I am now reading the Greek myths, and one of them is that Atlas has to carry the earth on his back as a punishment. You often see images of atlas carrying the (round) earth on its back. But at the time of the Greeks, people thought the earth was flat, didn’t they?
Asker: Nora, 13 years old
Answer
Dear Nora,
The idea that the ancient Greeks or the people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat is a persistent misconception. Mathematics Pythagoras already pointed out in the 6th century BC that the earth must be a sphere. He argued this on the basis of observations during a lunar eclipse. The Earth’s shadow on the Moon is clearly round. The philosopher Aristotle (330 BC) gives additional arguments in his book on Heaven (De Caleo). As you travel south, you’ll see the southern star constellations rise above the horizon.
Not only did the ancient Greeks know that the Earth is a sphere, they also had a pretty good approximation of the Earth’s circumference from 240 BC. The mathematician Erathostenes calculated the circumference based on the sun’s shadow at the same time in different places as 250,000 stadia, which is a margin of error of less than 20%.
The myth that the Earth was once believed to be flat originated with 19th-century historiography, most notably Washington Irving’s 1828 biography of Christopher Columbus.
According to the original myth, Atlas did not carry the earth but the whole sky on his back.
Answered by
Dr Albrecht Heeffer
Philosophy and history of mathematics. Specialization in the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Early Modern Period. Symbolic algebra. Recreational Mathematics.
university of Ghent
http://www.ugent.be
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