You are going to do some research in mathematics the way that mathematicians do. We first think about the problems by ourselves. Then we consult books and journals, and rethink the problem using ideas from other sources to help us. Eventually we might talk to an expert in the field and see if they have ideas to help us. This process can be frustrating, but it is the struggle that leads to deep understanding.
You will explore your own research problems next week.
Problem 0:
How could we tell that the earth is round and not flat without using
any technology (ie if we were ancient Greeks)?
For my problem, I am asked how we could know that the earth is round
and not flat
without using any technology. I will attempt to answer this question
by using only my initial intuition.
As I first thought about this problem, it occurred to me that
if we traveled around the earth and
fell off of it while we were traveling, then we would know that
the earth was not round.
On the other hand, if we never fell off while
traveling, then we could
not tell whether the earth was round, flat
or some other shape.
It could still be flat but perhaps our travels had
just not taken us to the edge.
Historically, I think that people thought that the earth was indeed
flat, and that a ship could fall off the edge.
I then realized that this approach would not
solve the question, because it would never allow us to
determine that the earth is actually round.
I next thought about trying to find a definitive method to tell if the earth was round and not flat. If we could travel all the way around the earth, being assured that we were traveling in the same direction all the time, then this would differentiate our living on a round earth from living on a flat earth. Yet, we are not allowed to use any technology to help us, so a compass would not be allowed. Given this, I'm not sure how we could know that we were traveling in the same direction. Hence, I decided that while this was a good idea, I could not make the method work without technology.
Finally, I gave up on the idea of traveling to reach a specific destination, and started to think about the constellations. If we travel to different places on the earth, we see differences in the stars. For example, constellations look very different in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. Also, even within the northern hemisphere, the north star is in different positions in the sky. This would not occur if the earth were flat and would indicate that the earth was round.
This concludes my initial intuition on Problem 0.