6. Coordinate Systems, Transformations, Faceting, and Axes

The World Series in baseball is a competition restricted to teams playing in the major leagues in the USA. There are two different leagues, and there is a significant rivalry between the Chicago Cubs, in the National League, and the Chicago White Sox, in the American League. For Cub fans, never fear – our turn will come, any century now.

Although both “faceting” and “facetting” are valid spellings, the former seems more commonly used, as a quick Google search will indicate.

As a US and UK dual citizen of English birth, who has lived much of his life in Ireland, I appreciate that there might be some confusion over why Armagh (a town in Northern Ireland) is in this display. To help clear up confusion, here are some useful definitions: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are all different countries and different nations. Great Britain is the geographical island, consisting basically of England, Scotland, and Wales. UK is short for United Kingdom, which is short for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and is a sovereign state. The individual countries within the state have various degrees of self-rule. Even the International Organization for Standardization confuses Great Britain and the United Kingdom, as the ISO 3166 country code for the UK is, sadly, GB. Ireland, the geographical island, consists of the sovereign state Ireland (more formally, the Republic of Ireland) and the previously mentioned nation of Northern Ireland. The history of how this confusion of names came to be is quite interesting but, as you might guess, somewhat long for a footnote.