12 Oct
1998
12 Oct
'98
2:55 p.m.
John Ruschmeyer wrote:
It's a long way from on-topic for this list, but here's a bit of the
story.
Educated people had known the world was spherical since the Greek
"Golden Age". There were two estimates of the size, one being that
the circumference was about 18,000 miles and the other (more widely
accepted since ancient times and reasonably accurate) 25,000 miles.
Cristobal Colon argued for the earlier value. The arguments against
him were based on the real value, not that the world was flat but that
the added 7,000 miles would be impossible to cross. Colon accidentally
found land closer than he expected -- he and his crews would have
starved even if his distance was right and the Americas did not exist.
It is true that sailors in those days were leery of sailing too far
Columbus did
NOT tell the world that it wasn't flat. By the time of
Columbus, that was well known and accepted by all educated people. The
only ones who still thought that it was flat are now paying dollars per
minute for telephone psychic readings. Although there were some fears of
dangers, sailing off the edge was NOT taken seriously as a possibility by
anybody with any education.
Looking at it another way, Columbus really did nothing to disprove the
flatness of the Earth. Ultimately, all he did was sail west until he hit
a piece of land that was not the easternmost land that he wanted to hit.
So, he did not prove the world was round (that would have to wait for
Magellan) nor did he fall off the edge. All he really did was find more
land to the west of Europe.
Definately overrated... :-) from coast -- because there was no way to determine
longitude until
accurate clocks were developed many years later.
As it is, Colon is reported to have died convinced that what he had
found was Asia.
Then again, even today, people seem to think that Europe and Asia are
separate continents, even with vastly better maps and roads and rails
crossing the border between them in many places.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked me if I had any
firearms with me. I said "Well, what do you need?" -- Steven Wright