History of Science Online - Course Info - Time tips - Semester Schedule - Weekly Assignments - Timeline - Projects - Week 1: Beginnings, Stonehenge, and the Shape of the Earth

Reading 2 + quiz: Shape of the Earth

#	Due Date	Pts	Activity	Time
3	Thursday 11:59 p.m.	10	Reading 2 + Quiz Primary sources: without documentary evidence, history is speculation.	60-90 min

This week the Reading 2 assignment is a presentation, written in a fictional dialog style, that I hope you will find to be fun and engaging. It surveys the history of ideas about the Shape of the Earth. The assignment is available in three formats: (1) text and images; (2) audio; or (3) video. (About these media formats)

I hope you will watch the video instead of just reading the text (more on video formats below). But first, just for laughs, you might want to visit the Flat Earth Society website:

1. Go to http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/
2. Once there, click "Join us" (it's free and anonymous), to go the forums.
3. Click the top link for "Flat Earth Questions and Clarification."
4. Now read their FAQ, "Flat Earth FAQ - Read This!"

This site is maintained by "true believers," who seriously advocate that the Earth is flat, somewhat like this:

You're probably wondering how they explain the photographs of Earth from space...

Indeed, modern flat-Earthers dismiss such evidence by arguing that the government of the USA, and indeed of the whole world, is organized to propagate a round Earth conspiracy. The above-cited FAQ explains: "They only appear to be disorganized to make the conspiracy seem implausible."

This claim reminds me of the Will Rogers' comment: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

For more information, you are welcome to browse The Zetetic Society journal, their official early 20th century mouthpiece which is held in the OU History of Science Collections.

However, the thing that too many people fail to understand is that these flat-Earthers are a modern phenomenon, not a medieval or early modern movement. They arose in reaction to polarizing rhetoric about scientific authority in the late 19th century. Yes, that's right, they're of recent origin. But most people take them as proof of the pre-modern belief in a flat earth, which they are not. The story of the shape of the Earth is much more interesting than many suppose.

I hope you enjoy watching the video for this story half as much as I enjoyed making it!

Tips: If you have broadband access, I highly recommend watching the video in order to gain a general sense of the material. Because the video version conveys the images and the description of the images simultaneously, the video presents the material faster and more efficiently than reading the text first and then cross-referencing text and related images. Print out the questions below and you can answer them as you watch and listen. On the other hand, there is also an audio version that is simply the soundtrack of the video, identical to the video except for lack of images. You can download the audio onto an iPod or mp3 player and listen during your commute or while doing the dishes. To review before taking the quiz, after watching video or listening to audio, you can always go to the text version as needed to answer the questions below and fill in any gaps that did not seem particularly clear. But the video is all you need. The text version does contain a few extra explanations, additional source quotations, and documentation in footnotes if you want to check up on a particular aspect. The questions listed below (used for the quiz) can be answered using the video or audio version alone; they do not depend on the added material in the text version.

Choose a format, and click the first-row link at the top of the column of your choice:

Choose link:	Shape of the Earth	Shape of the Earth listen or download	Shape of the Earth links available at Exhbits Online
Description	Read text & browse thumbnails (Exhibits Online)	mp3 (open in new browser window to listen to while you read Exhibits Online, or download to burn to CD or transfer to mp3 player)	Streaming video (size will vary depending on your connection speed)
Access	Dial-up or Broadband	Broadband only	Broadband only
Requires	Web browser	Web browser; or iTunes or other CD burning software, or mp3 player (eg iPod)	QuickTime player

Troubleshooting tips

1. T or F? A famous woodcut of a medieval figure gazing beyond the heavens provides evidence of medieval belief in a flat Earth.
2. T or F? The Pythagoreans argued that the Earth is a sphere because the sphere is the most beautiful shape.
3. T or F? The Pythagoreans argued that the Earth is a sphere because of an analogy between the macrocosm (universe) and microcosm (Earth).
4. T or F? Aristotle’s theory of gravity required the Earth to be flat.
5. T or F? Lunar eclipses prove that the Earth is a sphere.
6. T or F? Roman writers such as Cicero and Pliny believed the Earth is flat.
7. T or F? Catholic theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas believed the Earth is flat.
8. T or F? Belief in a spherical Earth was considered heresy by popes in the middle ages.
9. T or F? Medieval natural philosophers such as William of Ockham and Nicole Oresme believed the Earth is flat.
10. T or F? Columbus argued that he could sail around the world against Spanish Inquisitors who thought the Earth was flat.
11. T or F? Circumpolar stars may dip below the horizon as they make their daily circle around the north star.
12. T or F? The ancient Librarian of Alexandria, Eratosthenes, accurately determined the circumference of the Earth.
13. T or F? The necessity for the International Date Line was not recognized until the journeys of Columbus and later voyagers.
14. T or F? Stars appear to rise in the east , turn overhead, and set in the west just as if they were fixed to the inside of a giant celestial sphere.
15. T or F? Fixed stars appear to move in circles around the Earth at a constant distance from the north pole or from the celestial equator.
16. T or F? Belief in a spherical Earth was suppressed by kings in the middle ages.
17. T or F? The existence of time zones confirms that the surface of the Earth is curved from east to west.
18. T or F? The change of visible circumpolar stars confirms that the surface of the Earth is curved from north to south.
19. T or F? Medieval writers of literature such as Dante and Chaucer believed the Earth is flat.
20. T or F? Ancient Greeks from Plato to Aristotle to Ptolemy thought the Earth is flat.

	HSCI 3013. History of Science to 17th century Kerry Magruder, 2004-08 Report typos or broken links Many thanks to Mythology and Folklore and other online courses developed by Laura Gibbs.	Search course websites:
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