Being totally unbiased... =P

w w w . d a n i e l m - s i l v a . c o m

"I was born in 1983 and grew up in Portugal, between the two margins of the tagus. I was educated in law, but, according to some, recently lost my head. I intend to photograph the world and write things without any concern about  giving them a sense."

The word is not flat - a trip around the planet without airplanes

 

"In pre-Hellenic world earth was believed to be flat. It was mostly conceived of as a land surface, usually a circle, floating in the ocean. Some believed that the earth was a cylinder and remained stable because it had a flat circular top which made it possible to keep the same distance from all things. It were times in which the world's top touched the air and in which the ground had no limits. This belief was then demystified by Pythagoras and Aristotle, but in some parts of the world continued to be the main believe as to the shape of the planet, up until about the seventeenth century. There is a myth,an unlikely one though, that many Europeans still thought the earth to be flat during the great maritime expeditions. It is true that no one had yet completed a full trip around the world and that some people were still discussing how people woudn't just fall below the equator, but the truth is that only a few actually objected the idea of a spherical shape of the earth. Nowadays the question is not even mentioned, since we managed what was then unthinkable: to observe the planet from space. Yes, all this is very interesting and I am very pleased that at this point  of the text you are stil following me. I have heard, however, that the earth is held on the back of an invisible turtle, which in turn rests on another invisible turtle's back, and it is like that all the way to infinity. No one has actually attemped to prove or disprove this thesis. Thus we're still stuck in this imaginary doubt. Returning to the shape of the planet, I, being small and insignificant, decided to directly test the sphere shape thing. I left Lisbon and always head east (at times going back to see the sights, but returning then to the point I was at before). Also, I never get my feet off the earth's surface. Yes, no flights for this boy, whom, whenever flying, never actually knows how he got to his destination. If all goes well and if the images of earth from space are not made on a computer, I will be getting back to old Lisbon next year in some kind of boat. Perhaps in Patagonia it is possible to hear the invisible  turtle."