I'm writing a bit of background material and I have come to the point where I want to
briefly mention the construction of some really big habitats in space. I don't want to interrupt the flow of the text (which is historical overview material), but I would like to give the readers an idea of what the structures are: hollow cylindrical worlds spinning on their long axes, about the size of Arthur C. Clarke's
Rama. That is, fifty kilometres long, twenty kilometres wide, and with an interior surface larger than the land area of Rhode Island or Luxembourg.
Now,
the term "O'Neill cylinder" is sometimes used for this design in SF, and I propose using "O'Neill" as the in-setting term for these large cylindrical habitats (as opposed to the smaller "Stanfords", which are wheel-shaped rather than fully enclosed). But O'Neill's design was actually for a much more
elaborate and specific design, with two cylinders counter-rotating, a separate agriculture ring, windows for natural lighting, etc.
Question: is "O'Neill cylinder" going to be misleading if used in the common sense without explanation?
Supplementary: anyone know off hand the limits for stability for a hollow cylinder rotating about its axis?