Was Columbus the first person to discover that the earth is round?

Answer 1

No, Galileo is credited with discovering the telescope. The discovery that the Earth was round was thousands of years earlier. He did agree with Copernicus that the earth revolved around the sun. Around 150 AD, Claudius Ptolemy, a Greek geographer, drew maps that showed the earth as curved.

Answer 2

No, Columbus was not the first person to discover that the Earth is round. The ancient Greeks were among the first to propose a spherical Earth, and this idea was widely accepted by Columbus's time. Columbus's accomplishment was more in proving that one could reach Asia by sailing west from Europe.

Answer 3

Pythagoras reasoned that if the Moon was round, then the Earth must be round as well. After that, sometime between 500 B.C. and 430 B.C., a fellow called Anaxagoras determined the true cause of solar and lunar eclipses - and then the shape of the Earth's shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse was also used as evidence that the Earth was round.

Answer 4

We do not know who was the FIRST to argue that the Earth is round, but 2400 years ago, the Greek and Phoenician astronomers and mathematicians already knew it. The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes calculated the diameter if the Earth quite accurately by observing that on the summer solstice, the Sun's light would shine straight down into a deep well, but on the same date in another city, the Sun's rays strike the Earth at an angle.

Answer 5

To PROVE it? Juan Sebastián Elcano, who took over the command of the flotilla of three vessels (Concepción, Trinidad and Victoria) which had sailed from Spain under the command of Ferdinand Magellan. Magellan himself was killed in what are now the Philippine Islands, and only the vessel Victoria with Elcano in command returned to Spain three years later, having completed the first circumnavigation of the world.

However, observers since the ancient Greeks on had known that the world was a sphere, and even calculated its size within a few percent of the actual value. But there is a difference between KNOWING that something is true, and providing PROOF.

Answer 6

Early sailors and people living on the coast were probably the first to learn this. As a ship sails away from shore, the coastline sinks out of view, and only tall buildings or mountains remain visible. From the shore, the hull of the ship disappears while its masts are still visible, indicating that the ship is going DOWN - which only makes sense if the Earth is curved. That's why ships' lookouts are in the "crow's nest" at the top of the mast, or why lighthouses are made to be very tall.

Another persuasive piece of evidence is the appearance of the CURVED shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse; we can plainly see that the Earth is round.

In 240 BC, the mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes of Alexandria was able to calculate the size of the Earth by knowing that on a particular day, the Sun was directly overhead at noon at one city, and several degrees off the vertical at noon in another.

Answer 7

Every intelligent person since the ancient Greeks knew that the Earth was round, but nobody actually sailed all the way around until the expedition originally headed by Ferdinand Magellan.

Magellan himself was killed having crossed only about 2/3 of the Earth's circumference.

Answer 8

The length of the shadow of a vertical stick stuck in the ground at midday in two places many miles apart. This told him that the verticals must be at an angle to each other, and scaling this angle up to 360 degrees gives the circumference of the earth by using the same scaling factor with the separation of the locations.

Answer 9

At noon, on the summer solstice, there is a well in Syene where the sunlight shines straight down to the bottom. Upon witnessing this, Eratosthenes waited until the solstice came again and measured the angle of the shadow cast into a well in Alexandria. This told him the difference in angle between the two cities along a curve, and he already knew the distance (in stadia). Associating the two, he multiplied the distance enough to equal 360 degrees. This was the circumference of the Earth. He was actually slightly off, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere and Alexandria isn't perfectly north of Syene, but he was amazingly close.

Answer 10

The earth actually isn't round, it is a slight oval shape, though it is easier to draw it a complete sphere on maps. I know that people used to think the earth was flat, and tried to find out where it ended, but I think they travelled round the world and ended up in the same place again, then came to the conclusion that the earth is round.