Many are a melting pot of 9/11-inspired anti-government conspiracy theories, religious fundamentalism, new-age pseudoscience concepts, and far-right ideologies. Type ‘flat earth’ into YouTube, however, and you will find a whole wealth of videos attempting to prove that the Earth is flat. For the most part you really need to go back to 8 th-century BCE and sections of early Egyptian and Mesopotamian thought to find the concept of a flat Earth being widely accepted. Parts of rural China held belief in the Earth being a flat square (with four distinct corners), until modern astronomy began influencing common knowledge there in the 17 th century. The discovery that Earth is in fact orbiting around the Sun may be a more recent revelation traced back to the Middle Ages, but the general shape of the planet was not really in question. Such ideas seem to have seeped somewhat into the popular consciousness, suggesting that the understanding of Earth as a globe is a far more recent idea. The birth of the Modern Age was popular amongst many writers, even if such concepts were not always accurate. American national myth-making was highly active during the first half of the 19 th century, and a trend to suggest that the founding of the New World represented not only new opportunities, but also a break from outdated ideas. The other source is the 1919 edition of Boy’s and Girl’s Reader, which began with the line: ‘When Columbus lived, people thought the Earth was flat’. Irving claimed Columbus’s incentive to navigate the globe was to prove that it was in fact a globe, and not flat as many at the time allegedly believed. One is the 1828 work A History of The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus by Washington Irving, an early example of historical fiction, aimed at retelling the adventures of the famous explorer. Much of the belief that those 500 years ago believed in a flat Earth comes from two sources. However the idea that many during the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat is a myth that seems common even today. The understanding that Earth is a large, roughly round-shaped object can be dated back to the 6 th Century BCE. Although membership declined, following World War Two the group was revived as The Flat Earth Society, which continues to discuss subjects relevant to the movement in meetings and on the Internet.Generally speaking, very few people, and certainly not many with a decent education, have considered the concept of the Earth being a flat plane (rather than a spherical ball), for a very long time. Following Rowbotham's death in 1884, his friend Lady Elizabeth Blount founded the Universal Zetetic Society, which was comprised of people committed to the belief that the Earth is flat. Today, Zetetic Astronomy both as a book and a movement lives on. Aware of these indignant sensitivities, Rowbotham was vociferous in disputing the prevailing order.
One success of his public challenges was that it exposed many in the scientific community to be angry and poor at coping with a man with a well-argued and contrary hypothesis. Samuel Rowbotham was fiercely in favor of his theory, and asked many leading astronomers and scientists of his day to disprove it. Various chapters concern such topics as motion of the heavenly bodies, sunrises, sunsets, the tidal movements, and the actual distances of the Sun and Moon from the Earth. Most of these are framed with illustrations and diagrams, that the reader better understand Rowbotham's explanations. Upon the pages are many experiments and demonstrations, all of which are conducted in support of the Earth being flat, with the astronomical bodies situated above, rather than all around it. Keen to let the hypothesis stand on its own merits, this book was first published under the pseudonym of 'Parallax'. Eventually, in 1881, the author greatly expanded and published this book, in part to meet demands of public and scientific scrutiny. Rowbotham was already a known inventor and author at the time, over time the theories of Zetetic Astronomy - in which the Earth is portrayed as flat - became popular. This book originally began as a short pamphlet in the 1840s, explaining the basics of the theory with a few sketches alongside. This premium edition contains all of Rowbotham's original graphs, charts and drawings.
Samuel Birley Rowbotham advances the Flat Earth theory, which holds that Earth is not in fact an oblate spheroid planet, but an enclosed plane above which the astronomical bodies are situated.
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