Who Discovered the Spherical Nature of the Earth?

When Columbus lived, people thought that the earth was flat. They believed
the Atlantic Ocean to be filled with monsters large enough to devour their ships,
and with fearful waterfalls over which their frail vessels would plunge to
destruction. Columbus had to fight these foolish beliefs in order to get men to
sail with him. He felt sure the earth was round.
Emma Miler Bolenius, American Schoolbook Author, 1919
One of the most enduring myths that children grow up with is the idea that
Columbus was the only one of his time who believed that the Earth was round;
everyone else believed it was flat. How brave the sailors of 1492 must have
been, you might imagine, to travel towards the edge of the world without fear
of falling off!
Indeed, there are many ancient references to the Earth being shaped like
a disc. And if you knew only of the two most important astronomical objects in
the sky the Sun and the Moon you yourself might reach the same
conclusions.
If you go outside during sunset a day or two after the new moon, heres
the sight youre likely to encounter.

A thin sliver of Moon, where the illuminated portion appears to coincide with the
same portion of a sphere that could be lit up by the Sun.
If you were both curious and scientifically-minded, you might go out after
sunset during the next few days to see what happened next. In fact, if you were
to go outside and look towards the southwest skies (assuming you, like me, live
in the Northern hemisphere) during the coming days of September 29th to
October 3rd, at sunset (~6:30 PM) each night, youd notice something changing
about the Moon.

Not only does it appear to shift position by about 12 degrees each night,
moving farther away from the Sun, but it appears that progressively more and
more of it gets illuminated! And you would (rightly) conclude that perhaps the
Moon orbits the Earth, and that its apparent change in phase is caused by light
from the Sun illuminating different parts of a spherically-shaped Moon.
In fact, this is both the ancient and modern view of what causes the phases of
the Moon.

But about twice a year, something special happens during the Full Moon
that allows us to determine something about the shape of the Earth: a lunar
eclipse! When the Moon is full and the Earth passes directly between the Sun
and the Moon, the Earths shadow shows up on the Moons surface! And if you
look at the shadow that actually shows up on the surface of the Moon, you can
clearly see that the Earths shadow is curved, and shaped like a disc!

But this doesnt tell you whether the Earth is a flat disc or a round sphere;
it only tells you that the shadow cast by the Earth is circular. In principle, just
from looking at the Moon, the Earth could be either flat or round.

But contrary to popular belief, this question wasnt settled in the 1400s
and 1500s (with Magellans circumnavigation of the globe), but more than 2,000
years ago, in the ancient world! And whats perhaps most amazing? It was done
using nothing more than the Sun. Heres how.

If you follow the Suns path through the daytime sky, and you live in the
Northern hemisphere, youll find that it rises in the eastern part of the sky, rises
up to its apex in the south, and then lowers and sets in the west. And it does this
every day of the year.
But it doesnt take the exact same path every day out of the year; the Sun
reaches a much higher point (and shines for more hours during the day) during
the summer months, and reaches a significantly lower point (and shines for
fewer hours) during the winter. To dramatically illustrate this, heres a time-lapse
photo of the Suns path through the sky taken during the winter solstice in
Fairbanks, Alaska.

In fact, if you charted out the Suns path through the daytime sky, you
would find that it takes its lowest path (for the fewest number of hours) on the
Winter Solstice usually December 21st and its highest path (for the greatest
number of hours) on the Summer Solstice, usually June 21st.
If you constructed a camera capable of photographing the Suns path
through the sky over the course of the year, you would find exactly this: a series
of arcs, where the highest, longest arc through the sky was made during the
Summer Solstice and the lowest, shortest arc was made during the Winter
Solstice.
And in the ancient world, the greatest scholars and scientists from Egypt,
Greece, and all over the Mediterranean went to work at the Library of Alexandria.
One of these scientists was the Ancient Greek Astronomer, Eratosthenes of
Cyrene.
While living in Alexandria, Eratosthenes received some amazing
correspondence from the city of Syene in southern Egypt. In particular, it said
that, on the Summer Solstice, the shadow of someone looking down a deep well
would block the reflection of the Sun at noon. In other words, the Sun would be
directly overhead at this time, not a single degree to the South, North, East or
West. And if you had a completely vertical object, it would cast absolutely no
shadow.
But Eratosthenes knew that this wasnt the case where he was, in
Alexandria. Sure, the Sun came closer to being directly overhead at Noon on the
Summer Solstice in Alexandria than at any other time during the year, but
vertical objects still cast shadows.
And like any good scientist Eratosthenes did the experiment. By
measuring the length of the shadow cast by a vertical stick during the solstice
noon, he could figure out what angle the Sun made with the vertical direction at
Alexandria.
And the answer he got was one-fiftieth of a circle, or 7.2 degrees. But at
this time, in Syene, the angle the Sun was making with an identical vertical stick
was zero degrees! What could be causing this? In perhaps a stroke of genius,
Eratosthenes realized that the Suns rays could all be parallel, and that the Earth
could be curved!
If he could then figure out the distance from Alexandria to Syene, since he
knew the angular difference between the two cities, he could figure out the
circumference of the Earth! If only Eratosthenes had a grad student, he could
have sent one to make the trip, and measure the distance!
Instead, he was forced to rely on the reported distance between the two
cities. The most precise measurement of his day?
Travel-by-camel. (So I can understand criticisms of his accuracy.)
Nevertheless, his results were that the distance between Syene and Alexandria
were 5,000 stadia. The question, of course, is how big is a stadium? The answer
depends, of course, on whether Eratosthenes, a Greek living in Egypt, was using
an Attic stadium or an Egyptian stadium, something still debated among
historians. An Attic stadium was used more commonly, and is 185 meters in

modern terms. Using this value, one gets a circumference of the Earth of 46,620
kilometres, a number thats only about 16% bigger than the actual value.
However, an Egyptian stadium is 157.5 meters, and its conceivable thats
what Eratosthenes meant. In that case, we get a value of 39,375 kilometres,
which is off by less than 2% from the modern value of 40,041 km!
Regardless of what the actual values were, Eratosthenes went on to
become the worlds first geographer, inventing the concepts of latitude and
longitude that we still use today, and constructed the first models and maps
based on a spherical Earth.
Although many things were lost during the subsequent millennium,
neither the idea of a spherical Earth nor the rough knowledge of the Earths
circumference were one of them. In fact, anyone can perform this same
experiment today with two locations at the same longitude, and with
simultaneous measurements of shadow lengths, you too can measure the
circumference of the Earth! Not bad, considering that the first direct,
photographic evidence of the Earths curvature would not arrive until 1946!

Once we knew the shape and size of the Earth from about 240 B.C.
we were able to figure out all sorts of remarkable things, including the size of and
distance to the Moon! So give the credit where credit is due, to Eratosthenes, for
discovering the Earth was round, and performing the first accurate calculation of
its size!
If theres anything Columbus should be known for, as respects the size and
shape of the Earth, it was using unrealistically low numbers for the circumference
of the Earth! His estimates, that he used to convince others that one could sail
from Europe directly to India (were the Americas non-existent), were absurdly
small! Had the Americas not existed, he and his crew surely would have starved
before reaching Asia!