Eratosthenes' "Geography"
Title | Eratosthenes' "Geography" PDF eBook |
Author | Eratosthenes |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | 322 |
Release | 2010-01-24 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 069114267X |
This is the first modern edition and first English translation of one of the earliest and most important works in the history of geography, the third-century Geographika of Eratosthenes. In this work, which for the first time described the geography of the entire inhabited world as it was then known, Eratosthenes of Kyrene (ca. 285-205 BC) invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. A polymath who served as librarian at Alexandria and tutor to the future King Ptolemy IV, Eratosthenes created the terminology of geography, probably including the word geographia itself. Building on his previous work, in which he determined the size and shape of the earth, Eratosthenes in the Geographika created a grid of parallels and meridians that linked together every place in the world: for the first time one could figure out the relationship and distance between remote localities, such as northwest Africa and the Caspian Sea. The Geographika also identified some four hundred places, more than ever before, from Thoule (probably Iceland) to Taprobane (Sri Lanka), and from well down the coast of Africa to Central Asia. This is the first collation of the more than 150 fragments of the Geographika in more than a century. Each fragment is accompanied by an English translation, a summary, and commentary. Duane W. Roller provides a rich background, including a history of the text and its reception, a biography of Eratosthenes, and a comprehensive account of ancient Greek geographical thought and of Eratosthenes' pioneering contribution to it. This edition also includes maps that show all of the known places named in the Geographika, appendixes, a bibliography, and indexes.
Eratosthenes' Geography
Title | Eratosthenes' Geography PDF eBook |
Author | Eratosthenes |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | 320 |
Release | 2010-01-04 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1400832217 |
This is the first modern edition and first English translation of one of the earliest and most important works in the history of geography, the third-century Geographika of Eratosthenes. In this work, which for the first time described the geography of the entire inhabited world as it was then known, Eratosthenes of Kyrene (ca. 285-205 BC) invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. A polymath who served as librarian at Alexandria and tutor to the future King Ptolemy IV, Eratosthenes created the terminology of geography, probably including the word geographia itself. Building on his previous work, in which he determined the size and shape of the earth, Eratosthenes in the Geographika created a grid of parallels and meridians that linked together every place in the world: for the first time one could figure out the relationship and distance between remote localities, such as northwest Africa and the Caspian Sea. The Geographika also identified some four hundred places, more than ever before, from Thoule (probably Iceland) to Taprobane (Sri Lanka), and from well down the coast of Africa to Central Asia. This is the first collation of the more than 150 fragments of the Geographika in more than a century. Each fragment is accompanied by an English translation, a summary, and commentary. Duane W. Roller provides a rich background, including a history of the text and its reception, a biography of Eratosthenes, and a comprehensive account of ancient Greek geographical thought and of Eratosthenes' pioneering contribution to it. This edition also includes maps that show all of the known places named in the Geographika, appendixes, a bibliography, and indexes.
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth
Title | The Librarian Who Measured the Earth PDF eBook |
Author | Kathryn Lasky |
Publisher | Little, Brown Books for Young Readers |
Total Pages | 54 |
Release | 2008-11-16 |
Genre | Juvenile Fiction |
ISBN | 0316049271 |
A colorfully illustrated biography of the Greek philosopher and scientist Eratosthenes, who compiled the first geography book and accurately measured the globe's circumference.
Circumference
Title | Circumference PDF eBook |
Author | Nicholas Nicastro |
Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
Total Pages | 266 |
Release | 2008-11-25 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1429958197 |
How do you measure the size of the planet you're standing on? "Circumference" is the story of what happened when one man asked himself that very question. Nicholas Nicastro brings to life one of history's greatest experiments when an ancient Greek named Eratosthenes first accurately determined the distance around the spherical earth. In this fascinating narrative history, Nicastro takes a look at a deceptively simple but stunning achievement made by one man, millennia ago, with only the simplest of materials at his disposal. How was he able to measure the land at a time when distance was more a matter of a shrug and a guess at the time spent on a donkey's back? How could he be so confident in the assumptions that underlay his calculations: that the earth was round and the sun so far away that its rays struck the ground in parallel lines? Was it luck or pure scientific genius? Nicastro brings readers on a trip into a long-vanished world that prefigured modernity in many ways, where neither Eratosthenes' reputation, nor the validity of his method, nor his leadership of the Great Library of Alexandria were enough to convince all his contemporaries about the dimensions of the earth. Eratosthenes' results were debated for centuries until he was ultimately vindicated almost 2000 years later, during the great voyages of exploration. "Circumference" is a compelling scientific detective story that transports readers back to a time when humans had no idea how big their world was--and the fate of a man who dared to measure the incomprehensible.
The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 1, Ancient Science
Title | The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 1, Ancient Science PDF eBook |
Author | Alexander Jones |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | |
Release | 2018-12-13 |
Genre | Technology & Engineering |
ISBN | 1108682626 |
This volume in the highly respected Cambridge History of Science series is devoted to the history of science, medicine and mathematics of the Old World in antiquity. Organized by topic and culture, its essays by distinguished scholars offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of ancient science currently available. Together, they reveal the diversity of goals, contexts, and accomplishments in the study of nature in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and India. Intended to provide a balanced and inclusive treatment of the ancient world, contributors consider scientific, medical and mathematical learning in the cultures associated with the ancient world.
Ancient Geography
Title | Ancient Geography PDF eBook |
Author | Duane W. Roller |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Total Pages | 304 |
Release | 2015-08-27 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0857725661 |
Before Columbus there was Eratosthenes: 'inventor' of the discipline of geography as it is known today. There was Alexander the Great: the man who sought to reach the very ends of the known world and whose empire spanned three continents. And there was Strabo: author of the Geographica, a 17-volume encyclopaedia of geographical knowledge which expounded the definition, history and mathematics of geography. In this, the first major study of ancient geography and geographers to be published in English for over 60 years, Duane W. Roller offers a comprehensive account of these, and the many other, ancient pioneers and the frontiers that defined their world. Ranging from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, Ancient Geography: The Discovery of the World in Classical Greece and Rome is the definitive guide to how the triumphs and the errors of antiquity laid the foundations for millennia of voyaging and exploration.
Measuring the Earth
Title | Measuring the Earth PDF eBook |
Author | Mary Gow |
Publisher | Enslow Publishing, LLC |
Total Pages | 136 |
Release | 2009-07-01 |
Genre | Juvenile Nonfiction |
ISBN | 9780766031203 |
"A biography of ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes, who used geometry to calculate the circumference of the earth. He is also known as the Father of Geography"--Provided by publisher.