Just for Fun Friday: The Solstice
We don’t talk about Eratosthenes very much anymore other than to ask the questions “Who is Eratosthenes?” and “How do you pronounce Eratosthenes?”
In case you are wondering (which you are), it is pronounced eh·ruh·taas·thuh·neez (which still doesn’t help because its still damn hard to say).
Besides inventing the circumference of the Earth, he also invented the sieve of Eratosthenes, which is not a device to strain your noodles, but a method of finding prime numbers (Now a new game from Mattel, fun for the whole family!)*
Happy solstice, everyone! Here’s more about that guy:
[Originally posted on June 20, 2024]
One day in ancient times, Eratosthenes, a scholar at the University of Lyceum in Greece, decided to make a map of the world. The next day, he decided it was too much work and applied for a job at the new library in a little place called Alexandria.
King Ptolemy III, looked over the parchment with Eratosthenes’s credentials and said, “Meh. He’ll probably work for cheap.” And was hired.
One day—still ancient, by the way— Eratosthenes was sitting on the edge of a well eating his lunch (falafel, in case you were wondering), when he noticed something.
“Hey! I told them no onions! There’s onions in here!” he said angrily.
He plucked each one out and dropped them down the shaft of the well, when he noticed something else.
“Hey! There’s change down there!”
He looked around for a very long pole and some chewing gum. Half and hour later he had a handful of coins and was late for work.
The next day, out of a job, Eratosthenes went back to his little moneymaker. When he looked down, only to notice the sun was shining directly on the bottom, revealing to his disappointment that there were no more coins, only a few chicken bones. He stood and saw that his shadow was centered around his feet. “Interesting,” he thought, then shrugged and went to the employment office to look for another job.
Oh, he also used this information to calculate the circumference of the world to within 1000 miles. But that’s another story.
-Leon
*Oh you want the fun, do you? https://www.transum.org/software/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes/
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Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.
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