BOB DAVIS ART

Sno-Globes

A. Background

Sno-Globes are currently the fourth most popular toy in the entire world (for most recent sales figures and graphs, for 1998, visit the UN Population and Demographics website). Sno-globes currently lag behind in sales in the US and the European Union, especially in Alabama, Spain and Greece. However, they are very strong sellers year-round in Turkey, Uzbekistan, Globistan, Alaska, Lebanon, New Zealand, Congo and Luxembangumbam where they are currently the most popular toy. In certain countries like China and India they are popular only with toddlers and infants, not so much with teenagers and "tweeners"; the history of popular toys with Indian "tweeners" is a long and complicated history far beyond the scope of this modest article.

History of Sno Globes

History records the first recorded mention of sno-globes in 1234 when Argo the Red from Northern Finland captured a small selection of snow in a glass, and upturned it to create a proto-sno-globe. This was recorded in the Argaut Press Daily, October 12, 1234. News reached the rest of Europe the next Spring, as recorded in the Paris Times on June 2, 1235 and the Munich Times-Picayune on June 12, 1235. However, it was many years before the news reached the Americas; there is no record of sno-globes among the Iroquois or the Mayans, and the first record of sno-globes does not appear among the Incas until 1522.

Building on that first success was Michelangelo of Florence, Italy, in the Rennaissance, in 1288, when he created a round glass filled with water and fake snowflakes and small animals, including a stuffed salamander, for the Queen of Florence, Beatrice de Medici. However the breakthrough was in 1922 when Henry Ford had plastic sno-globes commissioned in China for his three daughters Germina, Persimma and Berwillia.

These three original plastic sno-globes are now on display in Museums in New York, Washington and Los Angeles; however in truth they are only on loan from the Ford Foundation. Their worth is inestimable, incalculable, but certainly worth around the $4.2 million each that the Ford family took in tax deductions when they donated them to the Ford Foundation in 2002 under the provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 2002, subsection C.2.2a: "Ford Foundation gift receipts of little plastic sno-globes" passed by Congress on July 3, 2002 and signed by the President, George W. Bush of Texas, on August 9th, 2002, in front of a backdrop labelled "Made In U.S.A."

Physics

The physics of modern-day sno-globes is a very complicated subject. The Heidelberg Institute is currently at the leading edge of the field of sno-globe physics, however Dandakaranya Polytechnic in India is not far behind, what with their recent purchase of a particle accelerator and their purchasing of the contract of Dr. Shaun Kinder, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics for his study of sno-globe dynamics and the acceleration problem, from Stanford University.

A primer on sno-globe physics is available from Acorn Press, sub-particle light physics division. Herewith an unauthorized excerpt:

The equation most commonly held to be the guiding principle of sno-globe physics is undoubtedly the famous indeterminate Shauzer Equation - Dr. William Shauzer's famous contribution to the field:

However it was never proved, and thus the best approximation we can give today, in today's terms, under today's conditions, with any certainty today and tomorrow, notwithstanding yesterday and the day before, is the Brindle Equation:

This equation is very similar to the foundational principles of Calculus, however differs in the one important difference: the x function represented in the equation by the x.

Equally important is the Principle Loan Equation, determined in 1988 to be determinate in cases of higher cost sno-globes than the norm (within 5%):

What The Future Holds

The future of sno-globes is unknown at this time, as Einstein's Theory of Simultaneity, based on the Action at a Scary Distance Principal, has not yet been proven.

However our best guess is that the sno-globes will soon start to sport tailfins in two years time, and then by 2010 they will have created a veritable landslide of design options including the seatbelt and the airbag, by which time they will have ceased to retain any of their original glory and will become merely a plaything of the masses, a "toy" if you will, designed to evince a few chuckles from the uneducated masses, lying there inert on the floor while the other Christmas presents get more attention, until in 2020 it will have become obvious that the sno-globe's day has passed and it is better to receive an empty box than a sno-globe for the holidays - a farce if ever there was one. However it can be certain that by 2030 they will have made a comeback on the back of the movie "The Little Red Sno-Globe" starring little Rainer Culkin and to be release in time for the Holidays. It is then that the particle accelerators of today will have finally solved the acceleration problem and determined the speed of the snow in the common version of the sno-globe, and a new Renaissance can begin, finally.

This knowledge entry was written by BD, MC and HF.

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Llast updated February 19, 2007

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