![]() ![]() There was, though, some concern about what would happen if he got to the bottom of the spherical planet.įollow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking And for admissions advice, college news and links to campus papers, please check out our Higher Education page.Recently, the argument of the planet earth's being flat has risen and taken the spotlight flat-earthers believe that the government spreads misinformation to the masses so they will believe the opposite of their claim. The 1995 book “Poetry of the Universe: A Mathematical Exploration of the Cosmos,” by Robert Osserman, professor emeritus of mathematics at Stanford University, makes clear that Columbus did not worry that he would fall off the Earth’s edge. Though they did not, he was widely quoted for many years. Letronne insisted that early Christian writers thought the Earth was flat. ![]() It says that Europeans learned from Columbus’s trips to the New World that the planet was round. In 1828, Irving wrote “The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,” which sounds like a biography but is mostly fiction. In a 1991 book, “Inventing the Flat Earth,” retired University of California professor Jeffrey Burton Russell explains how the myth was perpetuated in the 1800s by writers including Washington Irving and Antoinne-Jean Letronne. ![]() So how did it become common thought in the 20th century that people in the 15th century believed the Earth was flat? It was still in use 500 years after it was penned. Several books published in Europe between 12 discussed the Earth’s shape, including “The Sphere,” written in the early 1200s, which was required reading in European universities in the 1300s and beyond. By the late Middle Ages, Europe had caught up and in some cases surpassed the knowledge of ancient Greece and medieval Islam. For him, the big question was not the shape of the Earth but the size of the ocean he wanted to cross.ĭuring the early Middle Ages, it is true that many Europeans succumbed to rumor and started believing that they lived on a flat Earth.īut Islamic countries knew better and preserved the Greek learning. “Geography” became a standard reference, and Columbus himself owned a copy. ![]()
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