Samuel Rowbotham

Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816–1884) was an English inventor and writer who wrote Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe under the pseudonym "Parallax". His work was based on his decade-long studies of Earth and was originally published as a 16-page pamphlet (1849), which he later expanded into a 430-page book (1881).

Rowbotham's method, which he called Zetetic Astronomy, models the Earth as an enclosed plane centered at the North Pole and bounded along its perimeter by a wall of ice, with the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars moving only several hundred miles above the surface of Earth.

Rowbotham started out as an organiser of an Owenite commune in The Fens, where he formulated his theories about the Earth. After measuring a lack of curvature on the long straight drainage ditches of the Bedford Levels in his first Bedford Level experiment, he was convinced of the flatness of the Earth and began to lecture on the topic. He took a little time to learn his trade, running away from a lecture in Blackburn when he couldn't explain why the hulls of ships disappeared before their masts when sailing out to sea. However, as he persisted in filling halls by charging sixpence a lecture, his quick-wittedness and debating skills were honed so much that he could "counter every argument with ingenuity, wit and consummate skill".

When finally pinned down to a challenge in Plymouth in 1864 by allegations that he wouldn't agree to a test, Parallax appeared on Plymouth Hoe at the appointed time, witnessed by Richard A. Proctor, a writer on astronomy, and proceeded to the beach where a telescope had been set up. His opponents had claimed that only the lantern of the Eddystone Lighthouse, some 14 miles out to sea, would be visible. In fact, only half the lantern was visible, yet Rowbotham claimed his opponents were wrong and that it proved the Earth was indeed flat so that many Plymouth folk left the Hoe agreeing that "some of the most important conclusions of modern astronomy had been seriously invalidated".

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