People knew the world was round long before anyone attempted to prove it by sailing around it instead of just illustrating it with math. Knowing isn’t the same as proving it in the real world. Also, the knowledge the world is round doesn’t establish that there’s a continuous body of water encircling the entire globe. We had to get out there and see what was beyond the known.
I can’t even imagine how exciting that must have been, to see parts of the world that no human had ever seen before. I was just thinking last night that I miss not knowing things about the world. We have all the information about the entire earth at our fingertips now. When I was a kid there was still a lot of mystery left, but the information age destroyed that.
Actually, Columbus was 100% certain the earth was round. What he believed is that the earth was significantly smaller than the mathematicians said, and that he’d be able to sail straight to India from Portugal. He was greedy and wanted to establish new trade routes. Most of the governments of Europe said "No, you fucking idiot, the earth is as big as the mathematicians say it is, and you’re going to starve to death on your way to India. They would have been right had he not bumped into America by accident. Anyway, that’s why native Americans are Indians and why there’s such a thing as the west indes.
People knew the world was round long before anyone attempted to prove it by sailing around it instead of just illustrating it with math. Knowing isn’t the same as proving it in the real world. Also, the knowledge the world is round doesn’t establish that there’s a continuous body of water encircling the entire globe. We had to get out there and see what was beyond the known.
I can’t even imagine how exciting that must have been, to see parts of the world that no human had ever seen before. I was just thinking last night that I miss not knowing things about the world. We have all the information about the entire earth at our fingertips now. When I was a kid there was still a lot of mystery left, but the information age destroyed that.
Actually, Columbus was 100% certain the earth was round. What he believed is that the earth was significantly smaller than the mathematicians said, and that he’d be able to sail straight to India from Portugal. He was greedy and wanted to establish new trade routes. Most of the governments of Europe said "No, you fucking idiot, the earth is as big as the mathematicians say it is, and you’re going to starve to death on your way to India. They would have been right had he not bumped into America by accident. Anyway, that’s why native Americans are Indians and why there’s such a thing as the west indes.