Who really was the first person to discover the world is spherical?

Question

If Roman statues of Atlas depict him holding a spherical object, why do we believe Colombus discovered the world is not flat? Surely the Romans or Greeks knew before him.

Answer 1

Several have explained how the ancient Greeks and Romans already knew the earth was round. And the truth is that educated Europeans all knew, for many centuries before Columbus knew this (the knowledge was not somehow 'lost' to the church, as some have tried to claim).

So what about this idea Columbus thought that world was round while his critics did not? In fact, it is not at all true. But your question about why people think it happened that way is important. Where did this mistaken popular idea come from? That's well worth knowing about since it challenges many modern intellectual assumptions about the historic connection between faith (and the church) and reason.

Here is the opening section of Rodney Stark's article, "False Conflict" in which he challenges this whole view. (The whole article is well-worth reading. Find it at:
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp)


"Popular lore, movies, and children’s stories hold that in 1492 Christopher Columbus proved the world is round and in the process defeated years of dogged opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, which insisted that the earth is flat. These tales are rooted in books like A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, an influential reference by Andrew Dickson White, founder and first president of Cornell University. White claimed that even after Columbus’ return “the Church by its highest authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray.”

"The trouble is, almost every word of White’s account of the Columbus story is a lie. All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical.

"The religious figures who challenged Columbus and advised against funding him not only knew the earth was round, they also knew it was far larger than Columbus thought; they opposed his plan only on the grounds that he had badly underestimated the circumference of the earth and was counting on much too short a voyage. Columbus claimed that it was about 2,800 miles from the Canary Islands to Japan, when it is actually around 14,000 miles. Had the Western Hemisphere not surprised him, Columbus and his crew would have died at sea.

"So, why does the fable of the Catholic Church’s ignorance and opposition to the truth persist? Because the claim of an inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more than three centuries, been the primary polemical device used in the atheist attack on faith. From Thomas Hobbes and Andrew Dickson White through Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, false claims about religion and science have been used as weapons in the battle to “free” the human mind from the “fetters of faith.”"

Answer 2

The Greeks certainly knew that the world was not flat, and this knowledge would have passed to the Romans so thats why you'll see Atlas carrying a sphere. The belief that Colombus was the first to prove this is a total fallacy.

The first person to actually prove that the Earth was round (ignoring all the pedants above) was Eratosthenes.

Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle all suggested that the Earth is a sphere but Eratosthenes (276 BC - 194 BC) went one better by estimating the Earth's circumference around 240 BC. He had heard about a place in Egypt where the Sun was directly overhead at the summer solstice and used geometry to come up with a circumference of 250,000 stades. This estimate astonishes some modern writers, as it is within 2% of the modern value of the equatorial circumference, 40,075 kilometres.

Answer 3

I don't believe we do think that Colombus discovered the world was a sphere.

The notion of a flat Earth refers to the idea that the inhabited surface of Earth is flat, rather than a curved spherical Earth. This article focuses on the views about the shape of the earth during the history of Europe, on historical evidence for and against the modern belief that people in Medieval Europe believed that the Earth was flat, on modern believers in a Flat Earth, and on the use of the idea of a Flat Earth in literature and popular culture.

In early Classical Antiquity, the Earth was generally believed to be flat. Greek philosophers from that time period were prone to form conclusions similar to those of Anaximander, who believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with a flat, circular top.[1] It is conjectured that first person to have advocated a spherical shape of the Earth was Pythagoras (6th century BC), but this idea is not supported by the fact that most presocratic Pythagoreans considered the world to be flat.[2] Eratosthenes, however, had already calculated that the earth was a sphere as well as its rough circumference by the third century B.C. [3]

By the time of Pliny the Elder in the 1st century, however, the Earth's spherical shape was generally acknowledged among the learned in the western world. Around then Ptolemy derived his maps from a curved globe and developed the system of latitude, longitude, and climes. His writings remained the basis of European astronomy throughout the Middle Ages, although Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 3rd to 7th centuries) saw occasional arguments in favor of a flat Earth. The modern misconception that people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat first entered the popular imagination in the nineteenth century.

Answer 4

nicely, i recognize that Aristotle insisted that the Earth replaced right into a globe. It honestly wasn't Columbus- by then, it replaced into usually time-honored that the Earth replaced into round, besides the undeniable fact that the *length* of the globe replaced into unclear. I need not aspect this out, yet Aristotle lived until eventually 322 BC, extremely some time formerly Columbus! in a good number of respects, you may artwork it out by thinking the horizon: draw a curve and a deliver on one end, with a severe mast. on the different end of the curve draw a guy, and a line between his eye and the apex of the curve. Now, enable the deliver attitude the guy: you will discover how the mast will look to him first, and how because the deliver attracts closer the guy must be able to make sure extra (the curve blocks his view of a lot less of the deliver). that is strictly what takes position in genuine existence, and exhibits the way you do not favor to flow boating for 6000 miles or with the objective to exercising consultation that the earth is curved.

Answer 5

Pythagotas was first to propose a spherical earth in 500BC

But in 350BC Aristotle was the first to prove the earth was spherical by observing the following....

Persons living in southern lands see southern constellations higher above the horizon than those living in northern lands.

The shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round.

The fact that objects fall to Earth towards its center means that if it were constructed of small bits of matter originally, these parts would naturally settle into a spherical shape.

Answer 6

Columbus was the first to take a chance to prove that it is round
many before him put forward the theory that it is round, Eratosthenes an ancient Greek about 2500 years ago was the best theory although many Greeks had expounded the theory before as did other races . its one thing to put forward the theory another to sail of into the unknown not knowing if you are going to sail of the edge of the world , Columbus however had some evidence that there was a land further on to the west so it wasn't all bravery

Answer 7

Aristarchus of Samos was the one who discovered that the Earth was spherical and it must have been accepted by most Greek scientists since there are many Greek scientists who worked on this

Answer 8

Plato and Aristotle certainly thought the world was spherical, so it was probably some Greek before them that first posed the idea.

Answer 9

Pythagorus (6th century BC.)

the idea of a belief in a flat earth during the middle ages is a fabrication created by washington irving's 19th century fictional novel about christopher columbus.

Answer 10

The ancient Egyptians figured it out from the length shadows cast by obelisks at noon whether in the north or south of Egypt.
Shadows in the south were shorter than shadows cast in the North. (refer to link for diagram).
From these observations they managed to calculate to an astonishing presicision the size of the Earth.