As yes, the "Spherical Earth" thing. When I was young, I was told that
Christopher Columbus came to America to prove that the Earth was
round, since conventional wisdom believed it to be flat.
Of course, the Ancient Greeks already knew about the shape of the
Earth, and what's more, they had a reasonably good idea of the
distance to the Sun!
In the Middle Ages, there was not so much a controversy about that
then. Rather, the problem concerned where the proper "center" of the
universe was. The upheld belief was that the Earth (no surprise!) was
at the center of everything, and therefore the Sun revolved around the
Earth. It was the Roman Catholic Church which pushed this view. (They
conceded that Mercury and Venus orbitted around the Sun, but that the
Sun, Mars, and Jupiter orbitted around Earth.) As astronomers became
better at tracking objects, there was growing pressure to change this
view! Galileo apparently was told by the Church that they already knew
that the Earth orbitted around the Sun, but did not want this
information released to the public, as it would cause a panic. So, he
was not permitted to publish his findings...
And regarding Repbulicans on this email list: Sadly, KG, it is not
always Republicans who make bad choices. Sometimes Democrats make bad
ones as well. And occasionally even Greens, though much less so.
I just thank my lucky stars that I didn't bet anything on the Lakers
last night!
;-)
John
--- In OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com, Bark of Delight
<barkofdelight_at_y...> wrote:
> --- Georgie Hinklemyer <samoolives_at_y...> wrote:
> > It also nicely illustrates how the
> > Greeks figured out about a spherical Earth.
>
> Please, G!
> There are republicans on this email list!
> You don't want to start another argument, do you?
>
> Bark!
>
>
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Received on 2003-05-16 10:23:46