Facts

A portrait of Eratosthenes.

quick facts:

1. Archimedes was born circa 287 BC in Syracuse, Sicily.
2. His calculation is flawed because measurements of distance over land were inaccurate at the time; he had to estimate using the amount of time it took to travel between the two cities by camel.
3. Despite the experimental error, his estimate of the Earth's size was widely accepted for hundreds of years afterwards.
4. Eratosthenes is known as the first person to prove that the Earth is round, although previous astronomers had simply assumed that it was spherical.