Many of our observations in geology, such as plate tectonics, are not explained by a flat Earth.Ī spherical Earth is also a fundamental fact of navigation.Īnd of course we have many photographs of a spherical Earth from space. We now know that if the Earth were a flat disc instead of a sphere, gravity would also tend to pull people at the edges inwards towards the centre, not just down towards the surface-with all sorts of strange effects that we do not observe. The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes and the Roman-Greek-Egyptian mathematician Ptolemy were able to estimate the circumference of the Earth quite accurately, by measuring the angle of the sun in different places at the same time. You strain your eyes, then take out your favorite binoculars and stare through them, as far as your eyes. Indeed people were able to demonstrate this in several ways more than two thousand years ago.Īristotle, for instance, observed that the Earth’s shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always circular. Standing on a flat plateau, you look ahead toward the horizon.
There are many ways to prove that the Earth is spherical. You can help us take action – and get our regular free email
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