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Weekend


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May 21, 2004

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

       Q. Two thousand years ago early travelers noted on long journeys north or south that the old familiar stars near the northern or southern horizon each night couldn't be seen. It was also widely observed that when a ship goes out to sea, its hull disappears first, then the lower mast, finally the mast's top.  And then there were those dramatic lunar eclipses, looking like a pie eaten away down to a crescent. Moreover, regardless of whether the moon was high or low when an eclipse occurred, the same arc shape appeared.  From these -- plus the round sun and round moon and round canopy of the sky itself -- the brainy ancient Greeks came to a conclusion.  What was the conclusion?

    A.  Not only that the Earth is round, answered Isaac Asimov in "How Did We Find Out the Earth Is Round?" but it is round in three dimensions -- an enormous ball.


     
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