His calculation would have been horribly off, had the walker not taken the long route and stopped at every brothel and tavern along the way. He lucked out. ;-) On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 12:54 PM, Kim <kimharch@cut.net> wrote:
I'm reminded of two different methods that Eratosthenes supposedly used to calculate the distance from Alexandria to Syrene. The Pharoahs, of course, had been measuring the distance for centuries but the technique was to measure the distance in terms of a caravan's time to make the journey, then multiply that time in days by the distance a camel could travel in a day. Legend has it that Eratosthenes also hired someone to step off the distance for him - about 525 miles. I wonder who the sucker was? In spite of his limitations, his calculation for the circumference of the earth was accurate to within less than two percent of today's accepted value - in meters, not in camel-miles.