Firstly Phileas Fogg has travelled eastward around the world in 80 days
How do you explain one of the oldest proofs of the Earth's shape?
"When a full Moon occurs in the plane of Earth's orbit, the Moon slowly moves through Earth's shadow. Every time that shadow is seen, its edge is round. the only solid that always projects a round shadow that I know of is a sphere? "
would be interested to know FE thoughts on this article...
"This is a question that has been asked for many years, and there are some very intuitive, and some not-so-intuitive answers.
To start with... there's a horizon, meaning that the surface that one is observing from is not an infinite plane. On the clearest of days, the only restriction to one's range of sight is the horizon. There can be two explanations for this - one, that the Earth at some point just stops, as if you were looking off the edge of a table. The other is that the Earth is round. Hundreds of years ago, before the invention of the compass or sextant, precise navigation for ships was difficult, even with the stars. Ships that ventured past sight of land were often lost, and thus it was generally believed that the world simply *stopped* at the end of the horizon. With the invention of the compass, and improved map-making, people began to dare more, and with the return of Columbus from his trans-Atlantic voyage, the concept of the Earth as flat was shattered.
Further proof of the Earth being round came after the voyage of Columbus. When Newton discovered and measured the force of gravity, that number could then be tested anywhere the theory was known. Since the force of gravity is roughly the same everywhere on the globe, it could be surmised that the Earth must be spherical. If the Earth were not round, whole hemispheres would have different atmospheric pressure and significantly different sea levels. Also, pictures taken of the Earth in the last 50 years have proved absolutely conclusively that the Earth is round. These are just the arguments that don't require much physics knowledge to explain, there are others that are more technical, but I think that the simplest arguments are the best. "
Answered by: Frank DiBonaventuro, B.S., Physics grad, The Citadel, Air Force officer