Informal description
For any real numbers $a, b, r$ with $a \geq 0$ and $r > 0$, the scalar multiplication of the open interval $(a, b)$ with the sphere centered at the origin $0$ of radius $r$ in a normed space $E$ is equal to the difference between the open ball centered at $0$ of radius $b \cdot r$ and the closed ball centered at $0$ of radius $a \cdot r$.
In symbols:
$$(a, b) \cdot S(0, r) = B(0, b r) \setminus \overline{B}(0, a r),$$
where $S(0, r)$ denotes the sphere of radius $r$ centered at $0$, $B(0, b r)$ denotes the open ball of radius $b r$ centered at $0$, and $\overline{B}(0, a r)$ denotes the closed ball of radius $a r$ centered at $0$.