Spherical Earth or Earth's curvature refers to the approximation of the figure of the Earth as a sphere. The earliest documented mention of the concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it ap
Medieval artistic representation of a spherical Earth – with compartments representing earth, air, and water (c. 1400)
The Erdapfel, the oldest surviving terrestrial globe (1492/1493)
A sequence of pictures taken at Strait of Magellan, Chile, showing a tanker ship sailing towards the camera and rising over the horizon, demonstrating the Earth's curvature. Distance at first picture is about 18 km which would imply a theoretical horizon vertical drop of about 23 meters. Ship length is 186 m.
The history of geodesy began during antiquity and ultimately blossomed during the Age of Enlightenment.
Spherical Earth
…documented mention of the concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it appears in the writings of Greek philosophers. In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference. This knowledge was gradually adopted…
Round Earth umbra during the August 2008 lunar eclipse
Spherical Earth with the four seasons. Illustration in 12th-century book Liber Divinorum Operum by Hildegard of Bingen
John Gower prepares to shoot the world, a sphere with compartments representing earth, air, and water (Vox Clamantis, around 1400)
The beginning of the U. S. coastal survey.