What is the main ideas of Eratosthenes?
Eratosthenes saw that the heavens seemed to rotate once a day around Earth. The axis of rotation formed an imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole through Earth’s center. Eratosthenes calculated the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to the plane of its equator with good accuracy.
Who was Eratosthenes and what did he do?
194 bce, Alexandria, Egypt), Greek scientific writer, astronomer, and poet, who made the first measurement of the size of Earth for which any details are known. At Syene (now Aswān), some 800 km (500 miles) southeast of Alexandria in Egypt, the Sun’s rays fall vertically at noon at the summer solstice.
Where did Eratosthenes go to school?
Platonic Academy
Eratosthenes/Education
What did Eratosthenes believe?
By around 500 B.C., most ancient Greeks believed that Earth was round, not flat. But they had no idea how big the planet is until about 240 B.C., when Eratosthenes devised a clever method of estimating its circumference.
When was Eratosthenes born and when did he die?
Eratosthenes, in full Eratosthenes of Cyrene, (born c. 276 bce, Cyrene, Libya—died c. 194 bce, Alexandria, Egypt), Greek scientific writer, astronomer, and poet, who made the first measurement of the size of Earth for which any details are known. What were Eratosthenes’ major achievements?
How is the sieve of Eratosthenes used in mathematics?
In mathematics, the Sieve of Eratosthenes is a simple, ancient algorithm for finding all prime numbers up to any given limit.
What did Eratosthenes of Cyrene do for a living?
He also developed a method for finding prime numbers, and made contributions as an astronomer, geographer, philosopher, and poet. Born in Cyrene, now part of Libya, Eratosthenes’s father was named Aglaus, but these are the only known facts of his origins.
Why did Eratosthenes think his circumference was too big?
Although Eratosthenes made a few mathematical errors in his calculations, the, canceled each other out and yielded an amazingly accurate answer that still causes scientists to marvel. A few decades later, the Greek geographer Posidonius insisted that Eratosthenes’ circumference was too large.
