Who’s on first?

“There are basically two kinds of people in this world. Those who accomplish something and those that claim to. The first group is less crowded.”—Mark Twain Eratosthenes, an ancient Greek mathematician, calculated the earth's circumference in approximately 200 BCE using knowledge of the time, 2 sticks, and his brain. He was right with less than a 2% error. Approximately 400 years later, Ptolemy calculated the circumference of the earth to be smaller than it actually is by 28%, and his estimate was used throughout the Renaissance, including by Columbus. Eventually, though, history did recognize Eratosthenes as correct and the first to determine the circumference of the earth. For good measure, he also created a system of longitude and latitude. But the seafaring British provided a substantial prize for the determination of longitude at sea, which was awarded in the mid 1700s with little recognition to Eratosthenes. Even today, his name is not a household word.