イングランドの作家サミュエル・ロウボタン(1816年 – 1885年)は「Parallax」という変名を用いて1849年に『探究的天文学』(英: Zetetic Astronomy)というパンフレットを作成して地球平面説を主張し、長い排水管の中の水の湾曲度合いを調べる実験を多数行った結果を発表した。これに続いて「近代天文学の矛盾とその聖書に対する背馳」なる文書も出された。彼の支持者の一人ジョン・ハムデンは地球平面説を証明しようとする有名なベッドフォード水位実験でアルフレッド・ラッセル・ウォレスと賭けをして負けた。1877年にはハムデンは『新しい聖書宇宙地理学』(英: A New Manual of Biblical Cosmography)を作成した[135]。また、ロウボタンは、船が水平線の下に消えていく現象は人間の眼との関係で視点の法則から説明できると称する研究も行った[136]。
もともとイングランドのグリニッジの印刷業者だったウィリアム・カーペンターという男がロウボタンの支持者となり『暴かれた理論天文学 ― 地球が球体でないことの証明』(英: Theoretical Astronomy Examined and Exposed - Proving the Earth not a Globe)を1864年に『コモン・センス』(英: Common sense)の題で8部構成として出版した[137]。彼は後にボルチモアに移住し、1885年に『地球が球体でないことの百の証明』(英: A hundred proofs the Earth is not a Globe)を出版した[138]。
彼の主張はこうである:
ロウボタンの死後、エリザベス・ブロントが1893年にイングランドで世界真理探究協会を設立し、『Earth not a Globe Review』という雑誌を創刊して2ペンスで売ったが、『Earth』という雑誌もありこちらは1901年から1904年まで続いた。彼女は自然世界に関しても聖書が疑いのない権威であると考えており、地球が球体だと信じている者はクリスチャンではないと主張した。世界真理探究協会の著名なメンバーには、三位一体聖書協会のメンバーでもあるEthelbert William Bullinger 、ダブリン大学トリニティ・カレッジの自然科学の上級議長でもある大司教エドワード・ホートンらがいた。彼女はロウボタンの実験を繰り返し、いくつかの興味深い反証実験を生み出したが、第一次世界大戦後には関心が薄れていった[141]。この運動によりデイヴィッド・ワルドー・スコット『確固とした大地』(羅:Terra Firma)などの地球平面説を主張するいくつかの書籍が発表された[142]。
ジョシュア・スローカムは世界一周旅行中の1898年にダーバンで地球平面論者の一団と出会った。一人の聖職者を含む三人のボーア人が彼にパンフレットを贈ったが、それには地球平面説の証明が記されていた。トランスヴァール共和国の大統領ポール・クリューガーも同じ考えを広めていた: 「You don't mean round the world, it is impossible! You mean in the world. Impossible![143]」
1956年にサミュエル・シェントンは「国際地球平面協会」(英: International Flat Earth Research Society, IFERS)を、世界真理探究協会の後継として創設し、世話人としてイギリスのドーヴァーにある自宅で運営した。同協会は「地球平面協会」という別名でよく知られる。シェントンの関心は代替科学技術にあったため、前身の協会と比べると宗教的主張は抑えられていた。協会の創設はソ連が最初の人工衛星スプートニクを打ち上げる直前のことであったが、スプートニクの成功に対して彼は「ワイト島の周囲を航行することで島が球体だと証明できるか? 人工衛星であっても同じことだ」と述べている[149]。
文学作品における初期の言及はルズヴィ・ホルベアの喜劇『エラスムス・モンタヌス』(1723年)にみられる。同作品中でエラスムス・モンタヌスは地球球体説を主張すると激しい反論に遭う、というのも小作人たちはみな地球平面説を信じているのである。彼は婚約者と結婚することを許されず、「地球はパンケーキのように平たい」と叫ぶのであった。ラドヤード・キップリングの『地球平面説に票を投じた村』(英: The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat)において主人公は教区会議が地球平面説に投票したという噂を流す。映画『ミラクル・ワールド ブッシュマン』(1980年)ではカラハリ砂漠に住むブッシュマンが邪悪な力を感じたコカコーラの壜を処分するために「世界の端」へ旅することになる。
^When Aquinas wrote his Summa, at the very beginning (Summa Theologica Ia, q. 1, a. 1; see also Summa Theologica IIa Iae, q. 54, a. 2), the idea of a round Earth was the example used when he wanted to show that fields of science are distinguished by their methods rather than their subject matter... "Sciences are distinguished by the different methods they use. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion - that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer proves it by means of mathematics, but the physicist proves it by the nature of matter.History of Science: Shape of the Earth: Middle Ages: AquinasArchived 2006年9月3日, at the Wayback Machine."
脚注
^"Their cosmography as far as we know anything about it was practically of one type up til the time of the white man's arrival upon the scene. That of the Borneo Dayaks may furnish us with some idea of it. 'They consider the Earth to be a flat surface, whilst the heavens are a dome, a kind of glass shade which covers the Earth and comes in contact with it at the horizon.'"
Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality (repr. Boston: Beacon, 1966) 353;
"The usual primitive conception of the world's form ... [is] flat and round below and surmounted above by a solid firmament in the shape of an inverted bowl." H. B. Alexander, The Mythology of All Races 10: North American (repr. New York: Cooper Square, 1964) 249.
^Direct adoption of the Greek concept by Islam: Ragep, F. Jamil: "Astronomy", in: Krämer, Gudrun (ed.) et al.: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill 2010, without page numbers
^Direct adoption by India: D. Pingree: "History of Mathematical Astronomy in India", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 15 (1978), pp. 533−633 (554f.); Glick, Thomas F., Livesey, Steven John, Wallis, Faith (eds.): "Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia", Routledge, New York 2005, ISBN 0-415-96930-1, p. 463
^ abMembers of the Historical Association (1945). Common errors in history. General Series, G.1. London: P.S. King & Staples for the Historical Association, pp.4–5. The Historical Association published a second list of 17 other common errors in 1947.
^Like the Midrash and the Talmud, the Targum does not think of a globe of the spherical earth, around which the sun revolves in 24 hours, but of a flat disk of the earth, above which the sun completes its semicircle in an average of 12 hours. (The Distribution of Land and Sea on the Earth's Surface According to Hebrew Sources, Solomon Gandz, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 22 (1953), pp. 23-53, published by American Academy for Jewish Research.
^The Egyptian universe was substantially similar to the Babylonian universe; it was pictured as a rectangular box with a north-south orientation and with a slightly concave surface, with Egypt in the center. A good idea of the similarly primitive state of Hebrew astronomy can be gained from Biblical writings, such as the Genesis creation story and the various Psalms that extol the firmament, the stars, the sun, and the earth. The Hebrews saw the earth as an almost flat surface consisting of a solid and a liquid part, and the sky as the realm of light in which heavenly bodies move. The earth rested on cornerstones and could not be moved except by Jehovah (as in an earthquake). According to the Hebrews, the sun and the moon were only a short distance from one another. - How to cite this article: MLA (Modern Language Association) style: "Cosmology." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2012. Author: Giorgio Abetti, Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri-Firenze.
^The picture of the universe in Talmudic texts has the Earth in the center of creation with heaven as a hemisphere spread over it. The Earth is usually described as a disk encircled by water. Interestingly, cosmological and metaphysical speculations were not to be cultivated in public nor were they to be committed to writing. Rather, they were considered to be "secrets of the Torah not to be passed on to all and sundry" (Ketubot 112a). While study of God's creation was not prohibited, speculations about "what is above, what is beneath, what is before, and what is after" (Mishnah Hagigah: 2) were restricted to the intellectual elite. (Topic Overview: Judaism, Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, Ed. J. Wentzel Vrede van Huyssteen. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003. p477-483. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson).
^H. and H. A. Frankfort, J. A. Wilson, and T. Jacobsen, Before Philosophy (Baltimore: Penguin, 1949) 54.
^
Anthony Gottlieb (2000). The Dream of Reason. Penguin. p. 6. ISBN0-393-04951-5
^Pyramid Texts, Utterance 366, 629a-629c: "Behold, thou art great and round like the Great Round; Behold, thou are bent around, and art round like the Circle which encircles the nbwt; Behold, thou art round and great like the Great Circle which sets."(Faulkner 1969, 120)
^Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Pritchard, 1969, p.374.
^The Shield of Heracles, 314-316, transl. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914.
^The shield of Achilles and the poetics of ekphrasis, Andrew Sprague Becker, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, p.148.
^Professor of Classics (Emeritus) Mark W. Edwards in his The Iliad. A commentary (1991, p.231) has noted of Homer's usage of the flat earth disc in the Iliad: "Okeanos...surrounds the pictures on the shield and he surrounds the flat disc of the earth on which men and women work out their lives". Quoted in The shield of Achilles and the poetics of ekphrasis, Andrew Sprague Becker, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, p.148
^Stasinus of Cyprus wrote in his Cypria (lost, only preserved in fragment) that Oceanus surrounded the entire earth: deep eddying Oceanus and that the earth was flat with furthest bounds, these quotes are found preserved in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, VIII. 334B.
^Mimnermus of Colophon (630BC) details a flat earth model, with the sun (Helios) bathing at the edges of Oceanus that surround the earth (Mimnermus, frg. 11)
^Seven against Thebes, verse 305; Prometheus Bound, 1, 136; 530; 665 (which also describe the 'edges' of the earth).
^Apollonius Rhodius, in his Argonautica (3rd century BC) included numerous flat earth references (IV. 590 ff): "Now that river, rising from the ends of the earth, where are the portals and mansions of Nyx (Night), on one side bursts forth upon the beach of Okeanos."
^Posthomerica (V. 14) - "Here [on the shield of Achilles] Tethys' all-embracing arms were wrought, and Okeanos fathomless flow. The outrushing flood of Rivers crying to the echoing hills all round, to right, to left, rolled o'er the land." - Translation by Way. A. S, 1913.
^According to John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy, Houghton and Mifflin, 1968.
^The Physical World of the Greeks, Samuel Sambursky, Princeton University Press (August 1987), p. 12
^Burch, George Bosworth (1954). “The Counter-Earth”. Osirus (Saint Catherines Press) 11 (1): 267–294. doi:10.1086/368583.
^Aristotle, De Caelo, II. 13. 3; 294a 28: "Many others say the earth rests upon water. This... is the oldest theory that has been preserved, and is attributed to Thales of Miletus"
^Herodotus knew of the conventional view, according to which the river Ocean runs around a circular flat earth (4.8), and of the division of the world into three - Jacoby, RE Suppl. 2.352 ff yet rejected this personal belief (Histories, 2. 21; 4. 8; 4. 36)
^The history of Herodotus, George Rawlinson, Appleton and company, 1889, p. 409
^ abD. Pingree: "History of Mathematical Astronomy in India", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 15 (1978), pp. 533−633 (554f.)
^The Sacred Tree in Religion and Myth, Mrs. J. H. Philpot, Courier Dover Publications, 2004, p.113.
^"The world was a flat disk, with the earth in the center and the sea all around. Thus the serpent is about as far away from the center, where men and gods lived" (Norse mythology: a guide to the Gods, heroes, rituals, and beliefs, John Lindow Oxford University Press, 2002).
^One of the earliest literary references to the world encircling water snake comes from Bragi Boddason who lived in the 9th century, in his Ragnarsdrápa (XIV)
^Kojiki, I: "The names of the Deities that were born next from a thing that sprouted up like unto a reed-shoot when the earth, young and like unto floating oil, drifted about medusa-like"
^Ainu Folklore, Carl Etter, Kessinger Publishing, 1949, pp. 18-20.
^ abNeedham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. pp. 498.
^Christopher Cullen, "Joseph Needham on Chinese Astronomy", Past and Present, No. 87. (May 1980), pp. 39-53 (42 & 49)
^Christopher Cullen, "A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth: A Study of a Fragment of Cosmology in Huai Nan tzu 淮 南 子", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1976), pp. 106-127 (107-109)
^Christopher Cullen, "A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth: A Study of a Fragment of Cosmology in Huai Nan tzu 淮 南 子", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1976), pp. 106-127 (107)
^Needham, Joseph (1959), Science and Civilisation in China, 3, C.U.P., p. 219, ISBN0-521-63262-5
^Christopher Cullen, "Joseph Needham on Chinese Astronomy", Past and Present, No. 87. (May 1980), pp. 39-53 (42)
^Christopher Cullen, "A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth: A Study of a Fragment of Cosmology in Huai Nan tzu 淮 南 子", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1976), pp. 106-127 (108)
^ abcChristopher Cullen, "A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth: A Study of a Fragment of Cosmology in Huai Nan tzu 淮 南 子", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1976), pp. 106-127 (109)
^Lloyd, G.E.R. (1968). Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought. Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 162–164. ISBN0-521-07049-X
^Van Helden, Albert (1985). Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus to Halley. University of Chicago Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN0-226-84882-5
^Stevens, Wesley M. (1980). “The Figure of the Earth in Isidore's "De natura rerum"”. Isis71 (2): 268–77. doi:10.1086/352464. JSTOR230175, page 269
^Sedley, David N. (2003). Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 78–82. ISBN978-0-521-54214-2
^ abMacrobius. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, V.9-VI.7, XX.. pp. 18–24, translated in Stahl, W. H. (1952). Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Columbia University Press
^Cormack, Lesley (2009). “Myth 3: That Medieval Christians Taught that he Earth was Flat”. In Ronald Numbers. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion. Harvard University Press. pp. 30–31. ISBN9780674057418
^Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book III, Chapter XXIV, THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, Vol VII, ed. Rev. Alexander Roberts, D.D., and James Donaldson, LL.D., American reprint of the Edinburgh edition (1979), W.B.Eerdmans Publishing Co.,Grand Rapids, MI, pp.94-95.
^J. L. E. Dreyer, A History of Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler. (1906); unabridged republication as A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler (New York: Dover Publications, 1953).
^St. John Chrysostom, Homilies Concerning the Statutes, Homily IX, paras.7-8, in A SELECT LIBRARY OF THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Series I, Vol IX, ed. Philip Schaff, D.D.,LL.D., American reprint of the Edinburgh edition (1978), W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,Grand Rapids, MI, pp.403-404.
"When therefore thou beholdest not a small pebble, but the whole earth borne upon the waters, and not submerged, admire the power of Him who wrought these marvellous things in a supernatural manner! And whence does this appear, that the earth is borne upon the waters? The prophet declares this when he says, "He hath founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the floods."1416 And again: "To him who hath founded the earth upon the waters."1417 What sayest thou? The water is not able to support a small pebble on its surface, and yet bears up the earth, great as it is; and mountains, and hills, and cities, and plants, and men, and brutes; and it is not submerged!"
^St.Athanasius, Against the Heathen, Ch.27 [1], Ch 36 [2], in A SELECT LIBRARY OF THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Series II, Vol IV, ed. Philip Schaff, D.D.,LL.D., American reprint of the Edinburgh edition (1978), W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,Grand Rapids, MI.
^See Leone Montagnini, La questione della forma della Terra. Dalle origini alla tarda Antichità, in Studi sull'Oriente Cristiano, 13/II: 31-68
^ abcRussell, Jefrey Burton (1991). Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. Praeger. pp. 86–87. ISBN0-275-95904-X
^B. Eastwood and G. Graßhoff, Planetary Diagrams for Roman Astronomy in Medieval Europe, ca. 800-1500, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 94, 3 (Philadelphia, 2004), pp. 49-50.
^Bruce S. Eastwood, Ordering the Heavens: Roman Astronomy and Cosmology in the Carolingian Renaissance, (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 62-3.
^S. C. McCluskey, Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1998), pp. 114, 123.
^Wesley M. Stevens, "The Figure of the Earth in Isidore's De natura rerum", Isis, 71(1980): 268-277.Stevens, Wesley M. (1980). “The Figure of the Earth in Isidore's "De natura rerum"”. Isis71 (2): 268–77. doi:10.1086/352464. JSTOR230175, page 274
^Grant, Edward (1974). A Sourcebook in Medieval Science (Source Books in the History of the Sciences). Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-674-82360-0
^Thomas Glick, Stephen John Livesley and Faith Wallis (2005). Medieval Science Technology and Medicine, an Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis, NY
^Faith Wallis, trans., Bede: The Reckoning of Time, (Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Pr., 2004), pp. lxxxv-lxxxix.
^Klaus Anselm Vogel, "Sphaera terrae - das mittelalterliche Bild der Erde und die kosmographische Revolution," PhD dissertation Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 1995, p. 19.[7]
^E. Grant, Planets. Stars, & Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1994), pp. 626-630.
^Jill Tattersall (1981). “The Earth, Sphere or Disc?”. Modern Language Review76: 31–46.
^Surat Al-Ghashiya 88:18-19 reads "Do they never reflect on .. the heaven, how it was raised on high? The mountains, how they were set down? The earth, how it was made flat?".
^A spherical terrestrial globe was introduced to Beijing in 1267 by the Persian astronomer Jamal ad-Din, but it is not known to have made an impact on the traditional Chinese conception of the shape of the Earth (cf. Joseph Needham et al.: "Heavenly clockwork: the great astronomical clocks of medieval China", Antiquarian Horological Society, 2nd. ed., Vol. 1, 1986, ISBN 0-521-32276-6, p. 138)
^Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. pp. 499.
^
Zacharia Lilio (1496). Contra Antipodes. Florence cited by W.G.L.Randles (1980). De la terre plate au globe terrestre. Paris, Libraire Armand Colin. p. 31
^Schadewald, Robert J "The Flat-out Truth:Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet" Science Digest July 1980
^Schick, Theodore; Lewis Vaughn How to think about weird things: critical thinking for a new age Houghton Mifflin (Mayfield) (31 October 1995) ISBN 978-1-55934-254-4 p.197
Fraser, Raymond (2007). When The Earth Was Flat: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters. Black Moss Press, ISBN 978-0-88753-439-3
Garwood, Christine (2007) Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, Pan Books, ISBN 1-4050-4702-X