Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Flat Earth



How ancient? Long before Galileo.
The context of the discussion involved the ancient Greeks. Those
masts were not all that high, either. If I find my book on ancient Greek
and Roman ships, I'll publicize the reference.
Regards

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Hugh Haskell wrote:

At 11:59 -0600 2/12/02, Jack Uretsky wrote:

Find me a picture of an ancient ship with a crows nest.
On the other hand, the distance from which the light of the
Alexandria lighthouse could be seen gives a reasonable estimate of the
earth's radius.

Well, how ancient do you want to go? Galileo talked about dropping
stones from a ship's mast. Perhaps early ships didn't have crow's
nests as such, but I believe that the sailors had to go aloft to rig
and furl sails, and it shouldn't have been long before someone
realized that someone at the masthead could see land (or a possibly
threatening other ship) before those on the deck could.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
******************************************************


--
"But as much as I love and respect you, I will beat you and I will kill
you, because that is what I must do. Tonight it is only you and me, fish.
It is your strength against my intelligence. It is a veritable potpourri
of metaphor, every nuance of which is fraught with meaning."
Greg Nagan from "The Old Man and the Sea" in
<The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>