Flat Earthers: Nothing to Fear But Sphere Itself Quiz

Answer: Babylon

In ancient cosmologies, the Earth was depicted as a flat disk as reflected in their religious texts and mythologies. And, usually, a primordial ocean or river would surround that land. Of course, each ancient civilization would picture its own land as the center of the disk. That tablet in Iraq showed Babylon as the center which is where present-day Iraq is. Babylon was a center of power and culture, and it was natural for the civilization to depict its prominence in the ancient Near East as the center of the Earth.

It wasn't long, however, before Babylonian astronomers had started to make amazing leaps forward in their scientific observances and interpretations. Long before the Europeans did, the Babylonians were the first people to track the planet Jupiter, using abstract mathematics, "applying it to astronomy in a new way" according to astrophysicist Mathieu Ossendrijver of Humboldt University.

Answer: Pythagoras

The early Greek philosopher Pythagoras proposed a spherical Earth in the 6th century BCE. Parmenides, and Aristotle would soon follow suit. Pythagoras had observed the curved shape of the Earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse, which helped lead him to his idea of a spherical Earth, along with his observation that ships would disappear hull-first over the horizon with masts staying visible longer.

The other ancient thinkers in the answer choices were Flat Earthers.

Answer: Eratosthenes

Around 240 BCE, Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference using measurements of shadows cast by the sun at various locations which, in turn, gave evidence to the fact that the Earth was shaped like a sphere. The angle of the Sun's rays at noon on the summer solstice in the Egyptian cities of Alexandria and Syene allowed Eratosthenes to arrive at his estimates with amazing accuracy. Since then, the spherical model of the Earth has been refined and confirmed through various scientific observations and experiments over centuries.

The other ancient thinkers in the answer choices were Flat Earthers.

Answer: A flat disk lying atop a cylinder

Anaximander's concept of the Earth as a flat disk resting on a cylindrical base was known as the "Anaximandrian system." In his idea, the Earth existed at the center of the universe, with the other celestial bodies arranged in concentric rings around it.

The flat Earth floated freely within the cylindrical enclosure in Anaximander's revolutionary model. Before his model, the flat Earth was thought to float on water or even be held up by mythological persona.

Answer: A plane

The two-dimensional geometrical figure called a plane is a flat surface that is often conceptualized mathematically as extending infinitely in all directions. The plane is one of the fundamental building blocks of geometry along with such objects as a point, a line, a circle, an angle, and a polygon all of which are used prominently in mathematical branches of geometry and physics.

A torus is a three-dimensional shape - a regular ring, shaped like a tire or doughnut. A pyramid is a three-dimensional polyhedron with a polygon base coming to an apex projected up from the straight edges of the base. Different types of pyramids include those with a triangular base, called tetrahedrons. Those with quadrilateral bases are square pyramids, pentagons bases are pentagonal pyramid, hexagon bases are hexagonal pyramids, etc. An oloid shape is based on two congruent circles, perpendicular to each other, while the center of each is intersected by the circumference of the other.

Projections of a flat Earth plot the surface of the Earth using a flat plane. The antiquated and disproven Flat Earth conceptualizes the Earth's shape as a plane or disk.

Answer: Persian mathematician who proposed a spherical Earth shape

The Persian polymath Al-Biruni was a significant contributor to Islamic knowledge of astronomy and geography. His writings on the shape and size of the Earth offered up a spherical model of the Earth which he based on empirical observations and mathematical calculations. Al-Biruni employed trigonometry in his estimate of the Earth's radius using the measurements of a mountain's height and the dip in the horizon from the top, resulting in a remarkably accurate calculation for his time of 3928.77 miles. The Earth's actual radius is 3,963 miles from the center to the Equator, or 3,950 miles from the center to the Poles (due to the Earth's "oblate spheroid" shape and not being a sphere).

The Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham, who lived around the same time, also helped to support a round Earth concept.

Answer: False

By that time, most educated people had already been schooled in the knowledge that the Earth was a globe. Christopher Columbus was instead trying to convince Europeans that the Earth was smaller than was commonly believed. If he could prove that, then the journey to Asia would be much more manageable.

Columbus was actually ahead of the thinking of many in his assumption that the Earth was more of an oblate spheroid than a sphere, that is, with a bulge at the equator. Since he only had the Atlantic Ocean as a reference point, his imagining of that bulge was more localized. He had accounted for a larger region on the other side of the world.

Answer: Square

Back in those pre-spherical Earth days in China, the Earth was thought to be flat and square and had a round dome over it where the heavens resided. Chinese astronomers during the Ming and Qing dynasties however, began supporting the idea of a spherically-shaped Earth. One figure helping to influence this belief was Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary who traveled to China in the late 16th century, along with other Jesuit scholars.

Answer: Zetetic Method

The Universal Zetetic Society was founded in the 19th century. The Zetetic Method, or approach, contrasts with the scientific method in that Zeteticism emphasizes direct observation and sensory experience over scientific experimentation and theoretical models. Today, the most well-known organization advocating belief in a flat Earth is the Flat Earth Society.

The other answer choices are all various forms of scientific methodology.

Answer: The International Flat Earth Research Society

Modern Flat Earthers discount the actual science for a number of reasons including conspiracy theories involving many government departments, leading Flat Earthers to devise other creative concepts of the solar system's construction. They also dismiss gravity, claiming that objects do not accelerate downward, but rather accelerate upward at 32 feet per second squared, forced upward by dark energy.

Modern Flat Earthers say the Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and with Antarctica, a tall wall of ice, around the rim. Mr.

Shenton, a writer from England, was proponent of the belief that the Earth is flat and opposed the consensus among scientists that our planet was globe-shaped. Around 1956 he founded the International Flat Earth Research Society, which has since become more commonly known as the Flat Earth Society.