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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (554637)	3/11/2010 9:41:48 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571806

One of the big surprises when troops got to Afghanistan was how mnay people there today do not know the world is round. Uneducated individuals are ignorant about many things. That's nothing new. But its been well known (among educated people) that the earth isn't flat even in ancient times. Eratosthenes even calculated the size pretty accurately around 240 BC (and he may only be the first we know about, not the first). The ancient Greeks measured the diameter within 25 miles as I remember. Not that close, but depending on the exact units he was using Eratosthenes was less than 1% (or 250 miles or less) off to about 16% off. But I think most of the world thought the world was flat until Columbus. A lot of people where uneducated. They may have thought the Earth was flat. Columbus, and the court of Spain who paid for his journey didn't. Most of the educated Europeans (admittedly a small percentage of the population at the time) didn't either. Certainly no one ever tried to cross the atlantic (that we know of), except the Vikings years earlier. "That we know of" and "except the Vikings" really weaken your statement. Also the reason for the lack of crossing wasn't a general belief that you would fall off the edge of a flat world, but the risks and costs of a long sea voyage combined with strong uncertainty about getting any return.