英语翻译1.In ancient times,many people believed the earth was a

英语翻译
1.In ancient times,many people believed the earth was a flat disc.Well over 2,000 years ago; the ancient Greek philosophers were able to put forward two good arguments proving that it was not.Direct observations of heavenly bodies were the basis of both these arguments.First,the Greeks knew that during eclipses of the moon the earth was between the sun and the moon,and they saw that during these eclipses,the earth's shadow on the moon was always round,they realized that this could be true only if the earth was spherical,It the earth was a flat disc,then its shadow during eclipses would not be a prefect circle; it would be stretched out into a long ellipse.The second argument was based on what the Greeks saw during their travels.They noticed that the North Star,or Polaris,appeared lower in the sky when they traveled south,in the more northerly regions,the North Star appeared to them to be much higher in the sky.By the way,it was also from this difference in the apparent position of the North Star that the Greeks first calculated the approximate distance around the circumference of the earth,a figure recorded in ancient documents says 400.000 stadium,that's the plural of the world stadium.Today,it's not known exactly what length one stadium represents,but let's say it was about 200 meters,the length of many athletic stadiums.This would make the Greek's estimate about twice the figure accepted today,a very good estimate for those writing so long before even the first telescope was invented.

.在古代,许多人认为地球是一个扁平圆盘.那么超过2000年前的古希腊哲学家能够提出两个很好的论据,证明事实并非如此.直接观测的天体是这两个论点的基础.首先,希腊人都知道,在月亮的日食地球之间的太阳和月亮,他们看到,在这些日食,地球在月球上的阴影总是轮,他们意识到,这可能是真实的,只有地球是球形的,地球是一个平面圆盘,那么它的影子在日食会不会是一个知府圈,那将是一个长期伸出成椭圆形.第二个论据是基于什么希腊人在看到他们的旅行.他们注意到,北星,或北极星,出现在天空下,他们南下时,在较北的地区,北极星出现在他们面前要大大高于在天空中.顺便说一下,它是从这个在北极星明显位置差异也认为,希腊人首先计算了围绕地球,在古文献中记载的数字周长大约距离说400.000体育场,这是世界体育场复数.今天,它的长度不知道究竟代表一个体育场,但是让我们说这是约200米,许多体育场馆的长度.这将使希腊的估计数字的两倍接受的今天,对那些写了这么久才第一次连望远镜被发明很好的估计.