Flat Earth

^{Did you know that there are still people who continue to  believe the earth is flat?  Yup. They even hold an annual conference of Flat Earth believers.  And they have a dating app for use by their adherents.  As many as one of every six Americans are unconvinced the earth is a sphere and cling to the ancient cosmology that the earth is flat like a disc and and encircled by water at the edge.}   

^{The idea that the earth is a sphere took hold in early Christian church theology - which mistakenly clung to the belief that the earth was also the center of the universe.  So it took some time to straighten that out.  If you believe in science the flat earth conspiracy is especially cringe-worthy.  Nevertheless, not much surprises me nowadays.}  

^{This post is not intended to provoke controversy or a theological debate - rather to indulge my appreciation of astronomy and take a stroll down memory lane to revisit a a favorite program I enjoyed watching on a weekly basis.}  

^{Forty years ago - with the first episode of "Cosmos" - Carl Sagan easily proved the Earth was a sphere using a piece of cardboard, some sticks, and the work of an ancient Libyan-Greek scholar, Eratosthenes.} 

^{Considering the distance between the two cities and the lengths of the shadows they produced, Eratosthenes was able to determine that the Earth had a seven-degree curve. He used that calculation to speculate the Earth was 25,000 miles in circumference.}

^{These days we know that the earth is 24,860 miles in circumference. Eratosthenes was off by 140 miles.} 

^{Not bad for a scientist living 2000 years ago.}