Post #15307

PASSAGE: Although ordinary people may have thought so, few scientists had ever really believed that the world was flat. And certainly, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, they agreed without exception that it was round. There was still some minor disagreement, however, about exactly what being 'round' meant in this context. Some said the planet was a perfect sphere, like a ball. Others thought it might be generally round, but with some irregularities. The English scientist Sir Isaac Newton argued that the Earth bulged outwards around the equator. On the other hand, the French astronomer royal, Jacques Cassini, believed that the planet was stretched out at the north and south poles, making it shaped more like an egg.