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2007-01-29 20:44:22 · 6 answers · asked by mary jane T 1 in Education & Reference Words & Wordplay

6 answers

I find it quite amusing when people misread questions. Yours clearly asks why the WORD is round, and of course, it's because it contains the letter O - that's what makes it round........

2007-01-29 21:41:48 · answer #1 · answered by wunceinawhile 6 · 1 0

The first person recorded as saying the Earth is spherical was the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who lived in the 6th century BC. Pythagoras, although he realized the importance of mathematics in describing the universe (the famous Pythagorean Theorem is attributed to him), was not a rigorous scientist. He supported his statement that the Earth is spherical with the mystical-philosophical reason that the sphere is the `perfect shape', and that the Earth must therefore be spherical.
The philosopher-scientist Aristotle, who lived in the 4th century BC, was the first to give REASONS why the Earth is spherical. He supported his statement that the Earth is spherical with three pieces of directly observed evidence.

(1) Matter is drawn to the center of the Earth by gravity. This tends to compress the Earth into a spherical shape. (This is the weakest of Aristotle's arguments; rock is stiff, and is able to resist the tendency to be compressed into a sphere.)
2) As you move from north to south, new constellations are seen rising above the southern horizon.

(This is a stronger argument, but still only proves that the Earth is curved in the north - south direction, not in the east - west.)

(3) During a lunar eclipse, the Earth's shadow on the Moon is always round. The only object whose shadow is always circular, no matter what its orientation, is a sphere. (This is the strongest of Aristotle's arguments.)

During the Middle Ages, Aristotle was the standard scientific authority in the Christian and Muslim worlds. Literate individuals (who were, of course, a minority at the time) believed Aristotle's statement that the world is spherical. The Divine Comedy, for instance, written by Dante in 1300 AD, makes the basic assumption that the Earth is a sphere - an assumption that Dante shared with all his readers.

2007-01-30 04:58:35 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Who said the word 'word' is round?

2007-02-02 11:33:47 · answer #3 · answered by jet-set 7 · 0 0

Gravity from the mass of the earth itself pulls it into a sphere.

Extra gravity from the moon and the sun pull on the middle of the earth, so the earth is slightly off-spherical, bulging by a few percent at the equator.

2007-01-30 04:53:00 · answer #4 · answered by tcz30 2 · 1 0

"In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word"....Genesis..(Roughly translated from the Welsh Bible).

2007-01-30 05:40:10 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

cause God doesn't like squares

2007-02-02 10:36:27 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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