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Why did Greek philosophers first propose that the Earth is round?
In ancient times, humans had a very different understanding of the shape of the earth than today. Many early cultures, including the peoples of the ancient Near East, believed that the earth was flat. However, with the rise of Greek philosophy, a whole new perspective on the shape of the earth was put forward, which brought attention to the concept of a circular earth.
In the 6th century BC, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras first proposed the idea that the earth is spherical. Inspired by astronomical observations, he began to doubt the traditional flat-earth cosmology by observing the movement of celestial bodies. Ancient astronomers made early explorations of the movements of stars and celestial bodies using intuition and observation, which laid the foundation for the idea that the Earth is round.
Pidaclis believed that the roundness of the Earth made observations in the starry sky more consistent, and that observing the stars from different locations should have different perspectives, all of which could be explained by the round Earth of.
Over time, this view gained wider support. In the 4th century BC, another great philosopher, Plato, also began to push the argument of a circular earth through rational thinking, emphasizing the perfection and symmetry of the circle. Soon, Aristotle also provided important evidence supporting the argument that the earth was circular. He observed that no matter where people looked at the moon, they saw circular shadows, which indicated that the earth was necessarily round.
The arguments put forward by Aristotle include: As the ship sailed far away, the first thing to disappear was the ship's hull, then the masts, a phenomenon that cannot be explained by the flat-earth universe.
These philosophical observations of Greece challenged earlier ideas of flat earth and laid the foundation for later astronomy. At this time, ancient Greek culture was in a golden period, and the blending of science and philosophy promoted human understanding of the natural world. Not only in Greece, ideas of a new understanding of the shape of the earth gradually spread outward from the Greek world and gradually attracted the attention of other cultures.
During this period, many scholars began exploring other parts of the universe. The ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes successfully calculated the circumference of the earth in the 3rd century BC, based on his observations of shadows. He used the difference in height between Aswan and Alexander to calculate and derive the radius of the Earth. This achievement further validates the idea of a round earth.
Despite the mainstream recognition of the circular earth idea in the Greek intellectual community, ancient China still held a view of flat earth, an idea that did not change before the 17th century. Many texts record the ancient Chinese understanding of the earth as flat and clearly distinguished from celestial bodies. For example, the ancient Chinese scholar Zhang Heng compared the earth to an egg yolk, expressing the relative relationship between the earth and the celestial bodies.
Ancient Chinese astronomy failed to develop the concept of a circular earth, and it was not until the introduction of foreign technology that it gradually changed the view of the universe. The "round sky and earth" became an inherent vision of ancient Chinese astronomy, and the contrast between the elements formed a completely different view of the universe from that of Greece.
With the introduction of Christianity, the idea of a round earth was still maintained in some areas. The early Christians also gradually accepted this view because it was in line with their understanding of God's creation of the world. At the same time, however, the belief in the flat earth persisted in a significant portion of society and was used to disprove the theories of some early philosophers.
In general, although the ideas of Greek philosophers paved the way for the idea of a round earth and made it an important foundation for the scientific community, cultures around the world maintained different perceptions of this idea . This historical process turned the recognition of shape into a debate about the intertwining of faith and science.
From ancient times to modern times, the exploration and understanding of the shape of the earth is still going on, and various theories and perspectives collide. What new insights will emerge in future scientific development?
