| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 2:41:47 PM | It is commonly believed that our preIndustrial ancestors believed the Earth was flat, and us moderns often cite this fact as a form of mockery of them and their ignorance ... compared to our presumed brilliance.
BUT, the fact of the matter is that sailors knew from the earliest times, ie. predating the supposed birth of Christ, that the Earth was in fact a sphere. And this fact is echoed in a wide variety of European historical documents from about the 4th century BCE onward.
It was in fact common knowledge in Europe by the Middle Ages.
Sure makes one wonder about who the ignorant ones really are. Who the arrogant ones are is quite apparent. lol | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 2:50:26 PM | Heck - I know a guy who *to this day* believes the Earth is flat. When I ask him about how he thinks things orbit, he describes a series of wormholes that surround the 'rim' of the Earth... anything that enters one is transported to the opposite side.
(I STILL think he was yanking my chain... but he sounded utterly convinced of it.) | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 3:01:02 PM | It was really only a commonly held belief in the dark ages, and that was mostly because the church would burn people who said otherwise.
Aristotle knew the earth was round, because the shadow of the earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse was round.
The viking knew the earth was round because when ships came over the horizon you saw the sails before the bow, so it must be coming over a curve.
By empirical observation, it's always been pretty obvious that the earth was round, there was just a few hundred years of enforced ignorance in the middle there.
But I guess if you didn't go too far, for all intents and purposes it may as well have been flat. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 3:32:08 PM |
It was really only a commonly held belief in the dark ages, and that was mostly because the church would burn people who said otherwise.
This simple isn't true. A writer in the early 1900 made the myth that the world was believed to be flat in the not to distance past, but even in the dark ages they knew better. When you go back and read what people in written history believed with what tools they had, they were truly remarkable people. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 4:05:10 PM |
This simple isn't true. A writer in the early 1900 made the myth that the world was believed to be flat in the not to distance past, but even in the dark ages they knew better. When you go back and read what people in written history believed with what tools they had, they were truly remarkable people.
Yup looked it up, and you're right, my mistake. the only place it seems to have been prevelent even remotely recently is pre 17th century china | |
|
| |
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 4:38:43 PM | The earth has never looked flat in the mountains of BC, or Peru or Switzerland....
Marbles roll in the Walmarts here due to the city ordinance that what must fall from the skies must return to the sea...or at least outside of the city boundaries long enough for the councilors to get a chance at re-election. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 4:53:17 PM | Ya, jeez, sorry. My bad...but hey, in my defense, I live in Winnipeg at the time. It was a pretty convincing argument at the time. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 6:18:10 PM | | Galileo who challenged the theory actually received the most controversy from the Christians in the 1600s. They referenced Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30. One of the verses they tried to stick him with was Psalm 104:5: "the LORD set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." I don't think that means "The Earth Is Flat!" | |
|
| |
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/3/2009 11:55:48 PM | | If that was based on ancient greeks translating, I suspect the earth in Greek was Gaia...of course they had other words for the same representation, no? | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/4/2009 4:06:08 AM | | I've tried to dispel this myth a number of times to no avail. If anybody ever thought the Earth was flat over the last two thousand years or so , they probably lived somewhere very isolated or they simply didn't care to begin with. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/4/2009 7:52:45 AM | Some folks still believe that the earth is flat http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
I used to think that the Flat Earth society was a parody or a hoax, but it isn't. This diligent band of individuals know the "truth."
Be well...... | |
|
| |
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/4/2009 12:14:19 PM | Of course the world is flat. Look, I'll prove it to you.
If you drop a marble on top of a ball, it will always roll off unless it is dropped on the exact top-centre. Now go to at least two distant places and drop marbles. Do you ever see them roll away after they're dropped? No.
Since only at most one place can be top-centre, if the world were spherical, the marble would roll away in all but at least one location (unless it landed in mud).
Therefore, since the marbles don't roll, they did not land on an incline. Since every place on a sphere is on an incline except two (there is also a bottom-centre) it follows that Earth can't be spherical and must have at least large regions of flatness. It is logical to assume that regions that haven't been tested are also flat (though without empirical testing it may not be stated to be strictly true, and therefore the Earth may not be provably flat everywhere, but it's statistically safe to assert a high probability of it). It IS however, sufficient proof that the world is not spherical.
Oh Yeah?....WHAT flawed assumptions? 
BTW, before you guys start knocking my post, I'll have you know I've done this experiment myself!...Well, maybe not with marbles, but (usually on Saturday nights) I've fallen down all over the place and NOT ONCE did I actually start rolling (it only felt like it). This led me to conclude that alcohol somehow affects my perception of gravity, not gravity itself, which always pulls STRAIGHT DOWN on a FLAT EARTH.
If you're gonna try and disprove my empirically determined, scientific proof your gonna have to come up with better evidence than "so-and-so said..."; You'll have to cite proper sources of your information.
So whatcha got to refute me?...  | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/4/2009 1:46:12 PM | Maybe something was lost in translation, and the belief was actually an insult claiming that the earth was no longer carbonated.
It had become too homogeneous and ran out of zing. 
Then a bunch of aliens came along and shook it all up, to get it bubbling again.
I don't know.
Leave me alone.  | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/4/2009 4:24:50 PM | RE Msg: 15 by JustDukky:
Of course the world is flat. Look, I'll prove it to you.
If you drop a marble on top of a ball, it will always roll off unless it is dropped on the exact top-centre. Now go to at least two distant places and drop marbles. Do you ever see them roll away after they're dropped? No.
Since only at most one place can be top-centre, if the world were spherical, the marble would roll away in all but at least one location (unless it landed in mud). I love your experiment, JustDukky. Only one problem with it. It's not to scale.
If you wanted to duplicate the effect of a marble falling on the Earth, you'd have to use a bead that was to the ball, what the marble is to the Earth. Say the marble is 1 cm across, and the ball is 20 cm across. The Earth is 12,756.32 km, which is 1,275,632,000 cm, over 1 billion cm. So the ratio of the marble to the Earth would be 0.000,000,000,78 and the equivalent bead would be 0.000,000,015,6 cm = 156 picometres, which is close to the diameter of a single Argon atom, at 71 picometres. But even then, at that size, a ball has huge holes in it, that the atom could easily fall through.
OT....
It really doesn't make any sense to me that anyone would think that anyone in Medieval Europe believed in a Flat Earth. But it would be great to claim that other people believed that. Just think: if we would only claim that the Taleban believe the Earth is flat, then we could claim that the only reason that they fight the US is because they are just ignorant, and if only we forced them to accept our values and our education, they would see just how right we are. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/4/2009 4:49:01 PM | No Star, you do not live on flatland. Where you live is concave.....until next month
Lived, past tense. Dropped the 'd' originally. Every now and then, though, my mind goes back. Especially when I hear the phrase "but it's a dry cold."
Spent my 11th birthday filling sandbags with my family. that was a ton of fun! | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/13/2009 6:18:04 AM | @ Scorp
<div class="quote">I love your experiment, JustDukky. Only one problem with it. It's not to scale.
Okay Mr. Smartypants... You asked for it!... Let's scrap the "marble" argument for the moment. If the Earth wasn't flat, all the water would quickly run off and the oceans would dry up. In fact even on a flat Earth that would happen (albeit more slowly). It is therefore logical to conclude that Earth has a raised rim to keep the oceans in, or is slightly bowl-shaped (support for the Concave Earth Theory). I of course subscribe to the former hypothesis since those "Concave Earthers" are a bunch of nut cases with no scientific credibility! | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/13/2009 9:22:13 AM | And to complicate matters; some madman has just come in here claiming that the Earth also spins!...
We quickly disproved this nonsense by pouring water into a bowl...
See?... If the Earth were spinning, the water would climb the sides of the vessel; yet it remains motionless and flat....
And yet he argues; and remains adamant...
Guards!... Seize this lunatic and remove him to the courtyard... And you, there... Go fetch some wood and kindling... | |
|
| |
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/13/2009 9:43:45 AM | I don't that the "Flat Earth" theory was ever very common...
At least among:
1) Anybody who lived the mountains
2) Anybody who lives someplace REALLY flat
3) Anybody who sailed out sight of land
Because anybody in the above three group would see that the Earth curves at the horizon.
I think that "Flat Earth" was an early urban legend..and nothing more. | |
|
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/13/2009 9:49:20 AM | Maybe the earth IS flat; unless YOU personally sailed around the globe, how would you know? I mean...come on! If they can fake a "moon landing", how hard could it possibly be to fake a couple pictures of a "round" earth?
Next you'll be telling me "dinasaurs" are real. Sheesh!  | |
|
| |
| Who believed the Earth is Flat???
Posted: 4/14/2009 11:29:20 AM | | I will fully support the flat earth theorists until someone buys me a(or multiple, if needed) plane tickets so I can fly 'around' the planet. | |
|
Home
login 
