Circumference : Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe

from JimPAX

Circumference belongs in the popular science genre of history books. The tagline, "Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe" promises a story about the man who applied plane geometry and crude measurements to arrive at a startlingly accurate estimate for the polar circumference of ...

from vpfluke

This was an interesting book that I didn't give proper attention to. Eratosthenes was a "polymath". Besides being a scientist and fairly clever at that, he became the librarian at Alexandria, one of the great libraries in the ancient world. The author of this book switched back between the life o...

from janerawoof

More like 3.5. Fascinating and educational for a layperson like me, but I felt it was bloated. Yes, Eratosthenes was covered--even with the sketchy information on his life from the Suda [the Byzantine encyclopedia] and what his conclusions on geodesy--shape of the earth and its circumference--wer...

from darwin.8u

A nice exploration of the history of one of mathematics more elusive thinkers. IN the spirit of Sobel's 'Longitude,' etc., Nicastro adeptly explores the times, the problem, and the solutions that guided Eratosthenes. Anyone who loves the history of science and math will enjoy this book.

from minfo

A good read, particularly for those interested in the topic. If you enjoyed "Longitude", you'll likely enjoy this book but towards the end it seems to get a bit 'fuzzy'. The first 2/3rds was really quite interesting even if the author's style may make it somewhat more difficult for readers to und...