But consider a flat Earth and a low small sun directly over the well. This will
yield exactly Eratosthenes' result. The key here, which I've never seen
mentioned in any books for children, is that the Greeks had to have a very good
set of reasons for thinking the Earth round and the sun large enough and far
enough away (and they did).
I gave a talk on how they did this in the Kyoto Prize lecture followups in San
Diego in 2005. Aristarchus was one of several key figures.
The shame of it is that for both math and science learning, the important
heuristic of trying to identify all the possible cases for a result is never
encountered by the children (or most adults) who have read about Eratosthenes.
Cheers,
Alan
>________________________________
>From: Steve Thomas <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]; iaep <[email protected]>; squeakland
><[email protected]>
>Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 9:06 PM
>Subject: [NaturalMath] KIds from around the world measuring the Circumference
>of the Earth
>
>
>The Goal of the Noon Day Project is to have students measure the circumference
>of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000
>years ago.
>Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a
>meter stick and compare their results.
>From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the
>earth. Click here to get to their site and register.
>
>
>Watch the Carl Sagan video, its a treat.
>
>
>Thanks to Ihor Charischak for pointing this out.
>
>
>Stephen --
>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>"NaturalMath" group.
>To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>[email protected].
>For more options, visit this group at
>http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmath?hl=en.
>
>
>
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