Flat earth/Talk

Russell wrote his book because he was tired of seeing the idea quoted in elementary, high school, and college history text books. He has, of course, had little impact. It's a short book. Before people ever allow 'flat earth' to escape their lips again, they should read it. This is as elegant a piece of historiographical work as I have ever read. --MichaelTinkler, who is tired of typing the ISBN, and from now on will simply cross reference.

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Article seems one-sided, even argumentative. Not that I believe in a flat earth myself, I consider my views well-rounded.

Instead of saying that Russell debunks all the myths, why not cite a myth or two and show how Russell debunks 'em? --Ed Poor

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The article, I think, goes overboard on its scope, and if this is the position taken by Russell then he's done the same. There is no doubt people once thought the world was flat, and educated people no less - you can see it in the early Greek philosophy which portrayed the world as a circular disk floating in the ocean. That the idea was given up much sooner than most people think doesn't mean it was never popular, and as for flat earth beliefs among the uneducated, they verifiably exist today at the very least.

Added circular disk thing and another bit. Russell retains 81% of the coverage, though. Fair enough? --Ed Poor

Has anyone else noticed that this article contradicts itself? Also, which Greek philosophers thought that? Also, from the way this is written, oone could infer that Russell is writing outside his field. Russell is a medievalist who specializes in History of Christianity and the problems of evil and the Devil -- however, he *has* been teaching the first third of the western Civ sequence for about 25 years...and is well-respected by his peers. I am removing the links to Amazon and Pricescan, since I see no valid reason for thier existenceunless they are sponsoring the wikipedia. JHK

Thales and his friends thought so. Or at the very least, some of them did. And even without them, it would still be quite definitely the general impression the early Greeks had of geography. Noone suspects the world is round until you've journeyed far enough to have a reason to suppose otherwise. I suspect what Russell was really saying is that no educated people during late Antiquity and the Middle Ages thought the world was flat, but I'm not going to change the page since I have no way to be sure. It's a mess as it stands, though.

I read that pythagoras wrote the earth was round, and some other greek guy a few hundred years later calculated (fairly accurately!) the circumference of the earth somehow by measuring sun angles between two cities. I've also heard that sailors were pretty sure the earth was round since they could see boats go ever the horizon of water

--alan d

Yup. But these were later Greeks, and besides, not everyone decided the world was round at the same time.

Hmmm. No one suspects the world is round until you've been somewhere? Even besides the tremendous geographical condescension to ancient people, who travelled rather a lot, there's the old disappearing mast example. You yourself don't have to sail to see the masts gradually disappear. --MichaelTinkler

You do have to be by the ocean, which a lot of people aren't. besides, it might not occur to people even by the water, as much as people who traverse it because it is a more frequent and relevant occurance.

Well that sure wouldn't apply to the Greeks, all of whom lived reasonably close to the sea. --MichaelTinkler

The thing is that the connection between the masts and a curved Earth will not come up unless you start thinking about one or the other. Why do you suppose an ancient mariner would find it the least bit unusual that ships disappear, when he does not understand geometry or light and so much else in the world? Also, before the Greeks, it would be hard to say that people habitually tried to sort such problems out. This is not condescension, it's simply the way things were, and besides I doubt most modern people would make the connection. Things hide in plain sight all the time - that the universe is non-static is an obvious conclusion of Newtonian physics, but it took until relativity for it to be noticed.

Now various ancient peoples made various voyages of various lengths. The Greeks had begun sailing all over the Mediterranean by this time, the Phoenicians a while earlier and farther, and before that there were various commercial contacts all over the place. And there's no doubt the Mesopotamians kept records of the stars of far higher caliber than is needed to notice the differences between latitudes. But that doesn't mean they actually concluded the world is round, and far more to the point that doesn't mean they told everyone. If the Egyptians had figured it out (something I don't know about), it would say nothing about whether the Greeks knew. In their early descriptions, they have the world as a disc ringed by the river Oceanus, between the heavens and the underworld. That comes from their mythology, and then from the early philosophers like Anaxaminder, and is unquestionably flat.