"Eratosthenes... knew that the Sun was straight overhead in... Syene at noon on the , but that it was 7.2 degrees south of straight overhead in , located 794 kilometers farther north. He concluded... 794 kilometers corresponded to 7.2 degrees out of the 360 degrees... around Earth's circumference, so that the circumference must be 794 km x 360°/7.2°≈39,700 km... remarkably close to the modern value of 40,000 km. Amusingly Christopher Columbus totally bungled this... confusing Arabic miles with Italian miles..."
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Mathematicians from GreeceAstronomers from GreeceLibrariansHistorians from GreeceGeographers from Greece
Original Language: English
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Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
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Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 BC – c. 195/194 BC) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. He invented the discipline of geography, including the terminology used today.
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