why is it that the ancients a couple of millenia back worked out the world was round yet 15th century wasflat?

Answer 1

Although some students continue to be taught that people in the 15th century thought that the world was flat until Columbus and other explorers proved that it was round, hardly anyone in the 15th century actually believed that. Most people knew very well that the world was round: they just were not too clear on how big it was.

Go to the link below for a clear explanation of how this nonsense notion originated with the novelist Washington Irving.

Here is a summary:

"Prentice Hall Earth Science (a middle-school textbook) teaches students that nobody was sure about the shape of our planet until Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492 gave "final proof" that Earth "was indeed round." The students are learning rubbish. Both the shape and the approximate size of Earth had been known to the ancient Greeks, and this knowledge had been preserved and elaborated over the centuries. Columbus, like other educated Europeans of his day, was able to use factual information about Earth's shape and size in making useful geographic calculations.
The notion that 15th-century Europeans believed Earth to be flat is derived from a story that was invented in the 1800s and was retold and embellished, with signal results, in a book of fictionalized "history" published by the American novelist Washington Irving. Irving fabricated a scene in which Columbus, suspecting that Earth was spherical, was assailed by ignorant priests who thought that Earth was flat -- and Irving's scene was so compelling that it was widely accepted as fact. The flat-Earth story quickly became a popular piece of pseudohistorical folklore, and it remains popular today among people who have had little education. These evidently include the people who produce "science" books for Prentice Hall."

Answer 2

Education in the 15th century was not available to the masses. However, many educated people at that time were aware (or at least believed) that the world was round.

Seafarers certainly knew this from time immemorial.

Anyone can write history - just as a lot of garbage gets posted on wikipedia and other websites today, so there have been "historians" in the past who did not really know what they were writing about and made assumptions about things of which they had no evidence.

Answer 3

Any educated person since Greek times, if not earlier, new the earth was round. Even during the middle ages they knew and understood this. The idea of a Dark Age where learning was lost is a product of a smear campaign and editing of history done during the Renaissance, and the Victorian Era.

Bede the Venerable (700 years before Columbus) knew the world was round, and tried to create a system for mapping latitude correctly on a flat surface (hence he knew it was round). Other medeival scientists knew this, even sailors kew and understood it. "How else can you see father when you're higher up unless the earth is round", claimed either Roger Bacon of Honnecourt I can't recall who.

The real question is how could we continue to believe lies about the middle ages, created only 100-200 years ago in some cases?

Answer 4

Ptolemy of Greece was one of the first people way back in the BC era that attempted to show how round the world was, so even then it was not flat. The church also thought it was round up until the 14th century, however they then taught the flat sphere as a basis of religious belief for spiritual enlightenment. not in any other form, unfortunatley there are a number of people that then took this the wrong way and the idea some how took root in Urban Myth that they was teaching people to believe it was flat.
See the notes and books of Roger Bacon and the theories of Ptolemy for more information

Answer 5

Both tham153 and manxminnjack are quite right--educated people in the 1400's all knew the world was round, not flat.

Even the Bible speaks of "the circle" of the world (Isaiah 40:22), and Roman proclamations usually began "Urbi et Orbi" ("to the City and the World"--and orbs are spheres), so the world as spherical was no radically new concept by any stretch of the imagination.

In fact, there are religious statues dating from before 1492 (one of which is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art) depicting Christ (sometimes as a child in His mother's arms, such as the one in the collection in the museum mentioned above) as holding a sphere, representing the world.

Answer 6

Tham is right. The misconception that people in the 15th century thought the earth was flat is due to Washington Irving.
If you read Dante, c. 1300, you can clearly see that the world is envisaged as round.

Answer 7

Basically this was brought about by the closing of the western mind, to use the title of a book I just read. As Christianity rose in popularity, the concept of reason known to the Greeks was erased and the world was soon in the dark ages and even the ancient texts disappeared until the early Renaissance.

Answer 8

Well, there was a lot of conflicts during these times. These werent times of social stability, and because of the violence and warfare, a lot of learning was lost. Many libraries and churches were burned down. Especially when its understood that a lot of the more advanced scientific thought was in Asia and Africa. Both continents were largely destroyed when invaders swept through. The loss of the Library of Alexandria in particular was a harsh blow to scientific and philosophical throught.

There were also mass plagues, which wiped out thousands, further decreasing the level of scientific knowledge.

And at a certain point, the Church started censoring all knowledge which didnt agree with its viewpoints. A lot of knowledge was destroyed, or removed from public knowledge due to this fanaticism.

It took hundreds of years to relearn what had been lost to the world.

Answer 9

the only ones that kept to this world is flat thing was the christian church, islam and the other religions of the east saw the earth as round all the time. so your wrong really the only ones that saw the world as flat was the christian world. some of whom still see the creation story as fact in the states.

Answer 10

they believed what they have bin seeing