum sense a pair of calipers) is a device used to measure the distance between two opposite sides of an object. A caliper can be as simple as a compass with inward or outward-facing points. The tips of the caliper are adjusted to fit across the points to be measured, the caliper is then removed and the distance read by measuring between the tips with a measuring tool, such as a ruler.

It is used in many fields such as mechanical engineering, metalworking, forestry, woodworking, science and medicine.

Nomenclature variants

A plurale tantum sense of the word "calipers" coexists in natural usage with the regular noun sense of "caliper". That is, sometimes a caliper is treated cognitively like a pair of glasses or a pair of scissors, resulting in a phrase such as "hand me those calipers" or "those calipers are mine" in reference to one unit.

Also existing colloquially but not in formal usage is referring to a vernier caliper as a "vernier" or a "pair of verniers". In imprecise colloquial usage, some speakers extend this even to dial calipers, although they involve no vernier scale.

Dividers (sculpture)

Dividers is an outdoor sculpture located at Clarendon Dock, on the River Lagan, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was produced in 2002 by artist Vivien Burnside and is an 8.3m tall set of dividers made of bronze with a stainless steel core. The sculpture stands as an archway or frame as the viewer looks inwards to the changing city or outwards to the sea. Dividers, in connecting points, allude to communication and navigation intrinsic to the Clarendon Dock area. It was funded by Laganside Corporation, Belfast Harbour Commissioners and the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Vivien Burnside has talked about the ‘poetic ambiguity’ in the word Dividers. Here, at the edge of the dock, the form of the sculpture acts as a frame or doorway in the space, both entrance and exit, and provides a symmetrical, linear shape among a great many blocks of buildings, echoing the Harland and Wolff Samson and Goliath cranes on the other side of the River Lagan.

References

Lagwagon

Lagwagon is a Californian punk rock band originally from Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara, California. They formed in 1990 and went on hiatus and reunited several times over the years. Their name comes from the band's tour van, which can be seen on the back cover of their 1994 second album Trashed.

The band has 10 releases through Fat Wreck Chords: seven studio albums, one EP, one live album and a collection of B-sides, compilation tracks and demos. Lagwagon has never had, nor have they seemed to pursue, strong mainstream success, but they do have a devoted underground following in North America, Europe and Asia. Their moderate success reflected a growing interest in punk rock during the 1990s, along with fellow California bands Rancid, Green Day and The Offspring.

History