-----Original Message----- From: Monty J. Harder The majority thought the earth was flat, until Columbus and Magellan proved them wrong.
BS! This is a legend (as in urban legend). Everyone knew the Earth was round, especially sailors. This story came about because of a fiction novel written by I believe Dante. It's total BS to say people thought the Earth was flat. It was quite obvious, from any high enough mountain or on the open sea to see the curvature of the Earth. The problem sailors had with crossing the Atlantic was that they figured it was too wide to cross with the amount of supplies a ship could carry, and had there not been an American continent they'd have been right. The experts that laughed at Columbus did so because they knew his math was way off, he just got lucky in finding someone who was dumb enough to believe his math over the experts at the time.
Brian, go to the principal's office.
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:55:14 -0500, Brian Densmore densmoreb@ctbsonline.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Monty J. Harder The majority thought the earth was flat, until Columbus and Magellan proved them wrong.
BS! This is a legend (as in urban legend). Everyone knew the Earth was round, especially sailors. This story came about because of a fiction novel written by I believe Dante. It's total BS to say people thought the Earth was flat. It was quite obvious, from any high enough mountain or on the open sea to see the curvature of the Earth. The problem sailors had with crossing the Atlantic was that they figured it was too wide to cross with the amount of supplies a ship could carry, and had there not been an American continent they'd have been right. The experts that laughed at Columbus did so because they knew his math was way off, he just got lucky in finding someone who was dumb enough to believe his math over the experts at the time.
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:55:14 -0500, Brian Densmore densmoreb@ctbsonline.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Monty J. Harder The majority thought the earth was flat, until Columbus and Magellan proved them wrong.
BS! This is a legend (as in urban legend). Everyone knew the Earth was round, especially sailors. This story came about because of a fiction novel written by I believe Dante.
If one reads "The Divine Comedy" (The work by Dante Alighieri cited in this post) you will find this is not true. I do not know if Dante himself provided illustrations, but the version I have clearly depicts the earth as round in Canto II. Through the story, Dante travels _through_ the earth by was of Jerusalem to Purgatory, which is on the other side. (Oh and all that hell stuff in the center!)
Given the original text was written in Italian, and the illustrations in my reference are in English, I expect they are merely a supplement provided by the translators. Hard to say... my source is the Carlyle-Wicksteed Unabridged translation, Random House circa 1932.
So... it must have been another work of fiction. D.
Quoting Dustin Decker dustin.decker@1on1security.com:
If one reads "The Divine Comedy" (The work by Dante Alighieri cited in this post) you will find this is not true.>
So... it must have been another work of fiction.
Dante's Inferno is a work of fiction?! All these years I thought that shit was true! My entire belief system has just come crumbling down around me.
What next, The Cathedral and the Bizzare?
-- Dave Hull http://insipid.com
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Brian Densmore -
Dave Hull -
David Nicol -
Dustin Decker