(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Carl Sagan: How the circumference of the Earth was calculated using only sticks, eyes, feet, and brains [1]

['Ruben Bolling']

Date: 2023-05-15

I really like this clip from Carl Sagan's show Cosmos, about 3rd century BC ancient Egyptian scientist Eratosthenes (previously at BB).

Eratosthenes not only figured out that the Earth was round by observing the difference between the length of shadows in two different places at the same time of day, but accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth.

Sagan very clearly explains how he did it, and you can definitely understand Eratosthenes's method, and marvel at its genius, by watching this six minute video.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2023/05/15/carl-sagan-how-the-circumference-of-the-earth-was-calculated-using-only-sticks-eyes-feet-and-brains.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.