The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

INSIDE SKEPTIC

in this issue

Flat Earth?! The Convoluted Story of a Flatly Mistaken Idea

• Can You Prove the Earth is Round?
• Unflattening the World: The Spherical Earth in the Time of Aristotle
• Measuring Earth with a Stick
• Columbus and the Myth of Medieval Flat-Earth Belief
• Inventing the Flat Earth
• Radical Perspectives: The “Parallax” Effect
• Did Rowbotham Believe His Own Claims?
• Bedlam at Bedford
• Crusaders & Conspiracies: A Conspiracy of Roundness?
• Lady Blount’s Universal Zetetic Society

By Daniel Loxton. This issue’s cover features a digital painting by Daniel Loxton, based upon a 19th century flat-Earth diagram.

from the Introduction

Hello!

Imagine if someone were to ask you, “What shape is the Earth?” It’s likely you’d answer “round,” or describe our world as a ball (or globe or sphere) in space. I would too! But what if you met someone who insisted that the Earth is nothing like a ball, but instead is as flat as a pancake? How could they possibly defend such a peculiar notion? And are there really people who believe this?