How an Ancient Greek Mathematician Calculated the Earth's Circumference with a Stick and His Brain. While in the mid-20th century, satellites were used to determine the exact circumference of the Earth, which was found to be 40,030 km. Over 2,000 years earlier in ancient Greece, Eratosthenes used a stick and his brain to arrive at nearly the exact figure. He later moved to Alexandria, where he served as the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria, one of the ancient world's most important learning centres. Eratosthenes' calculation of the Earth's circumference was an impressive feat of ancient science and mathematics, and it laid the foundation for many subsequent discoveries and innovations in these fields.