<p>This paper deals with the development of scientific geography during Antiquity from its mythical background before the seventh century BC to Claudius Ptolemy during the second century AD. The main focus is on questions concerning the shape of the earth, its place in the universe, size and mapping of the earth. Already before 400 BC, the idea of the earth as a globe was firmly estabished. During classical time, Aristotle used empirical and rational arguments to prove that the earth was a sphere and that it was situated motionless in the center of the universe. In the third century BC, the first reasonably correct measurements of the circumference of the earth was carried out by Eratosthenes. Later, a lower, incorrect measurement of the circumference of the earth was made by Poseidonius. His measurement was for some reason accepted by later geographers.The first map of the earth that we know of is on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia from c. 600 BC. The first useful maps were constructed during the Roman era.</p>

This paper deals with the development of scientific geography during Antiquity from its mythical background before the seventh century BC to Claudius Ptolemy during the second century AD. The main focus is on questions concerning the shape of the earth, its place in the universe, size and mapping of the earth. Already before 400 BC, the idea of the earth as a globe was firmly estabished. During classical time, Aristotle used empirical and rational arguments to prove that the earth was a sphere and that it was situated motionless in the center of the universe. In the third century BC, the first reasonably correct measurements of the circumference of the earth was carried out by Eratosthenes. Later, a lower, incorrect measurement of the circumference of the earth was made by Poseidonius. His measurement was for some reason accepted by later geographers.The first map of the earth that we know of is on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia from c. 600 BC. The first useful maps were constructed during the Roman era.

Il s’agit d’examiner la possibilité d’introduire l’histoire des sciences dans l'enseignement scientifique secondaire français afin de travailler l’image de la nature des sciences. Pour cela, nous avons élaboré, et mis en œuvre dans une classe de terminale S, une séquence à caractère historique basée sur sept textes. Elle porte sur le passage du modèle géocentrique au modèle héliocentrique, et vise à mettre en valeur l’existence et l’évolution de présupposés au sein de la physique. La reprise de cette expérience encadrée par trois questionnaires nous a permis de mieux appréhender l’image de la nature des sciences des élèves. Les résultats obtenus sont encourageants quant à l’évolution de leur représentation de l’observation, plus précisément de sa place dans la démarche scientifique et de son ancrage théorique et métaphysique. Par ailleurs, il semble subsister une vision réaliste « naïve » (les savoirs existent dans le monde) et une difficulté à différencier les registres mis à l’œuvre dans l’activité scientifique en sciences physiques. / The idea is to introduce some elements of the History of Science in the French secondary scientific education in order to give a more authentic view of the Nature of Science (NoS). To do so, a historical inquiry based on seven texts was built and tested in a scientific grade 12 class. This pedagogical unit was about the way scientists switched from geocentric models to heliocentric ones. The purpose was to point out the existence and evolution of presuppositions in physics. This unit was implemented again, this time coupled with three questionnaires that enabled us to explore the image students get of science. The results obtained are encouraging as regards to the evolution of their representations of the observation, more precisely of its metaphysical and theoretical anchoring. Moreover, there seems to be a "naive" realistic vision (knowledge exists in the world) and a difficulty in differentiating the registers used in scientific activity in physics.

The work deals with distance measuring in space. The first part is about evolution of space arrangement and dimension imaginations from ancient times until the 20th century. Also Aristarchos´ heliocentric model of the solar system is described in detail, including his quantitative estimates of the Moon and Sun distances and dimensions. Hipparchos´ and Ptolemaios´ geometric models are described in detail too. Great attention is given to a genesis of heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus. The second part deals with contemporary methods of distance measuring. The work proceeds systematically from distances in the solar system to distances between stars as far as to distances between galaxies and quasars. It was necessary to write also about physical principles because distance measuring is based on them. The part of the work is a large pictorial supplement with text comments.