The generally accepted statement that ancient scientists considered our Earth to be flat is not entirely true. Of course, someone considered it flat, but in fact there were several versions, including one that the Earth is a ball. Today, it would seem, all points over i are placed and no one doubts that the Earth is a ball revolving around the Sun.

No matter how. Whether for the sake of laughter or for the sake of PR, or maybe for religious reasons, but the world has again split into two opposing camps on this issue. Are you surprised? If they come up to you and begin to assert that the Earth is flat, will you twist at your temple? Oh well. Is the fact that the Earth is a ball (to be precise, a geoid) and revolves around the Sun, a generally accepted theory and, it seemed, beyond doubt? It wasn't there...

What is the Earth: round or flat?

On the one side modern science claims that the Earth is round, but on the other hand… At the head, perhaps, is the Flat Earth Society. The main goal is to prove that the Earth is flat, and the governments of all countries are in a conspiracy and different ways misleading about the sphericity of the Earth, hiding the fact that the Earth is flat.

The Flat Earth Society still finds its adherents.

The basic concepts of a flat earth society are:

The Earth is a flat disk, 40,000 kilometers in diameter, centered on the North Pole.

The sun and moon and stars move over the surface of the earth.

Gravity is denied. Free fall acceleration occurs because the Earth is moving upward with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s². Due to the curvature of space-time, this can last indefinitely.

The South Pole is gone. Antarctica is actually the icy edge of our disk - a wall encircling our world.

All photographs of the Earth from space are fakes.

The distance between objects in the southern hemisphere is actually much greater. The fact that flights between them are much faster than it should be according to the map of a flat Earth is simply explained - the crews of the airliners are involved in a conspiracy.

The Sun is something like a powerful searchlight 51 km in diameter, which circles over the Earth at a distance of 4800 km and illuminates it.

Everything that happens is an experiment on us.

All scientific institutions deliberately lie about the earth being spherical and so on.

The government is also lying - working for their masters - reptilians.

There were no flights into space, there’s nothing to say about the Moon, it’s all a hoax.

All videos about flights into space were filmed on Earth.

And off we go. Gradually, the world splits into two halves. One goes to live on a round and spherical Earth, the other - also round, but flat.

Both sides provide "irrefutable" evidence of their vision of the shape of the earth.

Here are some of the most interesting facts of the universe from the lips of both opponents.

The earth is flat because:

IN THE ZONE OF VISIBILITY THE HORIZON LINE IS FLAT

Flat-Earth Evidence: Take any photo that has a flat horizon line, not a rounded one.

Ball-Earth Refutation: to see real curvature of the horizon line or a plane in the frame, you need a much greater distance from the shooting point from the surface of the earth. This is clearly visible in pictures from space.

flat earth response: all images from space are fakes of NASA and the like. Space does not exist.

THE BIBLE SAYS A FLAT EARTH

Flat Earth Evidence: in many descriptions in the Bible, the earth is a flat earth.

(Daniel 4:7, 8): “The visions of my head on my bed were like this: I saw, behold, a very tall tree in the middle of the earth. This tree was large and strong, and its height reached to the sky, and it was apparently up to the ends of the whole earth » -

      This expression only applies to a flat earth.

Balloon rebuttal:(published taking into account the opinions of fundamentalist Christians):

it should immediately be clarified that the Bible is not a scientific work aimed at explaining the structure of the universe. IN Holy Scripture this is done figuratively and in a language understandable to the common people, based on the knowledge that the people had at that time. However, when carefully read and interpreted, the Bible does not contradict modern science and does not indicate that the Earth is not spherical.

In this case, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, who ruled from September 7, 605 to October 7, 562 BC, is described. e .. The tree in a dream, as it turned out from the interpretation of the dream by Daniel, is Nebuchadnezzar himself. Correctly considered the edge of the Earth should be the border of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, for a simple reason: Nebuchadnezzar never ruled the whole Earth. In addition, it speaks of seeing, and not of direct observation.

Flat earth:

(Isaiah 42:5): “Thus says the Lord God, who made the heavens and their expanse, who spread out the earth with its products.” This can only be done with flat earth.

Balloon rebuttal:

IN this description talks about what is now commonly called the continents. Modern science, with minor reservations, considers the continents to be flat. If this action is considered applicable to a plane, this does not indicate in any way that the entire Earth is also flat.

Flat earth:there is no continuation of the dialogue from the opponent yet

(Matthew 4:8): “Again the devil takes him [Jesus] to a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory”

This is only possible if the Earth is flat.

Balloon rebuttal(from Bible scholars and scholars):

All the highest mountains on Earth are known. Climbers climbed everything, and more than once. To consider all the “kingdoms”, alas, is not possible with any of them, and the reason is not at all that the Earth is round (this is just not a hindrance), but that it is impossible to consider anything at such a distance . But modern man can view "all the kingdoms of the world" on a computer monitor or smartphone. However, the possibilities and abilities of Satan are far superior to human ones. In what way did he show the kingdoms and why was it necessary high mountain, We do not know.

The most interesting thing is that theoretically this is how you can view the entire Earth. Don't be surprised, it's really true. This phenomenon is called diffraction. Under certain conditions, we see the horizon line much further than theoretically we should see it. This is how mirages occur. Of course, in real life the chances of seeing something like that are incredibly small. After all, this requires a certain air temperature, humidity, transparency and, possibly, something else. Even less likely to see the whole Earth. And absolutely insignificant - to view what you want. But who said that the devil does not know how to use this phenomenon? Showing such mirages-pictures to Jesus would be a very effective way to influence his human spiritual and sensual nature in order to achieve admiration from him. On the other hand, here, too, we can talk about seeing without direct observation.

Flat earth:there is no continuation of the dialogue from the opponent yet

(Job 38:12,13): “Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning and indicated to the dawn its place, so that it embraces ends of the earth and shook off the wicked from her…”

(Job. 37:3 ) "Under the whole sky, its peal, and its brilliance - to the ends of the earth ."

Edges can only have a plane.

Balloon rebuttal:(from Bible scholars and scholars):

The Lord speaks to Job about the unshakable, established by Him order of the alternation of day and night. It is figuratively said that the dawn disperses darkness and stops the deeds of the wicked committed at night. The expression "end of the earth" is also used by those who are well aware of the spherical shape of the Earth.

There are other references in the Bible to the edges and corners of the Earth, which can be interpreted in different ways: for example, that these are the edges of continents or countries. In addition, the Bible itself confirms that the word "earth" means dry land:

(Gen. 1:10 ) And God called the land earth and called the collection of waters the seas.

Therefore, as proof that the earth is flat, these scriptures cannot be accepted.

Flat earth:there is no continuation of the dialogue from the opponent yet

BEDFORD EXPERIMENT

Conducted in 1838 by Samuel Rowbotham. This experiment is considered the most reliable evidence.

The essence of the experiment is extremely simple. Rowbotham found a flat area of ​​about 10 km (6 miles) on the Bedford River. He set up the telescope at a height of 20 inches (50.8 cm) from the surface of the water and began to observe the receding boat with a five-meter mast.

Throughout the movement of the boat, the mast was visible. On the basis of which Rowbotham declared that the Earth is flat.

If the earth were round, the mast would have been out of sight.

Balloon rebuttal:

uplift horizon in this case was due to the phenomenon of refraction. Due to positive refraction, the visible horizon has risen. As a result, its geographic range has increased compared to its geometric range. This made it possible to see objects hidden by the curvature of the Earth. At normal temperature, the rise of the horizon is 6-7%.

Reference: When the temperature rises too high the visible horizon can rise to the true mathematical horizon. earth surface at the same time visually straighten. The earth, to the delight of flat earthers, will become flat. Of course, only visually. The visibility range under these conditions will become infinitely large. The radius of curvature of the beam can become equal to the radius the globe.

Reference: The Italian physicist and astronomer Grimaldi Francesco Maria (1618-1663) is considered the discoverer of the refraction of light.

Naturally, Samuel Rowbotham was well aware of the phenomena of refraction. And it is quite logical that the published book describing experiments proving that the Earth is flat did not arouse any interest among scientists. But there were many adherents. One of Hemplen's followers even made a bet of 500 pounds (the amount, at that time, not a small amount) that he supposedly would prove to any opponent that the Earth is flat. And such an opponent was found. It was the scientist Alfred Wallace. Of course, he knew exactly what he was doing. The experiment was carried out in the same valley. But Wallace slightly changed the observation. He used an intermediate point - a bridge, on which the circle was fixed. A horizontal line was placed at the end point. The telescope, circle and line were at the same height relative to the surface of the water. If the Earth were flat, a line could be seen through the circle at its center. Naturally, this did not happen. However, Hemplen refused to pay the due amount and called Wallace a liar and a forger.

So what is Earth?

Isn't it time to tell true story that Magellan simply swam in a circle, and not around the Earth. Cook, in search of Antarctica, sailed along the edge of the Earth. And by the way, he was right: Antarctica does not exist! Kruzenshtern also doubted for nothing when he discovered Antarctica. After all, he just ran into an icy wall that was created so that the oceans would not flow out. It is not clear, of course, how he managed to get around our Earth disk (yes, yes, disk, let's call a spade a spade) in 751 days. Again conspiracy and falsification! He didn’t put anything on the map and didn’t go anywhere, I suppose he drank beer somewhere in Australia, and they gave him ready-made maps, they drew them in NASA. NASA is such special organization who fools us for our billions, draws cool pictures space, makes viewers ostensibly round earth, shoots hoax shows of flying into space and to the moon. Governments are in cahoots, all scientists are in cahoots, pilots are in cahoots, the police are also in the know - collusion, everything smart people also in conversation. In short, everything is in conspiracy against honest people who understand the essence of the true universe and, finally, with the advent of the Internet, are ready to open the eyes of those who are not yet in the know.

This is what this serious problem looks like today. So what kind of Earth do we actually live on? If you know any facts, please report them in the comments. Perhaps in the article you will be able to detect inaccuracies or the need to supplement it, we also comment. And we will certainly make an addition, and possibly a continuation, taking into account all your comments and wishes. Please behave correctly, do not send participants to the third class high school or to a psychiatrist, twist your finger at your temple. Checked - not working. Only weighty arguments and evidence of a flat or spherical Earth will help save the situation.

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Like a flat worn coin

The planet rested on three whales.

And they burned smart scientists in bonfires - Those who kept saying: "It's not about the whales."

Going out into the street and looking around, anyone can be convinced: the Earth is flat. There are, of course, uplands and depressions, mountains and ravines. But on the whole it is clearly visible: flat, sloping along the edges. The ancients figured this out a long time ago. They saw the caravan disappearing over the horizon. Climbing the mountain, observers noticed that the horizon was expanding. From this followed the inevitable conclusion: the surface of the Earth is a hemisphere. In Thales, the Earth floats like a piece of wood in an endless ocean.

When did these ideas change? In the 19th century, a false thesis was established, which is still being replicated today, that people considered the Earth to be flat before the great geographical discoveries.

For example, the 2007 teacher's guide "Lessons in the World" says: For a long time ancient people considered the Earth to be flat, lying on three whales or three elephants and covered with a dome of the sky ... Scientists who put forward a hypothesis about the spherical shape of the Earth were laughed at, they were persecuted by the church. The navigator Christopher Columbus was the first to believe in this hypothesis... The teacher can tell the children that the first person who saw with his own eyes that the Earth is not flat was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.”

In fact, already in the III century BC. the ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276-194 BC) not only firmly knew that the Earth is a ball, but also managed to measure the radius of the Earth, obtaining a value of 6311 km - with an error of no more than 1 percent!

Around 250 BC, the Greek scientist Eratosthenes first accurately measured the globe. Eratosthenes lived in Egypt in the city of Alexandria. He guessed to compare the height of the Sun (or its angular distance from the point above the head, the zenith, which is called the zenith distance) at the same time in two cities - Alexandria (in the north of Egypt) and Syene (now Aswan, in the south Egypt). Eratosthenes knew that on the day of the summer solstice (June 22), the Sun at noon illuminates the bottom of deep wells. Therefore, at this time the Sun is at its zenith. But in Alexandria at this moment the Sun is not at its zenith, but is separated from it by 7.2 °.

Eratosthenes obtained this result by changing the zenith distance of the Sun with the help of his simple goniometric tool - the scaphis. This is just a vertical pole - a gnomon, fixed at the bottom of a bowl (hemisphere). The skafis is installed so that the gnomon assumes a strictly vertical position (directed to the zenith). The pole illuminated by the sun casts a shadow on the inner surface of the skafis divided into degrees.

So at noon on June 22 in Siena, the gnomon does not cast a shadow (the Sun is at its zenith, its zenith distance is 0 °), and in Alexandria, the shadow from the gnomon, as can be seen on the scale of the skafis, marked a division of 7.2 °. At the time of Eratosthenes, the distance from Alexandria to Syene was considered equal to 5000 Greek stadia (about 800 km). Knowing all this, Eratosthenes compared an arc of 7.2 ° with the entire circle of 360 ° degrees, and a distance of 5000 stadia - with the entire circumference of the globe (we denote it by the letter X) in kilometers. Then from the proportion it turned out that X = 250,000 stages, or about 40,000 km (imagine this is true!).

If you know that the circumference of a circle is 2R, where R is the radius of the circle (a ~ 3.14), knowing the circumference of the globe, it is easy to find its radius (R):

It is remarkable that Eratosthenes was able to measure the Earth very accurately (after all, even today they believe that the average radius of the Earth is 6371 km!).

And a hundred years before him, Aristotle (384-322 BC) gave three classical proofs of the sphericity of the Earth.

Firstly, during lunar eclipses, the edge of the shadow cast by the Earth on the Moon is always an arc of a circle, and the only body that can cast such a shadow at any position and direction of the light source is a ball.

Secondly, the ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to far distance, but almost instantly, as it were, "sink", disappearing beyond the horizon line.

And, thirdly, some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, and for other observers they are never visible.

But Aristotle was not the discoverer of the sphericity of the Earth, but only provided irrefutable evidence of a fact that was known even to Pythagoras of Samos (c. 560-480 BC). Pythagoras himself, perhaps, relied on the evidence not of a scientist, but of a simple sailor, Skilacus of Caryanda, who in 515 BC. made a description of his voyages in the Mediterranean.

But what about the church?

There was a decision to condemn the heliocentric system, approved in 1616 by Pope Paul V. But the persecution of supporters of the sphericity of the Earth in Christian churches did not have. The fact that "earlier" the church represented the Earth standing on whales or elephants was invented in the 19th century.

People have known for a long time that the Earth is round, and they are finding new and new ways to show that our world is not flat. And yet, even in 2016, there are quite a few people on the planet who firmly believe that the Earth is not round. This scary people, they tend to believe in conspiracy theories and are hard to argue with. But they exist. So does the Flat Earth Society. It becomes ridiculous at the mere thought of their possible arguments. But the history of our species has been interesting and quirky, disproving even firmly established truths. You don't have to resort to complicated formulas to dispel the flat earth conspiracy theory.

It is enough to look around and check ten times: the Earth is definitely, inevitably, completely and absolutely not 100% flat.

Moon

Today, people already know that the Moon is not a piece of cheese and not a playful deity, but the phenomena of our satellite are well explained by modern science. But the ancient Greeks had no idea what it was, and in search of an answer, they made some astute observations that allowed people to determine the shape of our planet.

Aristotle (who made quite a few observations about the spherical nature of the Earth) noticed that during lunar eclipses (when the Earth's orbit places the planet exactly between the Sun and the Moon, producing a shadow) the shadow on the lunar surface is round. This shadow is the Earth, and the shadow cast by it directly indicates the spherical shape of the planet.

Because the Earth rotates (look up Foucault's pendulum experiment if you're not sure), the oval shadow that is produced during every lunar eclipse tells us not only that the Earth is round, but also not flat.

Ships and horizon

If you have recently been to the port or just strolled along the beach, peering at the horizon, you may have noticed a very interesting phenomenon: Approaching ships don't just "appear" from the horizon (as they should if the world were flat), but rather emerge from the sea. The reason that ships literally "come out of the waves" is that our world is not flat, but round.

Imagine an ant walking on the surface of an orange. Looking at an orange close range, nose to the fruit, you will see how the body of the ant slowly rises above the horizon due to the curvature of the surface of the orange. If you do this experiment with a long road, the effect is different: the ant will slowly "materialize" into your field of vision, depending on how sharp your eyesight is.

constellation change

This observation was first made by Aristotle, who declared the Earth round, observing the change of constellations when crossing the equator.

Returning from a trip to Egypt, Aristotle noted that "stars are observed in Egypt and Cyprus, which were not seen in the northern regions." This phenomenon can only be explained by the fact that people look at the stars from a round surface. Aristotle went on to say that the sphere of the earth was "small in size, otherwise the effect of such a slight change of terrain would not have manifested itself so soon."

Shadows and sticks

If you stick a stick in the ground, it will cast a shadow. The shadow moves with the passage of time (based on this principle, the ancient people invented sundial). If the world were flat, two sticks in different places would produce the same shadow.

But that doesn't happen. Because the earth is round, not flat.

Eratosthenes (276-194 BC) used this principle to calculate the circumference of the earth with good accuracy.

The higher, the farther you can see

Standing on a flat plateau, you look towards the horizon away from you. You strain your eyes, then take out your favorite binoculars and look through them as far as your eyes can see (using binocular lenses).

Then you climb the nearest tree - the higher the better, the main thing is not to drop the binoculars. And again look, straining your eyes, through binoculars beyond the horizon.

The higher you climb, the further you can see. Usually we tend to associate this with obstacles on Earth, when you can’t see the forest behind the trees, and freedom behind the stone jungle. But if you stand on a perfectly clear plateau, with no obstructions between you and the horizon, you will see much more from above than from the ground.

It's all about the curvature of the Earth, of course, and this would not be the case if the Earth were flat.

Airplane flight

If you've ever flown out of a country, especially far away, you must have noticed two interesting facts about airplanes and the Earth:

Planes can fly in a relatively straight line for a very long time and do not fall over the edge of the world. They can also fly around the Earth non-stop.

If you look out the window on a transatlantic flight, you will in most cases see the curvature of the earth on the horizon. best view curvature was on the Concorde, but this aircraft has long been gone. From the new Virgin Galactic plane, the horizon should be absolutely curved.

Look at other planets!

The earth is different from others, and this is indisputable. After all, we have life, and we haven't found any planets with life yet. However, all planets have similar characteristics, and it would be logical to assume that if all planets behave in a certain way or exhibit specific properties - especially if the planets are separated by distance or formed at various circumstances- then our planet is similar.

In other words, if there are so many planets that formed in different places and in different conditions, but have similar properties, most likely, and our planet will be one. From our observations, it became clear that the planets are round (and since we knew how they formed, we know why they have such a shape). There is no reason to think that our planet will not be the same.

In 1610, Galileo Galilei observed the rotation of the moons of Jupiter. He described them as small planets revolving around big planet- and this description (and observation) did not please the church, as it challenged the geocentric model in which everything revolved around the Earth. This observation also showed that the planets (Jupiter, Neptune, and later Venus) are spherical and revolve around the Sun.

A flat planet (ours or any other) would be so incredible to observe that it would overturn virtually everything we know about planet formation and behavior. This will not only change everything we know about planet formation, but also about star formation (because our Sun should behave differently to accommodate the flat earth theory), speed and movement of celestial bodies. In short, we don't just suspect that our Earth is round - we know it.

The existence of time zones

It's 12 midnight in Beijing now, no sun. It's 12 noon in New York. The sun is at its zenith, although it is difficult to see it under the clouds. In Adelaide, Australia, one thirty in the morning. The sun will rise very soon.

This could be explained only by the fact that the Earth is round and rotates around its own axis. At a certain moment, when the sun is shining on one part of the Earth, it is dark at the other end, and vice versa. This is where time zones come from.

Another moment. If the sun were a "spotlight" (its light fell directly on a specific area), and the world was flat, we would see the sun even if it did not shine above us. In much the same way, you can see the spotlight on the stage of the theater, while remaining in the shadows yourself. The only way to create two completely separate time zones, one of which will always be in the dark, and the other in the light, is to acquire a spherical world.

Center of gravity

There is an interesting fact about our mass: it attracts things. The force of attraction (gravity) between two objects depends on their mass and the distance between them. Simply put, gravity will pull towards the center of mass of objects. To find the center of mass, you need to study the object.

Imagine a sphere. Due to the shape of the sphere, wherever you stand, there will be the same amount of sphere under you. (Imagine an ant walking on a glass ball. From the ant's point of view, the only sign of movement will be the movement of the ant's legs. The shape of the surface will not change at all.) The center of mass of a sphere is at the center of the sphere, meaning gravity pulls everything on the surface towards the center of the sphere (straight down), regardless of the object's location.

Consider a plane. The center of mass of the plane is at the center, so the force of gravity will pull everything on the surface towards the center of the plane. This means that if you are on the edge of the plane, gravity will pull you towards the center, and not down, as we are used to.

And even in Australia, apples fall from top to bottom, not from side to side.

Pictures from space

In the last 60 years of space exploration, we have launched many satellites, probes and people into space. Some of them have returned, some continue to stay in orbit and transmit beautiful images to Earth. And in all the photographs, the Earth (attention) is round.

If your child asks how we know the earth is round, take the trouble to explain.

During the life of Columbus, people believed that the Earth was flat. They believed that in Atlantic Ocean huge monsters live, capable of swallowing their ships, and there are terrible waterfalls on which their ships will perish. Columbus had to fight these strange notions to convince people to go sailing with him. He was convinced that the earth was round.
— Emma Miler Bolenius, author of American textbooks, 1919

One of the longest-running myths that children in the US grow up with is that Columbus was the only person of his time who believed the earth was round. The rest believed that she was flat. “How brave the navigators of 1492 must have been,” you think, “to go to the end of the world and not be afraid to fall off it!”

Indeed, there are many ancient references to the earth in the form of a disk. And if of all celestial bodies if you knew only the Sun and the Moon, you could come to the same conclusion yourself.

If you go outside at sunset, a day or two after the new moon, you can see something like this.

A thin crescent of the Moon, the illuminated part of which coincides with the part of the sphere that could be illuminated by the Sun.

If you had a scientific mind and curiosity, you could go out on the following days and watch what happens next.

Not only does the moon change position by about 12 degrees each night as it moves further away from the sun, it's getting brighter! You could (fairly) conclude that the Moon revolves around the Earth, and that the change in phases is due to the light from the Sun shining on different parts of the round Moon.

Ancient and modern views on the phases of the moon coincide in this.

But about twice a year during a full moon, something happens that allows us to determine the shape of the Earth: a lunar eclipse! During full moon The Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, and the shadow of the Earth becomes visible on the surface of the Moon.

And if you look at this shadow, it becomes clear that it is bent and has the shape of a disk!

True, it cannot be deduced from this whether the Earth is a flat disk or a round sphere. One can only see that the Earth's shadow is round.

But, despite the popular myth, the question of the shape of the Earth was not decided in the XV or XVI centuries(when Magellan made trip around the world), but about 2000 years ago, in ancient world. And what is most surprising, for this it took only the Sun.

If you track the path of the Sun in the daytime sky while living in the northern hemisphere, you will notice that it rises in the eastern part of the sky, rises to a maximum in the south, and then declines and sets in the west. And so on any day of the year.

But the paths during the ode are slightly different. The sun rises much higher and shines for more hours in summer, and in winter it rises lower and shines less. See photo for illustration. solar path, made during the winter solstice in Alaska.

If you plot the path of the sun across the daytime sky, you will find that the lowest of the paths, and the shortest in time, falls on winter solstice– usually December 21st – and the highest (and longest) way is around the summer solstice, usually June 21st.

If you make a camera capable of photographing the path of the Sun across the sky over the course of a year, you end up with a set of arcs, the highest and longest of which was taken on the summer solstice, and the lowest and shortest on the winter solstice.

In the ancient world, the greatest scholars of Egypt, Greece and the entire Mediterranean worked in the Library of Alexandria. One of them was the ancient Greek astronomer Eratosthenes.

While living in Alexandria, Eratosthenes received amazing letters from the city of Siena in Egypt. There, in particular, it was said that on the day of the summer solstice:

Shadow of a man looking in deep well, will cover the reflection of the Sun at noon.

In other words, the Sun will be directly overhead, not deviating a single degree to the south, north, east or west. And if you had a completely vertical object, it wouldn't cast shadows.

But Eratosthenes knew that this was not the case in Alexandria. The sun approaches its highest point at noon during the summer solstice in Alexandria closer than on other days, but vertical objects there also cast a shadow.

And like any good scientist, Eratosthenes set up an experiment. By measuring the length of the shadow cast by a vertical stick on the day of the summer solstice, he was able to measure the angle between the Sun and the vertical direction in Alexandria.

He got one fiftieth of a circle, or 7.2 degrees. But at the same time in Siena, the angle between the Sun and the vertical stick was zero degrees! Why could this happen? Perhaps, thanks to a brilliant insight, Eratosthenes realized that the Sun's rays can be parallel, and the Earth can be curved!

If then he could find out the distance from Alexandria to Syene, knowing the difference in angles, he could calculate the circumference of the Earth! If Eratosthenes were the supervisor of a graduate student, he would have sent him on his way to measure the distance!

But instead he had to rely on the then known distance between the two cities. And the most accurate method of measurement then was ...

Camel travel. One can understand the criticism of such accuracy. And yet, he considered the distance between Syene and Alexandria to be 5,000 stadia. The only question is the length of the stage. The answer depends on whether Eratosthenes, a Greek who lived in Egypt, used the Attic or Egyptian stages, which historians are still arguing about. The Attic stadia was used more often and is 185 meters long. Using this value, you can get the circumference of the Earth equal to 46,620 km, which is 16% more than the real value.

But the Egyptian stadia is only 157.5 meters, and perhaps this is what Eratosthenes had in mind. In this case, you get 39,375, which is different from contemporary meaning at 40,041 km by only 2%!

Regardless of the numbers, Eratosthenes became the world's first geographer, invented the concepts of latitude and longitude used to this day, and built the first models and maps based on a spherical Earth.

And although much has been lost over the millennia that have passed since then, the ideas of a spherical Earth and knowledge of its approximate circumference have not disappeared. Today, anyone can repeat the same experiment with two places at the same longitude, and by measuring the lengths of the shadows, get the circumference of the Earth! Not bad, considering that the first direct photographic proof of the Earth's curvature would not come until 1946!

By knowing the shape and size of the Earth, as early as 240 BC, we have been able to figure out a lot of wonderful things, including the size and distance of the Moon! Therefore, we give credit to Eratosthenes for discovering that the Earth is round and for the first accurate calculation of its size!

If there is one thing that Columbus should be remembered for in relation to the size and shape of the Earth, it is for using too small values ​​for its circumference! His estimates of the distances by which he convinced that a ship could pass from Europe directly to India (if the Americas did not exist) were incredibly small! And if there were no Americas, they and the team would die of starvation before reaching Asia!

All of us, from the school bench, were “driven” into the head that our planet is round, but we are forced to take our word for it. If you are told: give evidence of the sphericity of the Earth, then many will be puzzled by such a question. Even now, in 2017, there are many societies where people truly believe that our planet is flat and limited by the glaciers behind which we hide. uncharted lands. As a rule, these people believe in a conspiracy theory that they are all deceived and do not disclose information on pain of death. They also put forward a lot of dubious evidence that is based on unverified calculated data. So, our task in this work is to dispel all myths and give 5 proofs of the sphericity of the Earth. To check this, it is enough to look around with the naked eye and make sure many times that our planet is not flat with a hundred percent probability!

Proof 1. Moon

The first evidence of the sphericity of the Earth was presented in the distant past by Aristotle, and it was based on a lunar eclipse. So, earlier people, since they were not educated, believed that our Moon is some kind of deity that plays with us like that. Some ancient Greeks were able to determine precisely from the Moon that our planet has the shape of a ball.

In addition, Aristotle was able to prove that, in addition to being round, it is also spherical. The evidence was elementary. Moon eclipse- this is the moment when on the moon it is possible to see the shadow of our planet, from which it is easy to determine that the Earth has the shape of a ball.

Proof 2. Embankment

Try it yourself, give evidence of the sphericity of the Earth by observing the ships. Many people like to walk along the embankment, especially beautiful moments - this is a ship slowly rising above the water, it seems that it is literally coming out of the water. Why do you think this visual illusion occurs? Everything is very simple, this is another proof of a round planet.

Try an experiment, take an orange or any other round fruit or vegetable and plant an ant on it. As he rises, he will slowly appear. If you plant the same ant on a flat surface, it will look a little different, the ant will gradually materialize.

Proof 3. Stars

As in the case of the Moon, this discovery was made by Aristotle, observing the change of constellations, and a trip to Egypt helped him. Returning from his trip, he noticed that the constellations there and in the northern regions are very different, and this can only be explained by the fact that we are not looking at the sky from a flat surface.

Try to trace it yourself empirically give evidence of the sphericity of the Earth, because many, especially in summer time, go on trips, so spend this time to your advantage. There is such a pattern - the farther you move away from the equator, the more the constellations familiar to us go to the horizon.

Proof 4. Horizon

Try and give proof of the sphericity of the Earth through observation. Just look into the distance, what do you see? And try to climb higher, what then will you see? This experiment is best done not in an urban area, so that high-rise buildings do not interfere with the view.

In principle, this experiment is very similar to the second, where we observed the ships. The higher you climb, the more you will see, this is due to the fact that the Earth is not flat, if it were otherwise, there would be no such effect.

Proof 5. Sun

If you are in this moment noon, then reverse side planets midnight. How can this be explained? The earth is round, if the planet were flat, and the Sun was a kind of searchlight, then we would observe our luminary for many kilometers, even if we ourselves remained in the shade.