The concept of a spherical Earth displaced earlier beliefs in a flat Earth: In early Mesopotamian thought, the world was portrayed as a flat disk floating in the ocean, and this forms the premise for early Greek maps like those of Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus. It remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BCE when Hellenistic astronomy established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given. The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to around the 6th century BCE in ancient Greek philosophy. With surprising accuracy.Medieval artistic representation of a spherical Earth - with compartments representing earth, air, and water (c.1400). The world were not seriously challenged, and in 270 B.C.Įratosthenes of Cyrene managed to measure the diameter of the Earth Aristotle's conclusions about the shape of at a fairly early stage the Greeks rejected the old The Greek philosophers - Thales (born 624 B.C.) to Ptolemy (diedĪ.D.180). Serious attempts to combine observation with theory were made by Very difficult to name one particular individual. Pythagoras, a mathematician: the earth was round. See southern constellations rise higher above the horizon.
Aristotle noted that travellers going south Aristotle later provided observational evidence The theory that the earth is round was postulated by Plato, a To fight these foolish beliefs in order to get men to sail with Which their frail vessels would plunge to destruction. They believed the Atlantic Ocean to be filled with monsters largeĮnough to devour their ships, and with fearful waterfalls over When Columbus lived, people thought that the earth was flat.
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