FM> FR> Right, but Eratosthenes knew it was a sphere using sticks and shadows 
at
FM> FR> the bottom of wells.  In one of my write-up about Christopher 
Columbus,
FM> FR> I have:
[...]
FM> FR> [2] The Earth's circumference is 24,902 miles.  The Greeks had come
FM> FR> within 10% to 15% of this value (being off by 2,500 to some 3,750
FM> FR> miles.)  It wasn't until 1615 that Dutch mathematician Willebrord van
FM> FR> Roijen SNELL derived a value optically to within 5% of the actual 
ize
FM> FR> (being off by some 1,250 miles.)  Columbus's "lord," however, gave 
im
FM> FR> several guesses -- all of them much too short!  No wonder Columbus
FM> FR> missed:  He worshipped a lying god.
FM>   This is a perfect example of the Goebbels method of including the big 
lie
FM>in a perfect system of truths.  Since Columbus was not perfect in his
FM>geography and he WAS a devout Christian as were most of the scientists far
FM>beyond the period of his voyages, ergo, he was a kind of fool.  I'm 
surprised
FM>you didn't point out that he was also a lousy administrator because he 
s.
Chris's estimate of the earth's circumference came from a guy named
Poseidonus, who did his work about a century after Eratosthenes.
Like E., P.'s methodology was fine but his data were far from exact.
E. worked out the land distance from Alaxandria to some southern city
by estimating how far feright camels could travel in a day.  P. used
the time it took a ship to travel from port to port on the ocean sea.
P. ended up with a circumference of about 20,000 - odd miles.  This
was reported by Ptolemy and eventually got to ol' Cristoforo.
Interestingly, Columbus may have had good reason to think there
was land 4-5,000 miles to the west, even if he still thought it was
China.  He probably knew that just 10-some years before, the Portuguese
and Swedes had visited Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.  (In case you
ever wondered what a Latin word like Labrador is doing up there in
Canada, well, it's Portuguese.)
FM>Why NOT knock him down further.  For all of his troubles and even the
FM>near-conciousness (when he saw the fresh waters of the Orinoco on the 
hird
FM>voyage) that he was in "another world" his "masters" deprived him of his 
"pay
FM>and his heirs only inherited a small strip of land along the Honduran 
coast.
FM>You can score big with modern bigots by attacking him.
This all reminds me of "Stan Freberg Presents the United States
of America," from the fifties:
   INDIAN: What you mean, you discover us?  _We_ discover _you_,
           right here on beach!  Is all how you look at it.
 COLUMBUS: I suppose.
 * SLMR 2.1a *   Zen football:  A long pass out of the I formation.
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