From a Flat to a Round Earth
The History behind the Determination of the Shape of the Planet
The true shape of the Earth has been known far longer than most people realize. The idea of the Earth being round dates back to ancient Greece.
he true shape of the Earth has been known far longer than most people realize. The idea of the Earth being round dates back to ancient Greece.
The fact is generally well known that at least during some point in ancient history the world was thought by many to be flat. This should come as no surprise to anyone who went to school at any point in their life, or who has ever been told the history of Columbus' revolutionary voyage across the Atlantic, thereby proving wrong the “flat Earth” theory. There are parts of this which are undeniably true. Columbus did indeed sail to America in 1492.
The world is indeed round.
Any honest scholar of the era of Columbus (that is, Europe of the late 15th century), while appreciating the very real contributions Columbus' exploration made in terms of Geography and exploration would be the first to admit that proving to the scientific world that the Earth was round was not necessarily one of them.
In reality, scientists, even in the 15th century had been aware for quite some time that the Earth was most likely round. Those who may have feared the idea of sailing off the edge of a flat (as many children are taught) world were generally the uneducated of the time, prone to exaggeration and superstition.
The Early Theory of a Round Earth
The truth of the matter is that ever since Pythagoras first postulated that the Earth must be a sphere way back in 570 BC, the theory has been quite alive among scientists, and not nearly as taboo as we may have been led to believe. There were surely some holdouts whose superstitions led them to believe otherwise, but to the scientific elite, there was very little question.
Such famed thinkers as Plato and Aristotle (both performing their work in the third and fourth centuries B.C.) agreed with the Pythagorian theory regarding the shape of the Earth (not to be confused with the Pythagorian theorem regarding right triangles, which is a different story altogether), based on observations of the curved horizon at sea as well as the shape of the Earth when seen casting a shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse.
In the third century B.C., the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes even measured the circumference of the Earth using the shadows cast by the sun during the summer solstice at different locations and performing a bit of clever geometry. His estimate is thought to be within 10% of today’s value, which is truly remarkable for the time.
From this point on, the shape of the Earth was in constant debate among philosophers, astronomers, Mathematicians and general thinkers alike (during the middle ages, many people fell back into a belief in a flat Earth). While it took Columbus' voyage to finally allow the divergent opinions to mesh together into a unified whole, he wasn't exactly breaking any new ground, scientifically – just proving what had already been theorized for more than two thousand years.
It should also be noted that at this point in history, the size of the Earth was thought to be much smaller than it actually is. This is why Columbus erroneously thought that he could sail all the way to India in order to open up a new shipping lane for the valuable spices and goods from the East. Had he not “accidentally” come across the new world, he surely would have died at sea after such a miscalculation.
Apart from a few ignorant holdouts (for an amusing example of this, click here) who have for one reason or another continued to assert, despite the obvious proofs, that the Earth continues to be flat, after the time of Columbus it was pretty well accepted by all that the Earth was, indeed, round.
The True Shape of the Earth – “The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus.”
“Highest Mountain in the World.” Geology.com.
