LYCOS RETRIEVER
Eratosthenes: String
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Eratosthenes is a relatively deep lunar impact crater that lies on the boundary between the Mare Imbrium and Sinus Aestuum [M]aria regions. It forms the western terminus of the Montes Apenninus mountain range. The crater has a well-defined circular rim, terraced inner wall, central mountain peaks, an irregular floor, and an outer rampart of ejecta. It lacks a ray system of its own, but is overlaid by rays from the Copernicus crater to the south-west.
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Remarkably, Eratosthenes determined the circumference to be 25,000 miles, just 100 miles over the actual circumference at the equator (24,901 miles). While Eratosthenes made mathematical errors in his caculations, these fortunately canceled each other out and yielded an amazingly accurate answer.
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Paul E. Black, "sieve of Eratosthenes", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Paul E. Black, ed., U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. 2 July 2007. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/sieve.html
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Eratosthenes was known under the name β, because he proved himself to be the second in the world in many fields and he was ... supposedly known for his haughty character. In 195 BC he became blind and a year later he starved himself to death.
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After an introduction on aim, method, and a short bibliographic report, the second chapter treats Eratosthenes' biographical data. Geus carefully discusses the ancient evidence, taking the Suda article as generally reliable. He does not... agree with Eratosthenes' age given by the Suda and prefers the 82 years of Ps.-Lucian, macr. 27. Geus goes on to discuss a wealth of biographical details such as assumptions about Eratosthenes' teachers, the background for his call to Alexandria, his nicknames, his death, his pupils.
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Eratosthenes ... made a map of the world. He used the same reference lines as Dicaearchus, but he also drew seven parallel lines to each of his defining lines to make a rectangular grid. Eratosthenes' map might have looked something like this:
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