Earth Spherical facts
While investigating facts about Earth Spherical, I found out little known, but curios details like:
People of the Middle Ages widely accepted the Earth was spherical. The notion they thought the world was flat is actually a misconception.
Virtually all Middle Ages scholars believed that the Earth is spherical. The myth that people in the Middle Ages thought the earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 17 of the best facts about Earth Spherical I managed to collect.
-
About the concave hollow earth theory, which claims that humans live on the inside surface of a hollow spherical world, with the universe on the inside. Hitler supposedly believed this, and pointed infrared cameras into the night sky in an attempt to spy on the British.
-
Zoroastrianism (dating back to 2000 BC) is the only religion which has a creationism myth based on the contemporary Spherical Earth
-
The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to the 6th century BC and it was confirmed by Hellenistic astronomy in the 3rd century BC
-
The earth was known to be spherical by most European scholars since the 3rd century bc
-
The observable universe is a spherical region of the Universe comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth at the present time, because electromagnetic radiation from these objects have had time to reach Earth since the Big Bang. Everywhere has its own observable universe
-
The sphericity of the Earth was established by Greek astronomy in the 3rd century BC, and the earliest terrestrial globe appeared from that period.
-
Ancient Greeks figured out the Earth was spherical!
-
The Chinese never calculated the circumference of the Earth. Where Eratosthenes assumed the Earth was spherical and the Sun was infinitely far away, the Chinese assumed that the Earth was flat and the Sun was just close above; the maths works either way
-
the founder of Boko Haram rejected the concepts of evaporation and a spherical Earth.
-
Columbus didn't think the earth was spherical, and actually thought the earth was shaped like a pear, the top of which had "a prominence like a woman's nipple".
What is true about earth spherical?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
The Earth is not perfectly spherical. Its larger at the Equator by ~20km due to centrifugal force. Also, things weigh 0.35% more at the poles because of it.
In 1956, Samuel Shenton set up the International Flat Earth Research Society (IFERS), hoping to reach children before they were convinced about a spherical Earth. - source
34% of Americans aged 18-24 are unsure if the earth is spherical. - source
The official unit measurement of a kilogram is based of an actual, physical item. That is, however, being changed thanks to the creation of the most spherical object on Earth.
Even in the Middle Ages, educated people didn't think the Earth was flat. Knowledge of Earth's sphericity has been widely accepted for >2,000 years - source
