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Bathysphere. This reinforced spherical deep-sea chamber in which people are lowered by a cable to study the ocean and marine life was invented and named by American scientist and author William Beebee in 1930. Dr. Beebee later described the coinage exactly: "As the great chamber took shape, we found the need of a definite name. We spoke of it casually and quite incorrectly as tank and cylinder and bell. One day, when I was writing the name of a deep-sea fish—Bathytroctes— the appropriateness of the Greek prefix occurred to me; I coined the word Bathysphere, and the name has stuck." The Greek prefix bathy is so appropriate because it means "deep"; sphere, also from the Greek, is self-explanatory. : Image (
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