Talk:Spherical Earth
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Do you happen to have a source for the length of the "stade". I recall reading somewhere that figure for the stade was derived from that very same measurement by erastothenes. In other words, a pure case of circular reasoning: "We know the correct circumference of the earth, Erastothenes measured it in stades, hence we can assume that the stade was approximately such and such long. Now, let's see how close Erastothenes got when he measured the earth... WOW! Almost on the nose!!!". -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 14:07 25 May 2003 (UTC)
I vote against merging the articles.
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[edit] Please use modern dating
Meaning BCE and CE. Outdated models like BC and AD should not be part of the encyclopedia. [written by 69.181.136.51 on 23:44, 14 April 2007]
So we object to B-BCE/CE dating systems. Here I was thinking this was all just fashion. Sorry the traditional method offends you (and that I had nothing to do with its use). :OP 209.149.99.2 (talk) 13:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Chinese and others
This article doesn't discuss the views of Chinese and other non-Europeans much at all (except a brief mention of Persians). AFAIK, the Chinese largely believed the world was spherical from early on, before 0 AD I believe. In fact, I'm not even sure whether the idea the world is flat was ever a popular phenomenon at least in recorded history. Someone who knows more about research on the historical views of non-Europeans should add to this and the world is round articles. Nil Einne 15:29, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- As I wrote in Talk:Flat Earth... This article (in Portuguese) says that Chinese only started to discuss the possibility of an spherical earth in the 17th century. I've read other sources agreeing that, during the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Chinese believed in a flat Earth... But I agree that the article should elaborate on the views of non-Europeans. --Leinad ¬
»saudações! 21:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
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- The article on Abubakari II of the Mali Empire alleges that scholars in medieval Timbuktu speculated about a "gourd-shaped world"... I'm not sure how true the claim is.
[edit] Plato
Um... the quote from Plato seems to imply that he thought the world was a dodecahedron - only approximately spherical. Remove or support?
[edit] Climate change
At the end of "In fact, the Earth is reasonably well-approximated by an oblate spheroid,", an editor keeps trying to add: "and some believe that it is due to climate changes (NASA-Most Changes in Earth's Shape Are Due to Changes in Climate)."
Climate affects DEVIATIONS from the ellipsoid. It does not contribute in any way to the basic ellipsoid. Therefore it is a complete misunderstanding of the NASA information to claim, with reference to the ellipsoidal shape, "and some believe that it is due to climate changes". Further, this information is completely out of context and irrelevant to the paragraph and to the entire article. The article does not deal with nuances of the geoid. It deals with how we approximate the earth as a sphere. The influence of climate does not affect that approximation at all. If it did, that information should be included somewhere else in the article, along with HOW it influences the spherical approximation. But it does not affect it and therefore doesn't belong anywhere in this article. There are other articles in which it MIGHT belong, such as "geoid".
Strebe 19:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok fine, the article can then be added under 'external links' I guess.--S3000 11:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- I question its relevance even there. What does it have to do with theories that the Earth was round? -Elmer Clark 09:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Whaaaat?
For fun (and because I needed to calculate the surface area of a slightly smaller planet for a game), I fired up Excel and plugged in the surface area equation, but I got '46,515.04 km' as the return value....not 6,371.007 km. The equation I used is below:
=SQRT(E1*E2/2)
E1=(C1+(B1*C2))/SQRT(C1-C2)
E2=LN(B1+(SQRT(C1-C2))/B2)
Where B1 = a (6,378.14), B2 = b (6,356.75), C1 = a^2 (40680631.59) and C2 = b^2 (40408295.99).
Could someone find where I mucked it up? Blast [improve me] 04.06.07 1931 (UTC)
- Nevermind...bloody misplaced parenthesis. Blast [improve me] 04.06.07 1947 (UTC)
[edit] Discussion of ellipsoidal model, syntax, &c
Pol098, thanks for your contributions. A few notes: the parenthetical text you add in the notes concerning the ellipsoid should go somewhere else, if anywhere. In the form it was in, it associated Pythagoras with the ellipsoid. It also made for extremely ungainly prose.
A sentence fragment after a colon should not be capitalized, but an otherwise complete sentence after a colon should.
It is best to keep numbers consistent throughout, which is one reason for reverting the sub-millimeter accuracy of your numbers. The other reason is as the disclaimer states, which you also tried to delete. The disclaimer is useful, since, like you, people have (a) supplied precision inconsistent with other values; and (b) wondered why we don't provide 11 digits (or whatever their favorite number is). Since geodesy has certain expectations for precision, the article distances itself from those expectations and gives a cogent reason. Strebe (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Pythagoras and Spherical Earth
Okay . . . just a few seconds ago I read something really scholarly on google books that said Pythagoras believed the Earth was plate shaped. Another site said we don't know what he believed at all. Whom am I to believe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.149.99.2 (talk) 13:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] The book of Job
I'm no Christian apologetic, but this article seems to suggest that the Book of Job may've suggested that the Earth was spherical. Even if this is a metter of debate, should this not be mentioned? IDX (talk) 18:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
- The argument is not compelling enough to mention. It is not research. The author of that article works off the premise that "circle" refers to "sphere". It does not, and the fact that the author does not even discuss the assumption proves "his" argument is either deliberate propaganda or simple ignorance. The notion of the earth as a "disc" is found in many mythologies across the earth. It is not related to the notion of a spherical earth in any useful way. Strebe (talk) 22:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Earth is awesome
Earth is the only planet that can have liquid water and hold life. Earthis the third planet from the sun, so it has the perfect climate to have liquid water. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.181.138 (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
