Aristarchus (c. 310 – c. 230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician, who presented the first heliocentric model, placing the Sun at the center of the universe, with Earth revolving around it.

After realizing the sun was much larger than the earth and the other planets, Aristarchus concluded that planets revolved around the sun. But this ingenious insight, it turned out, “was too much for the philosophers of the time to swallow, and astronomy had to wait 2000 years more to find the right path.” Aristarchus identified the “central fire” with the Sun, and put other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. However his astronomical ideas were rejected in favor of the geocentric theory of Aristotle.

Almost 2000 years later, Nicolaus Copernicus attributed the heliocentric theory (planets rotating sun) to Aristarchus.

What did you think? Did most of time really consist of humans thinking the earth was flat?

Bibliography: Heath, Sir Thomas (1913). Aristarchus of Samos, the ancient Copernicus; a history of Greek astronomy to Aristarchus, together with Aristarchus’s Treatise on the sizes and distances of the sun and moon : a new Greek text with translation and notes. London: Oxford University Press.

Baugh, L. S. (2022, November 28). Flat Earth | Theory, Model, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/flat-Earth

Gomez, Alberto (2023). Decoding Aristarchus. Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag. ISBN9783631892619.

Garwood, Christine (2007), Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, Pan Books, ISBN978-1-4050-4702-9