The Shapes of the Earth
NCHALADA LXXIII -- July 16th, 2005, A.M. Session.
John Westfall, Chair
Notes: (1) This outline and references stress developments in western science. Information from participants on the earth models of non-western cultures would be welcome. (2) The birth and death dates of ancient and medieval persons are often uncertain.
Definitions: Geodesy, Ellipsoid, Geoid
Arguments for Flatness: common-sense appearance, the Antipodes problem.
Advocates for Sphericity:
Thales of Miletus (640-545 BCE)
Anaximander of Miletus (611-547 BCE)
Pythagoras (582-500 BCE); argument for sphericity
Plato (427-347 BCE); follows Pythagoras
Aristotle (384-422 BCE); more arguments for sphericity
Sphericity assumed by:
Eratosthenes (276-196 BCE)
Hipparchus (65-127 BCE),
Pliny the Elder (23-79)
Ptolemy (90-168)
Spherical Christians:
St. Augustine (354-430)
St. Isidore of Seville (560-636),
Bede (673-735)
Johannes de Sacrobosco (1195-1256)
Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Spherical Muslims; use of astrolabes (11th Cent.)
Evidence against pre-Columbus belief in a flat Earth
Origin of the myth
Motivation for fabricating the myth
Why does the myth persist?
Evidence for
Shapes of Jupiter and Saturn
Varying length of the degree
Varying length/period of the pendulum
Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
Jean Richer (1630-1696)
Prolate vs. Oblate
Jacques J. Cassini (1677-1756) vs. Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
Lapland and Peru Arcs
Refining the ellipsoid:
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle (1688-1768)
James Bradley (1692-1762),
Pierre Bouguer (1698-1758)
Pierre Louis de Maupertuis (1698-1759)
Charles M. La Condamine (1701-1774)
Alexis Claude Clairaut (1713-1765)
Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811)
Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827)
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessell (1784-1846)
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (1793-1864)
George Biddell Airy (1801-1892)
Alexander Ross Clarke (1828-1914)
Frederick Robert Helmert (1843-1917)
Geodetic Arcs
Triaxial Ellipsoids
Discovery of plumb-bob deflection
Artificial satellites
Today’s geoid
The changing geoid
Rear-Guard Flat-Earthers
Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus; 99-55 BCE).
Lactantius (Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius; 245-325)
St. John Chrysostom (344-408)
Cosmas Indicopleustes (fl. 547)
Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884)
Wilbur Glenn Voliva (1870-1942)
Hollow-Earthers
Robert Hooke (1635-1703)
Edmund Halley (1656-1742)
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783)
John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829)
Cyrus Reed Teed (1839-1908)
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3. Reference Websites
There are two websites on which many astronomical and historical astronomy references can be found:
http://adswww.harvard.edu -- The Astrophysics Data System, with more than 1 million references plus on-line versions of many astronomical journals, proceedings and observatory publications.
http://galica.bnf.fr -- The French National Library website, with online versions of such periodicals as the Comptes Rendus (1835-1934), Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences (1700/1666-1788; continued by the Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences de l’Institut de France, 1806-1934), and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1665-1934).