In my head, I only ever hear Erastothones’ name in Carl Sagan’s voice as he recounts the story in the original Cosmos series. ❤️
Flat Earthers BTFO since the 3rd century BCE
Submitted 3 weeks ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to historymemes@piefed.social
https://media.piefed.social/posts/qC/z7/qCz7ahCPMYvKSVz.jpg
Comments
Snowcano@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 3 weeks ago i think there was a greek(?) guy who made a map of all known locations on earth in the 3rd century AD, and in the preamble he stated that the earth was a sphere, and he almost got the diameter correctly, he only estimated it to be 25% less than it actually is (same order of magnitude though).
1200 years later columbus read that stuff and thought “huh, okay, based on this diameter i can sail to india no problem”. even though it was known at the time that the diameter would have to be higher, columbus kinda willfully ignored it (wishful thinking). and got lucky.
lauha@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s why the islands are called West Indies because they thought they were almost to india
PugJesus@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Explanation: Eratosthenes was a Greek polymath who lived in North Africa in the 3rd century BCE. An immensely accomplished and intelligent man, one of his most resounding achievements was to measure the size of the earth. While Greek philosophy already considered the world to be spherical, Eratosthenes managed to use extremely simple tools, with an understanding of mathematical principles, light, shadow, and geometry, to calculate the size of the earth to within ~10% of its actual value, as measured by modern tools!
Flat Earther lunatics in the modern day have attempted to re-perform his experiment, expecting a different result from the OBVIOUS flatness of the earth. It never works out for them. Curiously, it rarely changes their minds, either.
simonzerafa@infosec.exchange 3 weeks ago FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think a lot of the flerfer influencers know and simply keep the charade because it’s profitable.
I think a lot of the antiscience influencers are like that, actually.
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Oh absolutely. Most influencers are in just for the grift. There’s probably some dumb enough to believe it, but I’m sure most of them are just grifting fools.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Well if you won’t accept the evidence of two sticks and math, the alternative for me is to shove the sticks up your ass.