The Earth is How Big?The following titles discuss the history behind various attempts to measure and map the globe. Geared to readers who enjoy detective stories, science history, biographies, mathematics, and just plain good stories, these books are ideal summer reads.
Circumference : Eratosthenes & the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe by Nicholas Nicastro. How a learned man in ancient Greece was able to measure the earth is conveyed in this remarkable and well-written story.
The Great Arc : The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped & Everest Was Named by John Keay. Politics, personalities, and passion for trigonometry makes math interesting and accessible and the overall volume, a page turner. Really...
Mercator : The Man Who Mapped the Planet by Nicholas Crane. Gerhard Mercator [1512-1594] was a cartographer from the Netherlands whose biography is examined in vivid detail.
The Measure of All Things : The Seven-Year Odyssey & Hidden Error that Transformed the World by Ken Alder. A gigantic cover-up of a scientific survey error, set in Revolutionary France, and the roles major historical figures played in the cover-up, result in an intriguing detective story.
Of interest to kids & all who love a quick, but fascinating read:
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky. This beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Eratosthenes, the head librarian of Alexandria’s famous library, author of “Geographica”, the unique geography of the earth, and inventor of a formula that measured the circumference of the earth.
Post by Bev Simmons
