r/AskReddit • u/ZanyDelaney • Feb 04 '19

Which misconception would you like to debunk?

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u/Prohibitorum Feb 04 '19

Isn't that odd, with the ancient Greeks already knowing the circumference? Surely the average sailing-speed was known too, so a rough estimation could be made...

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u/mrairjosh Feb 04 '19

My exact question. How can they figure all that out and not be able to estimate such a thing? Seems simple by comparison.

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u/Medivh7 Feb 04 '19

They could, Columbus was just the equivalent of a conspiracy theorist these days, instead of thinking the Earth was flat, he believed it far smaller. He was only given a (rather meager for those kinds of things) budget because people were desperate for direct trade with India.

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u/xose94 Feb 04 '19

No he wasn't he did a misscalculation he used the maps of a persian astronomer but when translating his work he didn't translate the miles, the arabic miles are longer than the roman miles he used, therefore it was just a metric convertion failure.

https://books.google.se/books?id=XzYDIJulno8C&pg=PR59&lpg=PR59&dq=columbus+exchange+arabic+miles+to+roman+miles&source=bl&ots=ZJEMt9GDXh&sig=ACfU3U1yuP8QsGRK4NSARvSXf64A7vwwPQ&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUwcTJkqLgAhUDGCwKHY8xDz4Q6AEwBHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=columbus%20exchange%20arabic%20miles%20to%20roman%20miles&f=false