- #1
baywax
Gold Member
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Has anyone else heard of Pythagorus' spherical Earth model?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth
There is a link on this page to a Philosophy out of India that claimed the Earth was spherical as well... but I couldn't find it.
I'm just in awe of these early observations, and find it hard to believe they were lost for so long until only just recently.
Classical Mediterranean
Pythagoras
Early Greek philosophers alluded to a spherical earth, though with some ambiguity.[3]
This idea influenced Pythagoras (b. 570 BCE), who saw harmony in the universe and sought to explain it. He reasoned that Earth and the other planets must be spheres, since the most harmonious geometric solid form is a sphere[1]. After the fifth century BCE, no Greek writer of repute thought the world was anything but round.[3]
Herodotus
In The Histories, written 431 BCE - 425 BCE, Herodotus dismisses a report of the sun observed shining from the north. This arises when discussing the circumnavigation of Africa undertaken c. 615-595 BCE. (The Histories, 4.43) His dismissive comment attests to a widespread ignorance of the ecliptic's inverted declination in a southern hemisphere.
Plato
Plato (427 BCE - 347 BCE) traveled to southern Italy to study Pythagorean mathematics. When he returned to Athens and established his school, Plato also taught his students that Earth was a sphere. If man could soar high above the clouds, Earth would resemble "a ball made of twelve pieces of leather, variegated, a patchwork of colours."[citation needed]
Aristotle
When a ship is at the horizon its lower part is invisible due to Earth's curvature. This was one of the first arguments favoring a round-earth model.
Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE) was Plato's prize student and "the mind of the school." Aristotle observed "there are stars seen in Egypt and [...] Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions." Since this could only happen on a curved surface, he too believed Earth was a sphere "of no great size, for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be quickly apparent." (De caelo, 298a2-10)
Aristotle provided physical and observational arguments supporting the idea of a spherical Earth:
Every portion of the Earth tends toward the center until by compression and convergence they form a sphere. (De caelo, 297a9-21)
Travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon; and
The shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round. (De caelo, 297b31-298a10)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth
There is a link on this page to a Philosophy out of India that claimed the Earth was spherical as well... but I couldn't find it.
I'm just in awe of these early observations, and find it hard to believe they were lost for so long until only just recently.