Thursday, May 17, 2018

LAUAN504 - Study Task 4 - For Arguments Sake

There are many logical reasons that explain why the Earth is a Globe, so i have selected the most obvious examples.



Researched about the more obvious and apparent facets about why the Earth is a Globe.


1. Compare shadows

The first person to estimate the circumference of the Earth was a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes, by comparing shadows on the day of the summer solstice. At noon, when the sun was directly overhead in Aswan, there were no shadows. In Alexandria, a stick set in the ground cast a shadow. Eratosthenes realized that if he knew the angle of the shadow and the distance between the cities, he could calculate the circumference of the globe.

On a flat Earth, there wouldn't have been any difference between the length of the shadows at all. The sun's position would be the same, relative to the ground.



2. Latitude

We can see further the higher we go, for example in space, aircraft or on any high structure, the curvature of the earth is evident visually to the naked eye, because the earth falls away on the horizon.
An example of this would be... in an open world game with maximum draw distance you can see the entire map as flat, on the ground you would be able to see the same distance no matter your elevation. We would be able to see lights from Miami to New York city like we do stars but on the horizon, as a real world example.



3. Eclipses 

Aristotle also bolstered his belief in a round Earth with the observation that during lunar eclipses, the Earth's shadow on the face of the sun is curved. Since this curved shape exists during all lunar eclipses, despite the fact that Earth is rotating, Aristotle correctly intuited from this curved shadow that the Earth is curvy all around — in other words, a sphere.




4. Constellations

Different constellations are visible from different latitudes on Earth.




5. Horizon

When a ship sails off toward the horizon, it doesn't just get smaller and smaller until it's not visible anymore. Instead, the hull seems to sink below the horizon first, then the mast. When ships return from sea, the sequence is reversed: First the mast, then the hull, seem to rise over the horizon.








No comments:

Post a Comment