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Cleomedes' Lectures on AstronomyA Translation of The Heavens$
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Cleomedes' Lectures on Astronomy: A Translation of The Heavens

Cleomedes and Lawrence Witmer

Print publication date: 2004

Print ISBN-13: 9780520233256

Published to California Scholarship Online: March 2012

DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520233256.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM CALIFORNIA SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.california.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright University of California Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in CALSO for personal use.date: 07 December 2021

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Chapter:
(p.78) Chapter Seven
Source:
Cleomedes' Lectures on Astronomy
Author(s):

Alan C. Bowen

Robert B. Todd

Publisher:
University of California Press
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520233256.003.0008

This chapter reports on Posidonius' and Eratosthenes' measurements of the circumference of the Earth. Eratosthenes' doctrine about the size of the Earth demonstrates its size by a geodesic procedure, while Posidonius' is less complicated. Each [philosopher] takes certain assumptions [as being the case], and then arrives at demonstrations via the implications of the assumptions. Eratosthenes says, and it is the case, that (E6) Syene is located below the summer tropical circle. Those who say that the Earth cannot be spherical because of the hollows occupied by the sea and the mountainous protrusions, express a quite irrational doctrine.

Keywords:   Earth, Posidonius, Eratosthenes, circumference, geodesic procedure, assumptions, spherical

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