SETI again

that was something my teacher never was willing to discuss. there was
a story of a greek that looked down two wells at the same time of day
and came up with a compairatively accuract size of the earth, then
several hundred years later, they are suppose to believe the earth is
flat? it never made since to me. does now though. thanks.

then again i had a teacher have us build a vertical axis windmill
then tie it to the ground because it would make electicity that
way!!! lol.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, joe@... wrote:
>
> On Jul 21, 2006, at 05:20 UTC, Robert wrote:
>
> > actually i was going with what was taught it school, and that was
> > that they believe the earth was flat and there were demons and
> > monsters and such that would kill and eat any crew that strayed
too
> > far from land. of course, it would not be the first time that
schools
> > teach the wrong thing.
>
> Yes, I'm afraid you were done a disservice. All the educated
(including the royalty) knew perfectly well the Earth was round, and
how big it was. It was Columbus who was wrong: he thought it was
much smaller than it really was, and that he could make it all the
way to Asia by sailing west. He managed to convince the Spanish to
let him try, because they were desperate to get an edge over the
Portugese. Fortunately for Columbus, he got lucky and ran into the
Americas just before he ran out of provisions. Had there been
nothing but open ocean between Europe and Asia, as they had believed,
Columbus and his crew would indeed have been lost.