Columbus' earth

[Laurent Hodges <lhodges@IASTATE.EDU>]

> Columbus, as I understand it, claimed for the Earth a circumference about
> half of the actual value, and on this basis equipped a fleet for a 5000-km
> or so voyage to Japan.  How could an experienced navigator have been so
> wrong?

There was a book written about all this some  years ago (probably 1991 or
so, to be out for the 500th anniversary of 1492).  There is also a good
discussion in Samuel Eliot Morrison's Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Columbus, of course, wanted to go look for land.  He had reasons to suspect
there was something there, and wanted to convince someone to fund him.  He
managed to do this by (1) claiming the earth to be smaller than it really
was (and the experts KNEW he was wrong about that), and (2) arguing that a
proper reading of Marco Polo's book made China much farther east than
Europeans believed in his day.  Of course he was wrong on (1) and on (2),
but there was land out there at a "reasonable" distance.  Washington
Irving's telling of his search for funding is absolutely wrong and
malicious, and has caused great difficulties.  Pseudo-history.


Laurent Hodges, Professor of Physics
12 Physics Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, IA  50011-3160
lhodges@iastate.edu   http://www.public.iastate.edu/~lhodges