The Bet That “Proved” the Earth is Flat

How a not-so-friendly wager in the 19th century laid the groundwork for today’s flat Earth Movement.

In the Summer of 1838, Samuel Birley Rowbotham proved the Earth was flat.

Rowbotham was many things — dubious inventor, prolific writer, elementary school dropout — but he wasn’t much of a scientist. Nevertheless, he passionately believed that the Earth was not a sphere. According to Rowbotham, our world was a bounded plane — with the moon, the Sun, and all the planets suspended just a few hundreds miles above its surface. While most of his evidence was rhetorical in nature (and therefore mostly B.S.), Rowbotham eventually devised an experiment that could prove his flat Earth beliefs.

This came to be known as the Bedford Level experiment.

Over the years, he repeated his experiment many times and always came to same the conclusion — the Earth was indeed a flat disk. And despite writing extensively about it and haranguing anyone who would listen to him, Rowbotham’s discovery was mostly ignored for decades — until John Hampden made a bet.

Hampden was an avid fan of Rowbotham and he never missed an opportunity to defend and promote Rowbotham’s flat Earth beliefs. In 1870, Hampden wagered 500 pounds that he could…