How did ancient people know that the earth was round?
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My understanding is that they used observations of shadow length of obelisk at different locations at specific times of the day on the summer solstice. Obilisks closer to the equater would have smaller shadows than those further away. This can’t happen on a flat surface, but does happen on the surface of a sphere. Using these observations they were able to extrapolate not only the shape of the planet, but the size as well…. to within a working accuracy.
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