Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site 3comvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm From: michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: The Rock of Ages and the Ages of Rocks (Big Lie, Part 1) Message-ID: <253@3comvax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 15:59:37 EST Article-I.D.: 3comvax.253 Posted: Mon Oct 28 15:59:37 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 06:18:53 EST References: <430@imsvax.UUCP> Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA Lines: 110 [all persons stand back of white line.] Since Ted Holden makes so many relatively unrelated statements and claims in his articles, when it makes sense I'll try to reply to separate questions separately. Now begins part 1 in a new series! > 2. The big lie: The ancients saw the world as a small flat > place, and typically knew little of the world beyond their > own back yards. > > The reality, from Ovid's "Metamorphoses: > > "When God, whichever God he was, created > The universe we know, he made of earth > A turning sphere so delicately poised > That water flowed in waves beneath the wind.... > God made zones on earth, the fifth zone naked > With heat where none may live, at each extreme > A land of snow (the poles), and, at their side, two zones > Of temperate winds and sun and shifting cold." Ho, hum. This is a big lie only to persons as ignorant as Ted Holden. There is, of course, a childhood myth nowadays that people in the past thought that the world was flat and Columbus, the lone far thinker of his day, set out and proved them all wrong. In fact, all educated persons knew not only during the Renaissance but during ancient times that the Earth is spherical. Aristotle demonstrated the sphericity of the Earth quite convincingly with arguments as valid today as they were in 330 B.C. After mentioning some *logical* arguments for the Earth's sphericity (which have *not* held up), Aristotle writes: The evidence of the senses further corroborates this. How else would eclipses of the moon show segments shaped as we see them? As it is, the shapes which the moon itself each month shows are of every kind -- straight, gibbous, and concave -- but in eclipses the outline is always curved: and, since it is the interposition of the earth that makes the eclipse, the form of this line will be caused by the form of the earth's surface, which is therefore spherical. Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only that the earth is circular, but that it is a circle of no great size. For quite a small change of position to south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon. There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead, and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or southward. Indeed there are some stars seen in Egypt and in the neighborhood of Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions; and stars, which in the north are never beyond range of observation, in those regions rise and set. All of which goes to show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but also that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be so quickly apparent. Hence one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the view of those who conceive that there is continuity between the parts about the pillars of Hercules and the parts about India, and that in this way the ocean is one. [1] Thus was laid, almost two thousand years before, the philosophical basis for Columbus's voyage. In addition to discovering the Earth's sphericity, ancient Greek mathematicians measured the angles formed by stars at differing latitudes and calculated the size of the Earth, ending up with a value close what we know today. The only problem for Columbus was, the distances they calculated would have left him starving in mid Ocean, long before reaching the Indies. Columbus, though, had found another estimate for the size of the Earth, which placed the Indies somewhat closer to Europe, and he wanted to risk it. The Portuguese, when Columbus petitioned them to fund his expedition, quite properly looked askance at risking lives, ships, and treasure on an undertaking with such shaky underpinnings, and turned him down flat, so to speak. The Spaniards, perhaps less sea-wise, perhaps fired up from their victory that very year over the Moors, were less cautious. Who would have dreamed, or at least risked ships on, the proposition that there were entire unknown continents floating out there in the deep? So, what do the Portuguese get for making the logically correct decision? Schoolkids are taught to sneer at them! It wasn't just the ancients' thoughts that ranged widely, they also traveled bodily far and wide. The Greeks knew India and the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar). The Romans opened up the overland trade route to China. Before the Greeks, there's good reason to believe that the Phoenicians sailed to Britain and all the way around Africa. Educated people of the past knew all of this. Any educated person today who investigates the matter knows that they knew it. Now Ted Holden has stumbled across part of it (Ovid, for example) and runs around yelling about "big lies." Ridiculous! Ovid lived 300 years after Aristotle! The "big lie," I'd say, lies fallow in Ted's mouth. -- Reference [1] Aristotle, "On the Heavens," Book II, Chapter 14, *The Works of Aristotle*, Oxford University Press, pp. 297-298. -- Michael McNeil 3Com Corporation "All disclaimers including this one apply" (415) 960-9367 ..!ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe is listening to us -- and that every word we say echoes to the remotest star. Jean Giraudoux, *The Madwoman of Chaillot*