What folks know that ain't so
A friend wrote to ask, "When did European Universities stop teaching that the world is flat?"
My response was:
Trick question, eh?
Of course UNIVERSITIES never taught that the world was flat. The ancient Greeks (and Babylonians, Egyptians, etcetera) all recognized that the earth was a globe. In fact the Greeks were estimating the circumference of the Earth in the 4th or 3rd century B.C. with the tools of trigonometry. How accurate the result was is unclear since the answer was expressed in stades and nobody is sure which stadia he meant or even how long those were. The luminous quality of this fact is that it demonstrates that men were not only aware that the world was on a sphere, but even trying to approach the question of 'How big is it?" in a scientific, rational manner.
The procedure was this: Erect a vertical pole at some point in northern Egypt (say Giza) and do the same at someplace upriver (Abu simbel, for instance) that lies on about the same longitude. Egypt was perfect for such an experiment - almost no place else in the world would have been suitable but the Nile provided a easy North-South highway. Then, using the apogee of the Sun in its daily transit as Noon (when the pole casts no East/West shadow), measure the North/South Shadow. Using the difference between the two shadows and the distance between the two poles, one can then calculate the circumference of the globe. And this was done before the rise of Rome.
Needless to say, knowledge that the world was a globe was not lost among the educated, churchmen first among them. All the astronomers knew that the Earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse was that cast by an orb, and astronomy was very much alive in medieval times (Tycho Brahe anyone?) Even sailors knew that the reason one saw a mast before the hull of an approaching ship was due to the Earth's being a sphere. Any blue water navigation would have been nearly impossible w/o such a model of the world. Medieval sailors reached the Azores and Cape Verde islands (The Canaries were settled in pre Roman times). The Portuguese were fishing off the Grand Banks in the Middle ages and may have reached North America well before Columbus. The Algonquian word for cod is oddly similar to the Portuguese 'bacalao.'
The middle ages get a bum rap, and have ever since the renaissance folks became so very impressed with themselves. These 'rediscoverers' of ancient knowledge (most of which reached Europe by way of Arab scholars in the 11th and 12th centuries) just had to badmouth the 'ignorants' who came before them.
The Hollywood image of the middle ages as a backward time of technological stagnation and ignorance just isn't correct. Surely the peasants were ignorant and superstitious, but they have ever been such. If the levels of ignorance are how we judge a society's learning, then what about the good ol' US of A in the 21st century? Evolution? No way! Horoscopes? You bet! Snake oil? Bring it on!
The middle ages were as innovative as any era in human history until well after the scientific revolution of the 17th century. During the middle ages many inventions made their appearance: stirrups (transforming cavalry from scout troops into shock troops and issuing in the age of chivalry (=cavalry)); the horse collar (transforming the horse from a beast of burden into a draft animal thereby doubling agricultural output); the moldboard plow (thereby transforming northern Europe' forests into wheat fields); the sternpost rudder (wasn't it obvious before?) and hulls and rigging that could survive in the North Sea storms (transforming sailing from 'coasting' along in sight of land into true blue water, open ocean travel); eyeglasses (transforming myopics into scholars). In fact, all of geometrical optics was worked out at Merton College, Oxford, in the 1200's. While eyeglasses took the Eurasian world by storm (the Chinese immediately grasped the implications and were soon producing most of the world's lenses - they also thought to add ear pieces to the frames, clever fellas), it would be almost four centuries more before someone tried the notion so obviously implied by the work at Merton and use two lenses in series. Galileo became a master maker of Telescopes, as well as a user.
Gunpowder (and firearms) first appeared in medieval Europe (current scholarship indicates that the Chinese stumbled upon the secret independently at around the same time). As we alluded to the other day, the modern legal system was born in the middle ages. Futures contracts, trusts, and double entry bookkeeping first hit the scene, as did the joint stock company (yes, in Medieval Aquitaine not Elizabethan London).
Finally, the archetype of technological prowess was invented during the Middle Ages: the mechanical clock. Even today in our world of silicon and quartz-based timekeeping, we still refer to things that work smoothly, with precision, and as planned, as being, "like clockwork."
So, that's a long winded diatribe to say that for all of recorded history (is there another kind?) educated people have known that our Earth was a globe.
Remember, Christopher Columbus set sail from Medieval Spain.
Thus endeth the lecture.
Rob
Oh, I almost forgot the most obvious example or renaissance contempt for the technological triumphs of their immediate predecessors:
"Gothic" architecture.
If you need an example of Medieval innovation, there it is _in stone_! Nowhere else on Earth has man ever enclosed so much space with so little stone. People marvel at the Pyramids (and they ARE impressive) but piling up stones, even great big ones, is not the same order of achievement as Chartres, Notre Dame, Reims, Bouvais, Laon, Milan, Cologne, or Canterbury.
The pointed arch and flying buttress were innovations without precedent in human engineering. No stone structures have ever exceeded the heights to which Gothic cathedrals rose and none had such light. We now tend to think of Gothic cathedrals as old and dim, but that's an image born of 19th century coal soot and grime. In their heyday (and many have been restored to nearly such today), the Gothic cathedrals were palaces of light.
The very name 'Gothic' was pejorative, associating Medieval accomplishment with the barbarians blamed for bringing down Rome. There is no other connection between the Goths and the medieval masons.
My response was:
Trick question, eh?
Of course UNIVERSITIES never taught that the world was flat. The ancient Greeks (and Babylonians, Egyptians, etcetera) all recognized that the earth was a globe. In fact the Greeks were estimating the circumference of the Earth in the 4th or 3rd century B.C. with the tools of trigonometry. How accurate the result was is unclear since the answer was expressed in stades and nobody is sure which stadia he meant or even how long those were. The luminous quality of this fact is that it demonstrates that men were not only aware that the world was on a sphere, but even trying to approach the question of 'How big is it?" in a scientific, rational manner.
The procedure was this: Erect a vertical pole at some point in northern Egypt (say Giza) and do the same at someplace upriver (Abu simbel, for instance) that lies on about the same longitude. Egypt was perfect for such an experiment - almost no place else in the world would have been suitable but the Nile provided a easy North-South highway. Then, using the apogee of the Sun in its daily transit as Noon (when the pole casts no East/West shadow), measure the North/South Shadow. Using the difference between the two shadows and the distance between the two poles, one can then calculate the circumference of the globe. And this was done before the rise of Rome.
Needless to say, knowledge that the world was a globe was not lost among the educated, churchmen first among them. All the astronomers knew that the Earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse was that cast by an orb, and astronomy was very much alive in medieval times (Tycho Brahe anyone?) Even sailors knew that the reason one saw a mast before the hull of an approaching ship was due to the Earth's being a sphere. Any blue water navigation would have been nearly impossible w/o such a model of the world. Medieval sailors reached the Azores and Cape Verde islands (The Canaries were settled in pre Roman times). The Portuguese were fishing off the Grand Banks in the Middle ages and may have reached North America well before Columbus. The Algonquian word for cod is oddly similar to the Portuguese 'bacalao.'
The middle ages get a bum rap, and have ever since the renaissance folks became so very impressed with themselves. These 'rediscoverers' of ancient knowledge (most of which reached Europe by way of Arab scholars in the 11th and 12th centuries) just had to badmouth the 'ignorants' who came before them.
The Hollywood image of the middle ages as a backward time of technological stagnation and ignorance just isn't correct. Surely the peasants were ignorant and superstitious, but they have ever been such. If the levels of ignorance are how we judge a society's learning, then what about the good ol' US of A in the 21st century? Evolution? No way! Horoscopes? You bet! Snake oil? Bring it on!
The middle ages were as innovative as any era in human history until well after the scientific revolution of the 17th century. During the middle ages many inventions made their appearance: stirrups (transforming cavalry from scout troops into shock troops and issuing in the age of chivalry (=cavalry)); the horse collar (transforming the horse from a beast of burden into a draft animal thereby doubling agricultural output); the moldboard plow (thereby transforming northern Europe' forests into wheat fields); the sternpost rudder (wasn't it obvious before?) and hulls and rigging that could survive in the North Sea storms (transforming sailing from 'coasting' along in sight of land into true blue water, open ocean travel); eyeglasses (transforming myopics into scholars). In fact, all of geometrical optics was worked out at Merton College, Oxford, in the 1200's. While eyeglasses took the Eurasian world by storm (the Chinese immediately grasped the implications and were soon producing most of the world's lenses - they also thought to add ear pieces to the frames, clever fellas), it would be almost four centuries more before someone tried the notion so obviously implied by the work at Merton and use two lenses in series. Galileo became a master maker of Telescopes, as well as a user.
Gunpowder (and firearms) first appeared in medieval Europe (current scholarship indicates that the Chinese stumbled upon the secret independently at around the same time). As we alluded to the other day, the modern legal system was born in the middle ages. Futures contracts, trusts, and double entry bookkeeping first hit the scene, as did the joint stock company (yes, in Medieval Aquitaine not Elizabethan London).
Finally, the archetype of technological prowess was invented during the Middle Ages: the mechanical clock. Even today in our world of silicon and quartz-based timekeeping, we still refer to things that work smoothly, with precision, and as planned, as being, "like clockwork."
So, that's a long winded diatribe to say that for all of recorded history (is there another kind?) educated people have known that our Earth was a globe.
Remember, Christopher Columbus set sail from Medieval Spain.
Thus endeth the lecture.
Rob
Oh, I almost forgot the most obvious example or renaissance contempt for the technological triumphs of their immediate predecessors:
"Gothic" architecture.
If you need an example of Medieval innovation, there it is _in stone_! Nowhere else on Earth has man ever enclosed so much space with so little stone. People marvel at the Pyramids (and they ARE impressive) but piling up stones, even great big ones, is not the same order of achievement as Chartres, Notre Dame, Reims, Bouvais, Laon, Milan, Cologne, or Canterbury.
The pointed arch and flying buttress were innovations without precedent in human engineering. No stone structures have ever exceeded the heights to which Gothic cathedrals rose and none had such light. We now tend to think of Gothic cathedrals as old and dim, but that's an image born of 19th century coal soot and grime. In their heyday (and many have been restored to nearly such today), the Gothic cathedrals were palaces of light.
The very name 'Gothic' was pejorative, associating Medieval accomplishment with the barbarians blamed for bringing down Rome. There is no other connection between the Goths and the medieval masons.
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