Many thousands of years ago, people believed that our Earth is supported by three elephants. All over the world there were legends about whales, about huge turtles on which our world rests. No one could have imagined that our planet is actually a ball and not a flat pancake. Let's delve into the amazing history of scientific discovery and dispel all the tales of a flat Earth.
Arguments and facts
Ancient civilizations believed that we are the center of the universe. The fact of the existence of the main axis and asymmetry in the upper and lower parts of our earth was not denied, that is, it was assumed that we live on a flat plate. This "pancake" was supposed to be kept from falling by some kind of support. For this reason, the question arose: "And what keeps the earth?". In the mythology of ancient people, it was believed that our earth rests on three huge whales or turtles that swim in the boundless ocean.
Thousands of years have passed, many scientific discoveries have been made, but there are still people who believe that the Earth is flat. They are called "flat earthers". They claim that NASAfalsify all the facts related to space. Their main argument in favor of the "flatness" of the earth is the so-called "horizon line". Indeed, if you take a picture of the horizon, then the photo will be an absolutely straight line.
However, there is a scientific explanation for this: the visible horizon is located below the mathematical one, so due to the refraction of the light beam (light rays land on the surface), the observer begins to see far beyond the line of the mathematical beam. In simple words, the horizon line depends on the viewing height. The higher the observer stands, the more this line will bend and round. Please note when flying in an airplane, the horizon line is a regular circle.
Cosmogonic mythology
How does our world work? Why does day follow night? Where are the stars from? On what does the earth rest? These questions were asked in Ancient Egypt and Babylon, but only in the 5th century did the scientists of Ancient Greece begin to seriously study astronomy. Pythagoras was the first to guess that the earth has a spherical shape. His students - Aristotle, Parmenides and Plato - developed this theory, which was later called "geocentric". It was believed that our Earth is the center of the universe, and the rest of the celestial bodies rotate around its axis. For many centuries, it was this theory that was generally accepted, until in the III century BC. e. the ancient Greek scientist Aristarchus did not make the assumption that the center of the universe is not the Earth, but the Sun.
However, his ideas were not taken seriously and developed properly. In the II century BC. e. in ancient Greece, astronomy smoothly turned into astrology, religious dogmatism and even mysticism began to prevail over rationalism. There was a general crisis of science, and then no one cared what the earth was based on. There were other things to do and concerns.
Heliocentric system
In the 9th-12th centuries, science flourished in the countries of the East. Among all Islamic states, Ghaznevid and Karakhanid (state formations on the territory of modern Uzbekistan) stand out, in which great scientists lived and worked. It was here that the best madrasas (schools) were concentrated, where such sciences as mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy were studied. Almost all mathematical formulas and calculations were derived by Eastern scientists. For example, in the 10th century, the famous Omar Khayyam and his like-minded people were already solving problems of the third degree, while the Holy Inquisition flourished in Europe.
The most famous astronomer and ruler Ulugbek built at the beginning of the 15th century the largest observatory in one of the Samarkand madrasahs. He invited all Islamic mathematicians and astronomers there. Their scientific works with accurate calculations served as a turning point in the history of the study of astronomy. Thanks to these discoveries about the heliocentric structure of the world, sciences began to emerge in European countries, which are still based on the treatises of Mirzo Ulugbek and his contemporaries.
Fairy tale "On what keepsEarth?"
Soon whether a fairy tale affects, but not soon the deed is done. A long time ago, our Earth was supported by a Turtle, and it lay on the backs of three Elephants, which in turn stood on a huge Whale. And the Whale has been swimming in the boundless World Ocean for millions of years. Once gathered pundits and thought: "Oh, if after all, the Whale, the Turtle and the Elephants get tired of holding our Earth, we will all drown in the ocean!" And then they decided to talk to the Animals:
– Isn't it hard for you, our dear Kit, Turtle and Elephants, to hold the Earth?
To which they replied:
– Honestly, as long as the Elephants live, as long as the Whale lives, and as long as the Turtle lives, your Earth is safe! We will keep her until the end of time!
However, pundits did not believe them and decided to tie our Earth so that it would not fall into the ocean. They took nails and nailed the Earth to the Turtle shell, they took iron chains and chained the Elephants so that they would not run away to the circus if they got tired of holding us. And then they took tight ropes altogether and tied Keith. The animals got angry and growled: "Honestly, the Whale is stronger than sea ropes, honestly, the Turtle is stronger than iron nails, honestly, Elephants are stronger than any chains!" They broke their chains and sailed into the ocean. Oh, how scared our pundits were! But suddenly they look, the Earth does not fall anywhere, it just hangs in the air. "On what does the Earth rest?" they thought. And they still cannot understand what, only on the Word of Honor and keeps.
About science for children
Children arethe most curious people, therefore, from an early age, with all their curiosity, they begin to look for answers to their questions. Become assistants in their difficult task and tell them about how our world works. It is not necessary to start with the most difficult sciences, for a start, you can read them a fairy tale or story "What keeps the Earth on".
As psychologists recommend, children should not lie, and therefore it is better to immediately warn them that these are all legends and fairy tales. But in fact, there is a force of universal gravitation, which was discovered by the great English scientist Isaac Newton. It is thanks to the forces of gravity that space bodies do not fall and rotate, each is in its place.
The Law of Attraction
A little why-kid might wonder why objects fall down instead of flying up, for example. So the answer is very simple: gravity. Each body has a force that attracts other bodies to itself. However, this force depends on the mass of the object, so we humans do not attract other people to us with the same great force as our planet Earth does. Thanks to the force of gravity, all objects "fall", that is, are attracted to its center. And because the Earth is spherical, it seems to us that all bodies just fall down.
