Endnotes
Note 2: How to Measure Earth’s Shape and Size
- Quote: Over two thousand years ago, Greek thinkers became experts in geometry and found clever tricks for estimating the Earth’s shape and size.
- Endnote: The shadow that the Earth casts on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is always disk-shaped, no matter the time of day, which can be true only for a spherical planet. Earth’s size is revealed by comparing the lengths of shadows of two identical objects, separated by a known north-south distance, measured at noon on the same day.*
- Discussion
