Re: Ancient Greece

[Dennis.E.Krause@williams.edu (Dennis Krause)]

> ...according to Carl Sagan in the COSMOS series, Aristothanes hired
> someone to pace it out.  I wonder if he got a grant from the library of
> Alexandria to pay for it?
>
> Dan M
>
> Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
> danmac@nau.edu  http://www.phy.nau.edu/~danmac/homepage.html
>
> > I hope this request is consistent with the purpose of this list.  A student
> > of
> > mine asked me about the early measurement of distances (the circumference of
> > the earth, distance from the earth to the moon and sun, etc.)  I found that
> > in
> > the explaination the distance between two cities had to be known - I think
> > the
> > cities were Alexandria and Seyene.  My question is - How did these people
> > measure the distance between Alexandria and Seyene?  I think the distance was
> > said to be about 5000 stadia (about 500 miles).   Thanks,
> > Frank

There is a discussion of this in Philip and Phylis Morrison's book "The
Ring of Truth" (the companion to the PBS series), pp. 116-117:

        "The road distance south to Syene (called Aswan today) that
Eratosthenes used was almost certainly paced off by professionals for the
Egyptian state who walked between all important places.  There is
historical evidence for such a craft; road distances are useful to planners
with military responsibilities for any good-sized kingdom."


                                        Dennis


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