Wright State University CORE Scholar Classics Ancient Science Fair Religion, Philosophy, and Classics Spring 2020 The Corvus, the Roman Boarding Device Jacob Stickel Wright State University - Main Campus,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/ancient_science_fair Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, and the Military History Commons Repository Citation Stickel , J. (2020). The Corvus, the Roman Boarding Device. Dayton, Ohio. This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion, Philosophy, and Classics at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Classics Ancient Science Fair by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A philological examination of Eratosthenes’ calculation of Earth’s circumference Kelly Staver1 1 Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A. Introduction Errors in Eratosthenes ’ Assumptions Historical Inconsistencies of Eratosthenes’ Final Result • A Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes calculated an accurate measurement Two of Eratosthene’s five assumtpions are either mistaken or questionable at • Cleomedes and John Philophus state Eratosthenes’ result was 250,000, whereas of the Earth’s circumference, that being 250,000 stades or close to Earth’s actual best: many others such as Vitruvius, Martianus Capella, Strabo, and many others state circumference of 40,120 km,¹ in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt circa 240 B.C.E.² • Assumption (1) is incorrect. The longitudinal difference between it was 252,000 stades.¹⁴ • To do this, Eratosthenes’ utilized the distance between Alexandria and Syene and Syene and Alexandria is about 3 degrees.⁶ • Benefits of 252,000 stades: gnomon measurements taken in Syene and Alexandria at noon on the summer • Assumption (2) is questionable since we do not know how long a • Yields a clean 700 stades per circular degree.¹⁵ solstice.³ stadion is.