< a href=\"http://www-atdp.berkeley.edu/1522/students/angel/kokocrater.hike/koko4. jpg\">http://www-atdp.berkeley.edu/1522/students/angel/kokocrater.hike/koko4.jpg

high view

http://www.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/3742-Olympus_E- 400_distort.jpg

shore

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/%22http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/c

cr escent moon

http://www.raftermranch.com/Lunar%20Eclipse%20second_102704/Lunar_Eclipse_cropp ed_1134PM.jpg

lunar eclipse

/%22ht

series of lunar eclipse

/%22http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/0/0b/Lunar-eclipse-2004.jp

lunar eclipse series

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_ast ronomy

< a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A ristotle

an alternative idea, th at Earth was spherical, had appeared in ancient India [5] [6][7] and ancient Greece. Pythagoras, apparentl y on aesthetic grounds, held that all the celestial bodies were spherical. Aristotle provided observational evidence for the spherical Earth,[8 ] noting that travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon. This is only possible if their horizonis at a n angle to northerners\' horizon. Thus the Earth\'s surface cannotbe flat.[9] Also, the border of the shadow of Earth on the Moon during the partial phase o f a lunar eclipseis always circular, no matter how high the Moon is over the horizon.Only a sphere casts a circular shadow in every direction, wherea s acircular disk casts an elliptical shadow in most directions.[10]\r\ n

The Earth\'s circumference was first determined around 240 BC by Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes knew that in Syene (now Aswan), in < a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt\" title=\"Egypt\">Egypt, the Sun was directly overhead at the summer solstice,while he estimated that a shadow cast by the Sun at Alexandria was1/50th of a circle. He estimated the distance f rom Syene to Alexandriaas 5,000 stades, and estimated the Earth\'s circumfer ence was 250,000stades and a degree was 700 stades (implying a circumference of 252,000stades).[11] Eratosthenes used rough estimates and round numbers, but depending on the length of the stadion, his result is within a margin of between 2% and 20% of the actual circumference, 40,008 kilometres. Note that Eratosthenes could only measu re the circumference of the Earth by assuming that the distance to the Sun is so great that the ra ys of sunlight are essentially parallel. A similar measurement, reported in a Chine se mathematical treatise, the Zhoubi suanjing (1st c. BC), was used to measure the distance to the Sunâ albeit by assuming that the Earth was flat.[12]

< p>If they both used the Attic stadion of about 185 meters, then the older estimate is 1/6 too large, a nd Ptolemy\'s value is 1/6 too small, a difference recently explainedas due to ancient scientists\' use of sim ple methods of measuring theearth, which were corrupted either high or low b y a factor of 5/6, dueto air\'s bending of horizontal light rays by 1/6 of t he earth\'scurvature. See also Anci ent Greek units of measurement and History of geodesy.\ r\n

Around 830 CE, Caliph al-Ma\'mun commissioned a group of astronomers to measure the distance from Tadmur (Palmyra) to al-Raqqah,in modern Syria. They found the cities to be separated by one degree oflatitude and t he distance between them to be 66 2/3 miles and thuscalculated the Earth\'s circumference to be 24,000 miles.[42]

^ GharÄ\'ib al-funÅ«n wa-mulah al-`uyÅ«n (The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes), 2.1 "On the mensuration of the Earth and its division into seven climes, as related by Ptolemy and others," (ff. 22b-23a)[15]

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Nevertheless, the Ch inese, through observation of lunar eclipse and solar eclipse, understood that the celestial bodies (if not the earth) were spherical in shape. The polymath Chin ese scientist Shen Kuo (10 31-1095 AD) once wrote:

The Director [of the Ast ronomical Observatory, Zhao Wen] asked me about the shapes of the sun and moon; whether they were like balls or (flat) fans. If they were like balls they would surely obstruct (ai) each other when they met. I replied that these celestial bodies w ere certainly like balls. How do we know this? By the waxing and wani ng (ying khuei) of the moon. The moon itself gives forth no light, but is li ke a ball of silver; the light is the light of the sun (reflected). Whe n the brightness is first seen, the sun(-light passes almost) alongsid e, so the side only is illuminated and looks like a crescent. When the sun g radually gets further away, the light shines slanting, and the moon i s full, round like a bullet. If half of a sphere is covered with (white) p owder and looked at from the side, the covered part will look like a cr escent; if looked at from the front, it will appear round. Thus we know that the celestial bodies are spherical.[61]\r \n

occurs when the air be low the line of sight is colder than that above. This is called a temperature inversion,since it does not represent the normal equilibriu m temperature gradientof the atmosphere. Since in this case the light rays a re bent down, theimage appears above the true object, hence the name sup erior.They are in general less common than inferior mirages, but when t hey dooccur they tend to be more stable, as cold air has no tendency to move up and warm air no tendency to move down.

Superior mirages are mos t common in polar regions,especially over large sheets of ice with a unifor m low temperature.They also occur at more moderate latitudes, however, altho ugh in thatcase they are weaker and not so smooth. For example a distant sho relinemay be made towering, looking higher (and thus perhaps closer )than it is in reality, but because of the turbulences there seem to bed ancing spikes, towers and so forth. This type of mirage is also calledthe Fata Morgana or in Icelandic halgerndingar .

Superior images can be straight up or upside down, depe nding on thedistance of the true object and the temperature gradient. Often theimage appears as a distorted mixture of up and down parts.

If the Earth were flat, superior images would not be interesting.Light r ays which bent down would soon hit the ground, and only closeobjects would b e affected. Since the Earth is round, if the amount ofdownward bending is ab out equal to the curvature of the Earth,light rays can travel large distances, pe rhaps from beyond the horizon.This was observed for the first time in 1596, when a ship under thecommand of Willem Barents looking for the N ortheast passage got stuck in the ice at Novaya Zemlyaand the crew ha d to endure the polar winter there. They saw theirmidwinter night ending wit h the rise of a distorted sun about 2 weeksearlier than expected. It was not until the 20th century that Europeansunderstood the reason. That the real s un had still been under theirhorizon, but its light rays followed the curvat ure of the Earth. Thiseffect is often called a Novaya Zemlyamirage. For every 100 km the light rays can travel parallel to theEarth \'s surface, the sun will appear 1Â° higher on the horizon. Theinversion lay er must have just the right temperature gradient over thewhole distance to m ake this possible.

In the same way ships which are in reality so far away that theyshould not have been visible above the geometric horizo n, may appear onthe horizon, or even above the horizon as superior mirages. This mayexplain some stories about flying ships or coastal cities in the sky ,as described by some polar explorers. These are examples of so called Arctic mirages or hillingar in Icelandic.

\r\ nIf the vertical temperature gradient is +11Â°C per 100 meters(reminder: pos itive means getting hotter when going up), horizontallight rays will just fo llow the curvature of the Earth, and the horizonwill appear flat. If the gra dient is less the rays are not bent enough,and get lost in space. That is th e normal situation of a spherical,convex horizon. But if the gradient gets l arger, say 18Â°C per 100meters, the observer will see the horizon turned upw ards, beingconcave, as if he were standing on the bottom of a saucer.

/%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imag

mirage

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m irage 2

set sail / and as everyone knows / he fell off the edge of the earth. / And that wa s bad advice, bad advice..."

Ernie Kovacs,in a radio skit called "Mr. Question Man", put a twist on the usualstereotyp ed skepticism of the round Earth. An alleged listener\'squestion was, " If the Earth is round, why don\'t people fall off?"Kovacs\' answer: &qu ot;What you\'ve stated is a common misconception. Peopleare falling off all the time!"

Thi s is test one. Test Two.','

\r\ nht tp://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Flat Earth Society page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_ Earth

Wikipedia history of evidence

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/%22http://www.flickr.com/photos/morealtitude/8141501

nomads horizon line

/%22http://sudoku.com.au/Prizes/V293

curved horizo n