Who Found Out the World Is Round?

The main dishes to remember on who has discovered that the world is round

• Aristotle, working in Athens in the 4th century BC, discovered that the world was round.
• Aristotle discovered for the first time that during solar eclipses, the shadow of the earth has always appeared on the surface of the moon like a circle. He realized that one object would invariably throw his hue in this form: a sphere. And secondly, different stars and constellations are visible from different latitudes. If the earth was flat, everyone looked up to the same sky.
• At the end of the Middle Ages, a large part of humanity was on the same wavelength on the shape of the earth.

Almost anyway, you look at it, the surface of the earth appears flat. The average adult, standing on a perfectly level of terrain, can see only 3 miles from the horizon – not far enough to observe the curvature directly. Even the summit of Mount. Everest does not offer sufficient view.

To fully appreciate the arc of the earth with your own eyes, you should see it from at least 35,000 feet at altitude, an altitude accessible only by plane. In other words, no human life before the 20th century had first -hand experience in the true form of our planet.

However, almost all educated people today recognize this apparent flatness as an illusion. We have a single man to thank for that: the Greek philosopher Aristotle, working in Athens in the 4th century BC according to the historian James Hannam, author of The globe: how the earth has become roundAristotle was the first and the only person to be deduced that, unlike any common sense, the ground under his feet curved imperceptibly.

His discovery then gradually spread in the world. “It took more than 2,000 years to perform,” says Hannam, “but ultimately everyone from China to America knows that the earth is a globe.”

Who discovered that the world is round?

Intuitive as the model on flat earth seems, it poses obvious problems. For example, if the earth was flat, the ships would simply become smaller and smaller as they sailed from the shore; Instead, they disappear in the waves when they cross the horizon. And why is the ocean not in cascade on the outside edge of the earth? Enigmas like these left Aristotle in the second row of what his eyes told him.

While he has gathered evidence of sphericity, two astronomical observations were particularly convincing.

Learn more: Why does everything seem flat even if the earth is round?

What discovery has proven that the earth is round?

First of all, during solar eclipses, the shadow of the earth has always appeared on the surface of the moon like a circle. Aristotle realized that one object would invariably throw its shade into this form: a sphere. (An anterior philosopher named Anaxagoras had developed a system in which these shadows could be explained by the earth being a flat disc that always faced the moon directly, but of course, we now know that it turns.))

Second, different stars and constellations are visible from different latitudes. If the earth was flat, everyone looks at the same sky – instead, each of us only sees the part which is not obscured by the curvature of the globe.

This logic quickly persuaded Mediterranean society, but the news spread slowly in the rest of the ancient world.

Aristotle’s propagation of ideas

The Romans disseminated Aristotle’s ideas as far as India, which then transferred them to Islamic philosophers in the 8th century, Western Europe lost sight of science during a large part of the medieval period, but the English monk Bede has reintroduced the concept of a spherical land to Christianity around 725.

“If all things are included in the plan,” he wrote, “the circumference of the earth will represent the figure of a perfect globe.”

There were retained – China, for example, with its traditional cosmology centered on a square land, the persecuted Jesuit missionaries who taught the opposite in the 1600s.

“It was very late in the story that you could say safely that everyone in the world is raised to believe that the earth is a globe,” explains Hannam. “Until the 20th century.”

However, at the end of the Middle Ages, a large part of humanity was on the same wavelength on the shape of the earth. For Europe in particular, it was not even a question of controversy. Long before the expedition of Magellan-Elcano, completed his district of the globe in 1522, no one doubted that, in theory, the constituency was possible.

It is a false common idea that Christopher Columbus, when he put his sails for the East India, sought to prove that the earth was round – in fact, he held it for acquired. Neither he nor other educated European feared that only the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria plunge from the space. It was only a legend, invented centuries later by the American writer Washington Iving.

Learn more: 38 famous scientists who have changed the world through their discoveries

The first scientific theory

The surface of the earth has now been explored and mapped more or less exhaustively and even photographed space in all its spherical grandeur. We have many more reasons than we need to accept the roundness of our cosmic house. But it was not always like that.

“Everyone was once a time thought that the earth was flat,” said Hannam. “The reason they thought it was obvious.”

But then a skeptic arrived. By refusing to be tackled by his senses, Aristotle turned to booming science methods, a bit like an astronomer or a modern geographer. Instead of conventional wisdom, he substituted a meticulous observation and a rational argument.

In the opinion of Hannam, his case well continued in favor of a round land “in fact the first really important scientific theory”.

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