Editing Geodesy (section)

== History ==
{{main|History of geodesy|templates=-Geodesy}}
Geodesy began in pre-scientific [[Classical antiquity|antiquity]], so the very word geodesy comes from the [[Ancient Greek]] word {{lang|grc|γεωδαισία}} or ''geodaisia'' (literally, "division of Earth").<ref name="routledge">{{cite book |last1=Kent |first1=Alexander |last2=Vujakovic |first2=Peter |title=The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography |date=4 October 2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-56822-3 |page=187 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dowEEAAAQBAJ&dq=translate+ancient+greek+%CE%B3%CE%B5%CF%89%CE%B4%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%83%CE%AF%CE%B1&pg=PA187 |access-date=6 December 2024 |language=en}}</ref>

Early ideas about the figure of the Earth held the Earth to be [[flat Earth|flat]] and the heavens a [[Firmament|physical dome]] spanning over it.<ref name="Webb">{{cite book |last1=Webb |first1=Stephen H. |title=The Dome of Eden: A New Solution to the Problem of Creation and Evolution |date=1 January 2010 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-60608-741-1 |page=214 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wStMAwAAQBAJ&dq=flat+earth+dome+heavens&pg=PA214 |access-date=6 December 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Two early arguments for a spherical Earth were that lunar eclipses appear to an observer as circular shadows and that  [[Polaris]] appears lower and lower in the sky to a traveler headed South.<ref name="Posa">{{cite book |last1=Posamentier |first1=Alfred S. |last2=Maresch |first2=Guenter |last3=Thaller |first3=Bernd |last4=Spreitzer |first4=Christian |last5=Geretschlager |first5=Robert |last6=Stuhlpfarrer |first6=David |last7=Dorner |first7=Christian |title=Geometry In Our Three-dimensional World |date=24 November 2021 |publisher=World Scientific |isbn=978-981-12-3712-6 |pages=113–115 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DGxYEAAAQBAJ&dq=spherical+earth+lunar+eclipse+polaris&pg=PA114 |access-date=6 December 2024 |language=en}}</ref>