Editing Alfred Russel Wallace (section)

=== Flat Earth wager ===
{{see also|Bedford Level experiment}}

In 1870, a [[Flat Earth|flat-Earth]] proponent named John Hampden offered a £500 wager (roughly {{inflation|UK|500|1870|r=-3|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}{{inflation-fn|UK}}) in a magazine advertisement to anyone who could demonstrate a convex curvature in a body of water such as a river, canal, or lake. Wallace, intrigued by the challenge and short of money at the time, designed an experiment in which he set up two objects along a {{convert|6|mi|km|spell=in|adj=on|0}} stretch of canal. Both objects were at the same height above the water, and he mounted a telescope on a bridge at the same height above the water as well. When seen through the telescope, one object appeared higher than the other, showing the [[curvature of the Earth]]. The judge for the wager, the editor of ''Field'' magazine, declared Wallace the winner, but Hampden refused to accept the result. He sued Wallace and launched a campaign, which persisted for several years, of writing letters to various publications and to organisations of which Wallace was a member denouncing him as a swindler and a thief. Wallace won multiple libel suits against Hampden, but the resulting litigation cost Wallace more than the amount of the wager, and the controversy frustrated him for years.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|pp=258–261}}