Many thousands of years ago, people believed that our Earth rests on three elephants. Legends about whales, about huge turtles, on which our world rests, circulated around the world. It never occurred to anyone that in reality our planet is a ball, not a flat pancake. Let's plunge into the amazing history of scientific discoveries and dispel all the tales of a flat Earth.
Arguments and Facts
Ancient civilizations believed that we are the center of the universe. The fact of the existence of the main axis and asymmetry in the upper and lower parts of our land was not denied, that is, it was assumed that we live on a flat plate. This "damn" was supposed to hold some support from falling. For this reason, the question arose: "And on what does the earth rest?" In the mythology of ancient people, it was believed that our land rests on three huge whales or turtles that swim in the vast ocean.
Millennia have passed, many scientific discoveries have been made, but there are still people who believe that the Earth is flat. They are called "flat earths." They claim that NASA fakes all the facts related to space. The main argument in favor of the "plane" of the earth is the so-called "horizon line". Indeed, if you take a picture of the horizon, then the photo will have an absolutely flat line.
However, there is a scientific explanation for this: the visible horizon is below the mathematical one, therefore, due to the refraction of the light beam (light rays land on the surface), the observer begins to see far beyond the line of the mathematical beam. In simple words, the horizon depends on the height of the view. The higher the observer is, the more this line will bend and round. Note that when flying in an airplane, the skyline is the correct circle.
Cosmogonic Mythology
How is our world arranged? Why does day replace night? Where are the stars from? What does the earth rest on? These questions were asked in ancient Egypt and Babylon, but only in the 5th century, scientists of ancient Greece began to seriously study astronomy. Pythagoras was the first to guess that the earth has a spherical shape. His students - Aristotle, Parmenides and Plato - developed this theory, which was later called "geocentric". It was believed that our Earth is the center of the universe, and the rest of the celestial bodies rotate around its axis. For many centuries, it was this theory that was generally accepted, while in the III century BC. e. the ancient Greek scientist Aristarchus did not make the assumption that in the center of the universe is not the Earth, but the Sun.
However, his ideas were not taken seriously and developed properly. In the II century BC e. in ancient Greece, astronomy gradually turned into astrology, religious dogma and even mysticism began to prevail over rationalism. There was a general crisis of science, and then no one cared what the earth rested on. There were other matters and concerns.
Heliocentric system
In the IX-XII centuries, the flowering of sciences in the countries of the East. Among all Islamic states, the Gaznevid and Karakhanid (state formations in the territory of modern Uzbekistan), in which great scientists lived and worked, stand out. It was here that the best madrassas (schools) were concentrated, where such sciences as mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy were studied. Almost all mathematical formulas and calculations were deduced by oriental scientists. For example, in the X century, the famous Omar Khayyam with his like-minded people was already solving tasks of the third degree, while the Holy Inquisition flourished in Europe.
The most famous astronomer and ruler Ulugbek built the largest observatory in one of the Samarkand madrasahs at the beginning of the 15th century. He invited all Islamic mathematicians and astronomers there. Their scientific works with accurate calculations served as a turning point in the history of the study of astronomy. Thanks to these discoveries about the heliocentric structure of the world, sciences began to emerge in European countries, which are still based on treatises by Mirzo Ulugbek and his contemporaries.
Tale "What is the Earth holding on to?"
Soon the fairy tale affects, but not soon the thing is done. Once upon a time, our Earth rested on the Turtle, and it lay on the backs of three Elephants, which in turn stood on the huge Whale. But Keith has been swimming in the vast ocean for millions of years. Once pundits gathered and thought: “Ah, if Keith, the Turtle and the Elephants get tired of holding our Earth, we will all drown in the ocean!” And then they decided to talk to the Animals:
“Is it not difficult for you, our dear Whale, Turtle and Elephants, to hold the Earth?”
To which they answered:
“Honestly, while the Elephants are alive, while Keith is alive, and while the Turtle is alive, your Earth is safe!” We will keep it until the end of the century!
However, pundits did not believe them and decided to bind our Earth so that it did not fall into the ocean. They took nails and pinned the Earth to the shell of the Turtle, they took cast-iron chains and chained the Elephants so that they would not run to the circus if you were tired of holding us. And then they completely took tight ropes and tied Kit. Angry animals and growled: "Honestly, Keith is stronger than sea ropes, honestly, Turtle is stronger than iron nails, honestly, Elephants are stronger than any chains!". They destroyed their shackles and sailed into the ocean. Oh, how frightened our pundits were! But suddenly they look, the Earth does not fall anywhere, and hangs in the air. "On what does the earth rest?" They thought. And still can not understand that, only on the Honest Word and holds.
About science - for children
Children are the most curious little men, therefore from an early age they with all curiosity begin to look for answers to their questions. Become assistants in their difficult business and tell them how our world works. It is not necessary to start with the most difficult sciences, for a start you can read them a fairy tale or a story "On what the Earth rests."
As psychologists recommend, children should not lie, and therefore it is better to immediately warn them that these are all legends and fairy tales. But in fact there is a force of universal gravitation, which was discovered by the great English scientist Isaac Newton. Thanks to gravitational forces, cosmic bodies do not fall and rotate, each in its place.
Law of universal attraction
It might become interesting to a little little thing why the objects are falling down and not flying away, for example, up. So the answer is very simple: gravity. Each body has a force that attracts other bodies. However, this force depends on the mass of the object, so we humans do not attract other people to us with the same great strength as our planet Earth does. Thanks to the force of gravity, all objects "fall", that is, are attracted to its center. But because the Earth has the shape of a ball, it seems to us that all bodies just fall down.