Cosmos - Eratosthenes calculates Earth's circumference

In the 3rd century BCE, Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth to high precision.

Further Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

This is a short segment from the series Cosmos by the late Carl Sagan. The most poetic popularizer of science in the 20th century.

If you have never seen Cosmos, I strongly recommend it. It's full of great stories like this one. It is available on DVD, in 7 subtitle languages. Purchase links are below.

http://www.carlsagan.com/
http://shopping.discovery.com/product-29356.html?jzid=40602354-0-0
http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan-Jarom%EDr-Hanzl%EDk/dp/B000055ZOB/sr=...

Spanish version are available from DVDGO
http://www.dvdgo.com/

It is also availabe in Portuguese from the Brazilian web site, Loja Abril:
http://www.lojaabril.com.br/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Cosmos
• Carl
• Sagan
• Eratosthenes

[Elijah101112cool]

thumbs up if college humor brought you here...

[MrJohnthedoe]

"thumbs up if you knew about carl sagan before this because you saw the family guy episode..."

That comment made me lose my faith in humanity

[mchandler2112]

Anyone else find this absolutely beautiful?

"But Eratosthenes was a scientist."

A normal person wouldn't have been able to conceive what the significance of the shadows meant. A preacher would've attributed it to whatever god he worshiped. But Eratosthenes was a scientist. What a beautiful statement!

[jakemorris111]

this man...has wonderful hair...

[MIDNAq1LINK]

Amazing!

[sairus002]

@Foreverclever87 You're right. It's not science itself that causes the damage but rather how we apply our findings and how we acquire our data, which is all governed by human greed and lust for rapid advancement

[Foreverclever87]

@sairus002 ah yes, I see it now.

[sairus002]

@Foreverclever87 Pretty much every advancement in the medical field involves cruel experiments. My other reply has my views on other technologies

[Foreverclever87]

@sairus002 Are you referring to experiments done to animals? Doesn't that constitute a rather small portion of what we would call "experimental science"? What about everything else? Oh, and I don't disagree with you about experiments on animals.

[sairus002]

@Foreverclever87 As for other technologies and sciences, it always leads to commercialization, which leads to chemical waste in the waters, pollution in the air, and more land taken from wildlife. Science in itself isn't negative I suppose, but in this corporate driven society people's ambitions cause them to throw morality out the window in the name of faster advancement and profit.

[sairus002]

@Foreverclever87 Those medical advancements come at great cost. I suppose you may think I'm weird for saying this, but I don't think the ends justify the means when It comes to medical tech. I don't think any research should be made if it involves painful deaths of hundreds of living things in order to get those results. Honestly, I'd rather die from cancer than to benefit from that suffering. I'm sensitive to these things. The research should be done a different way, even if it takes longer.

[Foreverclever87]

@sairus002 Can you give me examples of the damage? I agree, but I think about it differently. I think human greed causes the damage, it just so happens that humans have incredible access to machines and energy and so are able to fulfill their greed in new and inventive ways. But it can also work opposite of that. Look at Tesla, for example.