View from the North 40: The Earth as we know it ... or not

Contrary to my grade school learnin’, Europeans of the Middle Ages did not think that Earth was flat only to be proven wrong by one Christopher Columbus, no, the Flat Earthers didn’t really get going until the 1900s.

In 400-something BC, just prior to my birth, some Greek scientists, tired of looking at statues of perfect people, sat down and figured out the whole Earth-is-round thing. The problem was mapping that world accurately.

Sure, a map works great if you’re looking at it on a globe because, spoiler alert, a globe is shaped like Earth. But how do you account for constant curvature on a...