The Flat Earth society

[wuzak]

Eratosthenes was the man to first accurately estimate the circumference of the earth. Pythagoras had first theorised in approximately 500 BC that the earth was a sphere

Eratosthenes' most famous discovery is his accurate prediction of the earths circumference. He did this by comparing altitudes of the mid-day sun at two places a known North-South distance apart. His calculation was remarkably accurate. He was also the first to calculate the tilt of the earth's axis (again with remarkable accuracy). Additionally, he may have accurately calculated the distance of the earth to the sun. and invented the leap year. He created the first map of the world, incorporating parallels and meridians based on the available geographic knowledge of his era.

Contrary to common misconception, the medieval church did not teach that the earth was flat. Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotelian thought into medieval church teaching. Writing in the fourth century BC, Aristotle clearly taught that the earth was spherical. As indicated above, In the early second century BC, Eratosthenes accurately measured the circumference of the spherical earth. Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest, from the early second century AD, provided a useful model for calculating the positions of heavenly bodies. While this model was geocentric, it did not promote a flat earth, but instead was based upon a spherical earth. The works of Aristotle, Eratosthenes, and Ptolemy were all widely available and discussed in the late medieval period, and continued to be through the transition to the Renaissance. Given the clear record of history, why is it so commonly believed today that most people, and especially the church, thought that the earth was flat?

This misconception is easily traced to the writings of two late nineteenth-century skeptics, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who invented the conflict thesis. The conflict thesis holds that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, held back progress. The contention of the conflict thesis was that medieval Europe was gripped with superstition that prevented intellectual advancement, and it was only after man's reason reasserted itself during the Renaissance that man slowly became unshackled from religious dogma, bringing about the Enlightenment. It is true that four centuries ago the Roman Catholic Church opposed Galileo's teaching of the heliocentric theory. According to the conflict thesis, it was the alleged geocentric teaching of the Bible that caused the Roman Catholic Church to oppose Galileo.

However, the historical record demonstrates that it was the teachings of Aristotle and Ptolemy that played the major role in that conflict That is, the Galileo affair was a battle between two scientific theories—geocentrism and heliocentrism—with the Bible playing a very minor role. Hence, the conflict thesis reinterpreted the Galileo affair into something that it was not.

The promoters of the conflict thesis also retold the story of Christopher Columbus. Most people today persist in the belief that at the time of Columbus, nearly everyone thought that the earth was flat. According to the story, Columbus was one of the few people who thought the earth was spherical, and he understood that on a spherical earth one could sail westward from Europe to reach India and China. Supposedly, Columbus had to argue against strong objections coming from those who thought that the earth was flat to get support for his expedition. Finally, according to the story, Columbus managed to complete a voyage to the New World, and when he returned to Europe, people realized that Columbus was right—the world was round and not flat. Really? How did sailing from Europe to the Caribbean and back to Europe prove that the world was spherical? It didn't. The truth is that no one told Columbus he could not reach the Far East by sailing west. Everyone knew that it was possible, because everyone knew that the earth was spherical. The problem was that the earth was very large. Most people understood that the distance westward from Europe to the Far East was far greater than going eastward (a look at any globe proves this). The question was not how possible it was to reach Asia by going westward, but rather how feasible it was. The belief was that the ocean between Europe and Asia was vast, with little or no land in between. At the time of Columbus, voyages over open water were very risky, and ships rarely sailed more than three days out of the sight of land. A voyage westward across the ocean to Asia would have required months, with no opportunity for resupply or rescue along the way if problems developed.

The facts of history refute the commonly held story about Christopher Columbus. Much of the work supporting a flat earth today uncritically repeats and builds upon this false view. The flat earth movement began in the mid-nineteenth century, the same time that the conflict thesis was being developed. While the skeptics were ridiculing the Bible for allegedly teaching that the earth is flat, early flat-earthers foolishly accepted this false claim. Undoubtedly, the recent surge of interest in the flat earth among Christians has been fueled by the (false) belief that the Bible teaches that the earth is flat. Those who have enlisted in the flat-earth movement of late apparently are ignorant of the fact that those who promoted the conflict thesis made the same arguments to discredit the Bible. This could be ironic, or perhaps it is not. It is possible that certain people promoting the flat-earth today are doing so to discredit the Bible and Christianity all over again. If so, then Christians who have been misled into believing that the earth is flat have foolishly fallen into the trap.

Does the Bible Teach that the Earth is Flat?

 

[Marcel]

Guys, make sure you don't end up in a religious discussion. I'll step in if I think you are going too far.

 

[herman1rg]

Gentlemen you cannot fight here, this is The War Room.

 

[mikewint]

attitude addressing everyone else as an idiot. .

Apologies if you took it in that manner it was never meant that way nor did I IMHO imply that you were intellectually impaired.
Popularized science, like all things, is both positive and negative. It is difficult to reduce everything to simplistic terms as anyone with children can affirm. "Daddy, how does TV work?" will eventually bring an an exasperated retort, mostly 'cause Daddy really doesn't know how himself AND if Daddy were an electrical engineer, what common vocabulary would they share.
Considering Gravity to be an actual Force is OK and so much simpler to comprehend. F = ma is a wonderful simplistic mathematical concept taught in every Physics class. That it is actually incorrect is a concept for more advanced study. A negative number times a negative number equals a POSITIVE number!!! WTF!!! Try explaining that one sometime.

 

[mikewint]

as they thought the globe was much larger than it actually is. I

Dave, I think that it's actually the reverse. Columbus, et. al., thought that the Earth's was much smaller thus Asia could be reached by sailing westward. Thus INDIANS for the natives Columbus encountered. That the Earth was large enough for another entire continent to block his route was inconceivable.

 

[GrauGeist]

Columbus was convinced that he could sail directly to the west and reach the Indies (yes, that's why the natives of the Americas are named that) in a matter of weeks as opposed to the commonly held belief of several months.

Like I mentioned earlier, mariners did not stray any further than 3 days from shore because of provisioning. Breads, meats and water fouled quickly, increasing the potential for sickening the crew...and without a healthy crew, they could run into serious trouble.

 

[mikewint]

Dave, The idea of sailing westward to India dates back to the early Romans. The Roman writer Strabo, not long after Erathosthenes and Posidonius, reported their results and noted:

"if of the more recent measurements of the Earth, the one which makes the Earth smallest in circumference be introduced--I mean that of Posidonius who estimates its circumference at about 180,000 stadia, then. . . "

and he continues:

"Posidonius suspects that the length of the inhabited world, about 70,000 stadia, is half the entire circle on which it had been taken, so that if you sail from the west in a straight course, you will reach India within 70,000 stadia. "

Notice that Strabo--for unclear reasons--reduced the 250,000 Stadia of Eratosthenes to 180,000, and then stated that half of that distance came to just 70,000 stadia. Handling his numbers in that loose fashion, he could argue that India was not far to the west.

All these results were known to the panel of experts which King Ferdinand appointed to examine the proposal made by Columbus. They turned Columbus down, because using the original value by Eratosthenes, they calculated how far India was to the west of Spain, and concluded that the distance was far too great.

Columbus however, had an estimate of his own. His claim was based on incorrect units of distance. Columbus used an erroneous estimate by Ptolemy, who based it on a later definition of the stadium, and in estimating the size of the settled world he confused the Arab mile, used by El Ma'mun, with the Roman mile on which our own mile is based. All the same, his final estimate of the distance to India was close to Strabo's.
In the end Queen Isabella overruled the experts, and the rest is history. We may never know whether Columbus knowingly fudged his values to justify an expedition to explore the unknown, or actually believed India was not too far to the west of Spain. He certainly did call the inhabitants of the lands he discovered "Indians," .

Interestingly if the American continent had not existed, the experts would have been vindicated: Columbus with his tiny ships could never have crossed an ocean as wide as the Atlantic and Pacific combined and would have perished.

 

[GrauGeist]

There is compelling evidence that Carthagenians sailed westward and reached South American when they and their allies fled Carthage after being defeated by Rome in the third Punic War (146 BC).

In Columbus' case, if he were just a few degrees north as he approached the new world, he would have landed on the Florida coast, instead, he reached the Bahamas, changed to a southerly course and "discovered" Cuba.

Still, quite a leap of faith going in the face of convention, really.

BTW, attached is Columbus' map circa 1490.

 

[mikewint]

Spices were extremely important in preserving food and very expensive in Europe at the time because they came from Asia for the most part. The only trade route was through the Middle East. At the time, the Muslims controlled all trade routes between the Mediterranean and Asia. The Venetians, with their powerful navy, had a monopoly on trade with the Egyptians and controlled the bulk of spice imports into Europe.

In 1492, Spain had just finished the reconquista (reconquest). They had finally pushed the Muslims out of Spain and taken over control of all of the Iberian peninsula. For obvious reasons they weren't on great terms with the Muslims. So trade with the Muslims was out of the question and buying spices through 3rd parties (Venice) was very expensive.

Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese sailor, had sailed around Africa and found a route to India. This opened up a new route to allow Portugal to start trading directly with India and Asia and bring spices back. This allowed them to make massive amounts of money.

Spain and other European countries could not just simply sail around Africa for a number of reasons. Portugal did not share the maps that Vasco de Gama had made so Spain and the others would have to explore on their own... a risky proposition. Also, the Portuguese had already set up key ports and posts along the route which dramatically reduced the risk of the journey as they could put in at ports, get fresh water, wait out storms, etc. There were only so many suitable natural harbors and Portugal had gotten there first. There was also the concern that both countries using the same route would lead to friction and war.

Christopher Columbus, a Genoan with no love for Venice (Genoa and Venice were constant rivals) did some basic calculations (which he got wrong), and figured that he could sail westward from Europe and find Asia. He figured he could sail a week or two due west and find Asia. He then went to Portugal (twice), Venice and Genoa and proposed sailing west. They all checked his numbers, told him he was cracked and said no, they wouldn't fund it.
Eventually, he talked to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, the two rulers who married and united Aragon and Castille and a few other kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula into Spain. They were also advised that Columbus had his math wrong. But they gave him a salary to stop him from going somewhere else (in case he was right). After a few years, Ferdinand and Isabella finally conquered the last Muslim holdout in Grenada. All of Spain was now free of the Muslims. So they celebrated and finally consented to support Columbus and fund his voyage westward.

On his first voyage, with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, he spent five weeks at sea and finally found the Bahamas. He met with the native Arawaks and noted they had gold jewelry. He also sailed to explore parts of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic). He lost the Santa Maria (run aground) and then sailed back to Spain. It became obvious that what he discovered was not Asia, but they still called the people Indians and the islands the West Indies.
He made 3 more journeys exploring the Caribbean islands and the north coast of South America bringing settlers and explorers and creating various colonies. He was correct in assuming that South America was a very large landmass (based on the size of the rivers he found).

 

[at6]

I think that I should avoid this thread as it is leaving me flat.

 

[mikewint]

As in Flatland by Edwin Abbott?
Flatland is a world that exists on the two-dimensional plane, where its inhabitants—literal geometrical shapes—live in a highly-structured society organized into classes based on the number of sides of a figure. The narrator and protagonist of Flatland, A Square, writes from prison, intricately detailing the social organization of his country and recounting the revelations he has received from the sacred "Sphere."
In the first half of his treatise, A Square painstakingly describes the social landscape of Flatland, which is strictly regulated by natural laws as dictated by the Circles, the priests that make up the highest class. While women are simple straight lines, the males are full polygons. Flatland society is organized from the isosceles triangles at the bottom, then the equilateral triangles, square, pentagons, hexagons, higher polygons, and finally, the priestly circles at the top. By indoctrinating the Flatlandians to "Attend to your Configuration," the Circles maintain power, limiting the freedom of lower polygons and women through oppressive policies and institutions, and immediately suppressing any rebellion through frequent executions.

 

[GrauGeist]

I think that I should avoid this thread as it is leaving me flat.

Sooo....put the lid on tighter next time, so all the carbonation doesn't escape!

 

[Airframes]

The Earth can not possibly be flat - I live on a hill !

 

[Zipper730]

Columbus (and his contemporaries) knew that the "Indies" could be reached by sailing westward. BUT, they assumed that the voyage would take months to accomplish, as they thought the globe was much larger than it actually is.

Just to be clear, did they mean the Caribbean or India? How big exactly did they expect earth to be?

Dave, The idea of sailing westward to India dates back to the early Romans. The Roman writer Strabo, not long after Erathosthenes and Posidonius, reported their results and noted:

"if of the more recent measurements of the Earth, the one which makes the Earth smallest in circumference be introduced--I mean that of Posidonius who estimates its circumference at about 180,000 stadia, then. . . "

and he continues:

"Posidonius suspects that the length of the inhabited world, about 70,000 stadia, is half the entire circle on which it had been taken, so that if you sail from the west in a straight course, you will reach India within 70,000 stadia. "

Notice that Strabo--for unclear reasons--reduced the 250,000 Stadia of Eratosthenes to 180,000, and then stated that half of that distance came to just 70,000 stadia. Handling his numbers in that loose fashion, he could argue that India was not far to the west.

Wait... according to the definition of Stadion, that's 185-192 meters and that would mean that

• If the Earth was 180,000 stadia in circumference, that would correlate to 33,300 km to 34,560 km, and that's only roughly 83% to 86% the actual circumference
• If the Earth was 250,000 stadia in circumference, that correlates to 46,250 km to 48,000 km in diameter which is 115.4% to 119.8% the actual circumference
• If these figures were averaged to 215,000 stadia, you would get a circumference of 39,775 km to 41,280 km which is quite close to the actual 40,075 km circumference, and if you averaged 39,775 km and 41,280 km, you would get 40,527.5 km which is only 452.5 km off...

All these results were known to the panel of experts which King Ferdinand appointed to examine the proposal made by Columbus. They turned Columbus down, because using the original value by Eratosthenes, they calculated how far India was to the west of Spain, and concluded that the distance was far too great.

Why weren't we taught this stuff in school?

 

[wuzak]

Just to be clear, did they mean the Caribbean or India?

India.

Part of the Columbus legend is that his crew were getting panicked before they reached the Caribbean. The story s often told that the sailors thought they were about to go off the edge of the earth, but the reality was that Columbus had miscalculated and they were running out of food.

Why weren't we taught this stuff in school?

I wasn't taught much about Columbus - maybe that's because I'm not American?

Also, Columbus never set foot in North America!

 

[fubar57]

This Flat Earth thread has gotten flat, You know this has got to be true because Hitler is mentioned in it.......http://listverse.com/2017/03/11/10-strange-reports-about-the-hollow-earth/

..........have fun Mike

 

[GrauGeist]

Wait...what?
Not only is the earth flat, but it's hollow too??

The plot thickens...

 

[Airframes]

No Dave, the plot flattens ............. and if the earth is flat, how come there are 'Round the World Yachtsmen' ?

 

[parsifal]

I will get your coat for you terry

 

[GrauGeist]

No Dave, the plot flattens ............. and if the earth is flat, how come there are 'Round the World Yachtsmen' ?

lol Terry!

The 'round the world yachtsmen sail out to the edge and start circling, always keeping the mysterious icy edge to their starboard side, making sure to remain just outside of the secret government boundary (that no one is supposed to know about except former government employees who remain anonymous for their family's safety) and they do laps.
When the yachstmen make their famous voyages, people crowd to the top of Everest so they can follow their progress.
It must be a wonderful spectacle to behold.