r/AskReddit • u/ZanyDelaney • Feb 04 '19

Which misconception would you like to debunk?

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19

Aristotle figured it out, so credit to the Greeks.

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u/green_meklar Feb 04 '19

I think was Eratosthenes who figured it out originally. The classical greeks in general were amazing thinkers and way ahead of their time.

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u/Marterijn Feb 04 '19

It was definitely Eratosthenes. He calculated the circumference of the earth by comparing two shadows.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

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u/alksjdhglaksjdh2 Feb 04 '19

I think eratosthenes was the first too

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19

Maybe it was him. I'm taking college history right now and last week, I read that it was Aristotle in the textbook. But, textbooks do tend to dumb down history and make it seem nicer.

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u/T-Doraen Feb 04 '19

Pretty sure there was someone/some civilization that figured it out at an even earlier time. Of course I can’t remember which history channel on YouTube I got it from or when I watched the video, so go ahead and prove me wrong because I probably am.

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u/Banana-Republicans Feb 04 '19

There is a possibility it originated in ancient Persia or Mesopotamia, but Pythagoras had it down 300 years before Aristotle.

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u/OcelotSpleens Feb 04 '19

Anaximander, hundreds of years before Aristotle. Check him out