Long before seafarers made their first round the world voyages, long before religious bonfires and executions, the ancient Greeks were convinced that the Earth was not only round, but also revolved around the sun and its axis. Moreover, the forefathers of modern Western culture were even able to measure the diameter of our planet.
Enduring myth
The flat earth concept is rooted in the ancient mythology of many peoples. The earth was considered flat because long distances, up to the horizon, were seen as flat. The bending of the horizon line is only noticed from very high altitudes. However, the circumference of our planet has not caused any disputes or questions for a long time. Or not quite?
Popular rapper under the pseudonym B. o. B is an ardent promoter of the conspiracy theory that the Earth is still flat. The musician tries to raise this topic both in his work and on his personal pages on social networks.
One of his questions on Twitter goes something like this: Where is the bend? How is it that a distance of 16 miles (roughly 25.5 kilometers) appears perfectly flat in a photograph? Can anyone explain this? There were many who wanted to explain, including the American astrophysicist and writer Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The rapper remained deaf to the facts and continues to accuse NASA of conspiracy.
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Transparent facts
How can you talk about deception and conspiracy when there are a number of photographs. Here is a photo of the Earth from a distance of millions of kilometers. This photograph was compiled from several images taken by a space satellite.
And here is a photograph of the Earth taken from the surface of the Moon. Probably, you should not start an argument that the moon is round, it is visible to everyone and everyone.
None of these photographs are able to convince BoB, as he believes all NASA photographs are fake. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but it is worth noting that people knew about the shape of our planet long before the first satellite was sent into space.
How did the discovery happen?
More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in his book "About Heaven" that the Earth is round. Before him, Eudoxus of Cnidus, the founder of astronomy, assumed the same. However, Aristotle was the first to prove the roundness of the Earth. At first, he observed lunar eclipses and the shadow cast by the Earth on the Moon. Then his observations of stars in different places proved that the Earth is not just round, but also small.
In other words, depending on the location, we can observe different stars. This is especially noticeable when comparing the night sky over the Northern Hemisphere and over the Southern. In Australia, not only are completely different constellations, but also the sun shines from the north side. If our Earth were flat, how could such a phenomenon be explained?
Circumference of the Earth
We are indebted to the ancient Greek philosophers not only for the fact of the earth's roundness, but also for the first measurements of its diameter. Another ancient Greek thinker named Eratosthenes was able to roughly measure the circumference of our planet.
Eratosthenes discovered that in one Egyptian city exactly at noon the sun was directly overhead, while in another city at that very time the sun was not gaining a little height. By measuring the distance between cities and the difference in the height of the sun, using trigonometric calculations, he determined that the radius of the earth is 252 thousand stages. If we assume that Eratosthenes used Egyptian measurements, where the stages include 175.5 meters, it turns out that the ancient Greek scientist was able to most accurately calculate the length of the Earth's radius.
Since then, the fact that we live on a round planet has not raised doubts in the circles of educated people. In 1519, Fernand Magellan set out on his first voyage around the world and he managed to surround the Earth. It would be extremely difficult if the Earth were flat.