Learning exercise 1: who first stipulated that the earth was round?

It was Eratosthenes who demonstrated the the Earth was spherical, I believe. The idea itself would most likely have been bouncing around for a while.He determined the Earth's circumference by measuring the difference in the shadow angle of the midday sun in northern and southern Egypt (Alexandria and Syrene) and applying a bit of basic trig. His experimental equipment probably consisted of nothing more than two wooden sticks!Apparently he was very close and came out with a figure that corresponds to roughly 39,000km.A clever sod, indeed.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

We certainly do have some idea. The attic stade is generally thought to have been 185m, though there were other stade variations. There is room for error for sure, but reasonable estimates can be made.