Head-Librarian Eratosthenes explains to a student how to laminate a dust jacket.
In an earlier post, I hinted about how over 2,000 years ago somebody calculated the circumference (how big around) of the Earth. This guy did it using only a well, a protractor and a stick (okay, maybe instead of a stick he used a column, but you could use a stick and get the same result).
I’m talking about Eratosthenes, the head librarian at the Great Library of Alexandria. Alexandria is an ancient city in Egypt, located where the Nile River flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Many scholars lived in Alexandria—like Ctesibius, who perfected the water-clock.
Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space
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