Another quick question that’s always bugged me…
When the world was thought of as flat, what shape was it thought to be? Round?
Very few people ever thought the Earth was flat. Some ancient Greek dude (Archimedes?) proved it was round several thousand years ago by saying “look at the moon.”
The claim that ‘Very few people ever thought the Earth was flat’ seems rather Eurocentric. What you’re really saying is that expert opinion within those cultures with access to Greek astronomical traditions knew that the Earth was spherical. What about everyone else? Stimpy’s question is a good one.
It is a good question. My guess is that most people didn’t think of it as any shape in particular, or indeed think about it at all. People harbour contradictory notions all the time, it is only upon reflection or when the notions come into overt conflict that this has to change. For most people most of the time treating the world as flat worked fine and the question of what shape it is probably did not occur to them. Indeed my bet is that the average sailor instructed to climb the mast to see further didn’t come down and think “hang on, if the world is flat why did that work?”
Actually he, don’t remember who said it, took measurements of the sun angles and shadows in wells from a known distance apart and calculated the circumfrance(sp?) from that. I believe that he was pretty dead on and was only off by 1000 miles or less.
As for the OT I would guess that they thought it was round, or at least roundish, otherwise what do you do with the corners?
Go out to sea. Have a look around. What you see is a round disk. That’s probably what most people thought who thought about it at all.
Yeah, i would have thought that the earth would be shaped like a penny, because you can see around you in 360 degrees.
And if ancient folk looked at the moon, and maybe the sun at times, they would see flat disks.
APB, while friedo used the Greeks as an example, other cultures such as the Indians and the Chinese also knew the world was a sphere. But it was not Archimedes but his contemporary, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who used the knowledge that the Earth was round, observation of shadows, and some basic mathematics to first calculate the circumference of the planet.
Incidentally, the knowledge of the Earth’s shape was never completely lost. Columbus was not arguing against a belief that the Earth was flat; he was arguing about the size of its circumference. Based on the geographical knowledge of the time, scholars believed the distance across the ocean to Asia was approximately 15,000 kilometers, an essentially unsailable distance. Based on his calculations, Columbus argued it was only about 5,000 kilometers. The scholars were right and Columbus was wrong about the distance to Asia, but Columbus lucked out and found North America along the way.
As others have already mentioned, not only did the ancients know the Earth was round, they knew how big it was.
About 2000 years ago, a Greek astronomer named Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the Earth by measuring the lengths of shadows produced by two sticks in two different locations. After applying some basic geometry, he estimated the Earth had a circumference of 29,000 miles. Not bad!
Once they knew how big the Earth was, the ancients were able to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Moon based on certain celestial measurements (and some fancy mathematics). Their answer: approx. 60 earth radii. Pretty smart, dem ancient Greeks.
This point can not be made too often. Everyone on Columbus’s ships knew that the Earth was round because they were sailors. In addition to picmr’s point about being able to see farther from higher up, sailors routinely saw ships disappear over the horizon hull first.
Little Nemo, I knew that someone would produce examples of other cultures which had worked out that the Earth was round. My point was that that friedo, in refuting one old misconception (that Columbus thought the Earth was round), may have invented a new misconception of his own. The phrase ‘Very few people’ seems far too sweeping.
Let’s rephrase that - Little Nemo, I knew that someone would produce examples of other cultures which had worked out that the Earth was round. My point was that that friedo, in refuting one old misconception (that Columbus thought the Earth was flat), may have invented a new misconception of his own. The phrase ‘Very few people’ seems far too sweeping.