Mathematics and Statistics Non-specialist Seminar – title: The Changing Face of the Greek World

Speaker: Daniel Mintz (School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews)

Abstract

From a flat, floating disk to the spinning sphere we call home, the image of the earth has changed dramatically over time. In the days of the ancient Greeks, the questions of the earth’s shape, its position in the cosmos, and the picture of the inhabited world were debated by philosophers and astronomers alike. The aim of this talk is to provide a brief chronology of the Greeks’ view of their world, from the earliest known cosmographies, to the astronomical and geographical theories that would endure for over a thousand years after the decline of the Greek civilization.