April 21, 2004

Eratosthenes in 200 B.C.

He observed that on the summer solstice in Syene, the sun was directly overhead. However, in Alexandria the sun did not rise as high. His reasoning: the curvature of the Earth.
He erected a vertical mast in Alexandria and measured its shadow at noon. The length of the shadow was observed to be equal to 1/50 of the circumference of a circle having the radius equal to the mast.
Using geometry laws (that of equal opposite angles of a line cutting parallel lines), he reasoned that the distance from Syene to Alexandria was 1/50 the radius of Earth.
He then measured the angle of the shadow in Alexandria. By taking the angle of the shadow (7.2 degrees) and dividing it into the 360 degrees of a circle (360 divided by 7.2 yields 50), Eratosthenes could then multiply the distance between Alexandria and Syene by 50 to determine the circumference.

April 19, 2004

Edit Blog

I've decided that I should make all my blogs grammatically correct and without spelling error from now on. This will also be retroactive. I'm going back and fixing all my laziness. Please notify me of errors if you notice them, and/or if you care.

Thanks

April 09, 2004

Always Appreciate Alliteration

The luxurious leading leopard, Leopold, leaped loftily left like lovely Lassy, leaving little lusty Louise Lane lying lividly lonely.

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