What is the real reason why the voyage of Columbus reversed the view of the world so far?

BySunil Garg

The arrival of the new continent by Columbus had a major influence on the European countries, one of the reasons being "Episodes that Columbus preached that" the earth is round "to those who believe" the earth is a plane " is. However, at the time of Columbus sailing, the Earth ball theory was where many intellectuals knew. Then, in what way Columbus overturned the world view of the time,Mapping IgnoranceIt is written in.

Columbus and the shape of the Earth, a "Holywood" story | History | Mapping Ignorance
http://mappingignorance.org/2017/01/16/columbus-shape-earth-holywood-story/

◆ People of the same age as ColumbusIt is a lie to say that I believed in "the planet on the earth"
The content that the intellectuals who participated in the talking about the argument of Columbus that the earth was round, cited the contents of the Bible and opposed ... ... was announced in 1828Washington Irving"Lifetime and voyage of Christopher Columbus". This book is a striking biography of Romanticism, with various adaptations added to facts, but many people misunderstood that the biography is academic.

Actually, Plato's "Timaios"Aristotle's"Astrophysics", Ptolemy's"Alma Guest」Was translated into Latin from the 11th century to the 12th century with annotations of philosophers of Schola, so at the time Columbus existed, many cultures believed in the Earth ball theory. As an example, philosopher Thomas Aquinas is a theology book "Theological Theology"As the reason that the Earth ball theory is reasonable as" the way the mountain looks when the ship approaches the land "and" the shadow of the earth that is visible at the lunar eclipse are always round " It is.

◆ What was the problem with Columbus' argument then?
Then, as the Earth ball theory was accepted, what was the problem at the time is about the size of the Earth and the location of the eastern coast of Asia. Many people thought that astronomers at the time thought that the earth is about the same as the actual size, but Columbus underestimates the distance from Spain to Japan and actually is 12,000 miles (about 10,000 miles 9000 kilometers) It is a famous story that I thought about a certain place as 3000 miles (about 4,800 kilometers).

Scholars criticize this underestimation of Columbus. Also, as the distance of the voyage increases, necessary supplies also increase by that amount, so many governments have refused support for this voyage. The intellectuals at the time thought "There is no land like the American continent or the Canary Islands of the Azores archipelago at the middle point between Spain and Japan" and because the amount of goods to be put on the ship is limited Also thought Columbus' s voyage as a suicidal act.


◆ Sakuhobosko's "Theory of the Celestial Body" that Affected People of the Middle Ages
So why did the scholars of those days believe that "there is no continent or small island like America between Spain and Japan?" For this, I wrote the "Theory of heavenly bodies", one of the most influential books in the late Middle AgesJohannes de Saklo BoscoThere is an influence of. The theory of the celestial sphere is not the content that "the earth is round" but the content that "the universe is round", which is "Aristotle's astronomical theory that the universe is centered on the earth and there is a fixed star in the outermost" It was the one that inherited the idea. Of course, it was clearly demonstrated that the Earth is a sphere in this theory.

In Aristotle's physics, the universe was thought to be composed of five elements, the four elements that make up the material on the earth and the fifth element that exists in the heavenly world. Each element is arranged in order of density, the soil with the highest density is in the center of the universe, then water, the air above the water, the fire on the air, the fire rises to the moon's orbit is. It is the fifth elementetherIt was lighter than the fire and considered as a substance filling the heavenly world. In this theory the weights of the five elements are equal, hence the universe was considered to be much larger than the earth. Compared with the dense earth, the volume of air, fire, and much lighter ether should be larger. It was explained by the theory that the moon is far away from the earth, "Because the same amount of air and fire as Earth (earth) will be enormous size".

ByToxicotravail

At this time, "earth" which is the land and "water" which is the sea exist on the earth, but since water is less dense than the soil, its volume will become large. There are various opinions about the weight of water that was considered at the time, but if water is only one fifth of the weight of the soil, for example, there are five times the volume of water on the earth on Earth That's it. Therefore, in the diagram of the universe drawn by Sakuro Bosco, there is a small earth and a massive mass of water covering the Earth.


However, if the diagram of the earth drawn by Sakurabosco is correct, the surface of the Earth will sink into the water. Nevertheless, why is there such a dry land that people can live on? In response to this question, Sakuro Bosco, a monk, will answer "When God created the world, I placed a part of the Earth that is a sphere on the water". This is the way that European, Asian and African continents that the intellectuals of the time believed. There is no dry ground other than the continent of the old world, if you depart from Lisbon in Portugal and advance the ship to the west, the surface of the earth will gradually sink deep into the water, past half of the route It was thought that the distance between the surface of the water and the Earth's surface will be getting closer from around here.

From the above view of the world, the intellectuals of Columbus era pointed out that the plan of Columbus is reckless, "I do not have a continent like America between Spain and Japan." Although the existence of the Americas was revealed by the voyage of Columbus, this discovery is not limited to simply "There was a new continent", but also to the physics of Aristotle and Plato that the intellectual believed, The fact that it overturned the theory of cosmos had a big influence on the world.