Who "discovered" the world was round?

Question

who said it was flat in the first place?

That figures? Why are there globes on ancient Greek coins?

I suppose the world was always thought to be round. The flat earth theory only came about when Europeans descended into the dark ages. Before then the world was known to be round. Was it not?

Answer 1

I don't think anyone knows for sure. But Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the first to accurately estimate the Earth's diameter (sometime around 220 BC). He overestimated, if I remember correctly, but not by much.

You people who mentioned Christopher Columbus are pathetic reminders of what the white U.S. establishment dictates that children be taught in school. I suppose you also think that he discovered America? I think I'll walk into my neighbor's yard and say that I discovered it.

Answer 2

Actually people knew it was round long before Columbus. You could see when a ship went over the horizon it's hull dissapeared first, then the masts and sail. You could see the shadow of the earth on the moon in a lunar eclipse. Also the ancient Greeks experimented with a 'gnomon'-- a stick stuck in the ground to trace the path of the sun by its shadow.

Also before Copernicus and Galilleo, people thought of the universe as a series of concentric spheres, like the layers of an onion. The earth was in the center, surrounded by spheres of the moon, the sun, the planets and stars. This was Aristotle's view of the universe and was incorporated into early Christianity. This shows people knew the earth was round, even when they were confused about the rest of the universe!

Washington Irving wrote a biography of Columbus in the 1820s, in which he (mistakenly) said that everyone in Europe thought the earth was flat and that if you went too far you'd sail off the edge. Nobody really believed that then. The Portuguese had sailed all the way around the tip of Africa before Columbus ever got the idea of going to India by sailing west. The only real problem was that they greatly underestimated the diameter of the earth and the distance to Asia going west.

Answer 3

Several civilizations knew the Earth was round, but some thought it was flat.
An Indian sage sometime in the 900's B.C. called Yajnavalka proposed this idea.
Pythagoras came up with this idea that if other celestial bodies (i.e. the Moon) were round, then why can't the Earth be?
Aristotle and Plato also argued a round Earth concept.
Eratosthenes proved it by calculting the time the sun sets between two cities and noticed that the more south you go, the earlier the sun sets. His calculations were slighlty off, but pretty close to what is known now.
By Columbus' time, everybody knew the Earth was round. Columbus accomplished what he did because he had ample funding.

Answer 4

No one knows for sure, but the first citings were in Greek classical period. Aristotle (384-322 BC) noted that it was common knowledge that the earth was round.
This was later measured accurately by Eratosthenes in 220 BC.

However, there is a good chance that there were wisemen who knew that the world was round through the same astronomical observations that the Greeks made, given the predominance of astronomical observations by civilizations like the Sumerians, Mayans, Incans, Ancient Egyptians and ancient Chinese. Likewise, prehistorical sailors probably knew about the curve of the earth, given how obvious it is to watch land appear and disappear over a horizon.

During the Dark Ages, Europe lost much of its technology - including much of the philosophy, science in theory accumulated through the Greek and Roman golden ages.

Cristforo Colombo (1451-1506) did not "discover" the world was round, but PROVED that the world was round.

While Aristotle knew that the world was round, he also thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the first to observe that it wasn't.

Answer 5

The Egyptians and the Ancient greeks, already knew that they Earth was round!! Its the Romans that incorporated the pagan beliefs that the Earth was flat, and incorporate it with the Bible...
So, it was a return to darkness when Christianity become to this world until the renaissance period.
The Greek Aristotle already knew it was round, and by about 220B.C the diameter of the earth was calculated pretty acurately by Erastothenes of Cyrene.

Answer 6

Sailors knew it early because of the ways ships disappear going away (hull down first, finally mast tips), but a Greek measured the size of the sphere using a well in southern Egypt that was known of have the sun shine down it on a certain day of the year and measured the angle of the sun on the same day a known distance north so he could figure the diameter. That was in the last centuries BC. Strabo?
No Eratosthenes 276 BC - 194 BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

Answer 7

well i believe that the old people when they used ships for most of the traveling .. i guess one got so curious he wanted to try to go around the world... the people who thought it was flat where the sailors because all the saw out in the horizon was flat water.

Answer 8

No one will every know for sure. I'll bet it was thousands of years ago when someone realized that all the planets and stars were round and figured...hey I probably live on something round too!!!! :-)

Answer 9

Shows what you know don't it?

It ain't round if the "world" you speak of is Earth.

Its a A sphere!

If it were round then at any point on earth the distance to the center would be equal..
Its not...

Answer 10

A lot of interesting theories came out during the classical greek period, from thinkers such as apollo and pythagorous. The true discovery came much later, when the technology was available to develop advanced astronomy.