What would the world be like if Christopher Columbus hadn't discovered that the earth was round?

Question

I've been thinking of the impact this would have on us today. I'd like to hear other's thoughts on the matter.

Ok maybe I didn't make this clear enough. How did it change our world to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world is round and not flat?

Answer 1

One of the other explorers of the era would have decided to test the theory. Other than that, I'm not sure that there would have been much difference outside of the names and dates.

Answer 2

Maybe Christopher Columbus didn't know it, but many other cultures figured it out without him. Most people who spent much time near an ocean would have realized that the last thing you see as a ship sails off is the top of the mast. That wouldn't have been the case if the world was flat. And Columbus did know it--he wasn't trying to prove the world was round, he was trying to find a trade route to the East by a different route. That's why he called the islands in the Gulf of Mexico the West Indies--at first he thought he'd landed in India!

Answer 3

He didn't discover that the world was round and not flat. Europeans already knew the world was round, and they actually had globes in the 15th century showing all the known world within that shape of the globe -- the map was missing an extra continent, but they still knew the world was round due to many observational clues. The fact that they had created globes to represent the earth in maps is evidence enough for this.

Columbus was merely trying to find a better trade route, since the existing trade routes had problems and dangers. Yet even if Columbus himself had not sailed west, western European culture was changing and expanding in education and new ideas. As even Carl Sagan pointed out on a Cosmos show years ago, it really was inevitable that someone, around that time of 1500, would have sailed west and found the New World.

Answer 4

Nothing would change, he wasn't really credited with the discovery. To be honest it would just be a matter of time before someone else figured it out. Try as we may, we can't hold back science. Now if no one had figured it we would have strange maps. The Europeans would never grasp this area was here. Now assuming that Planes never were discovered(Again people would find the World is round) trains would eventually be the primary travel with ships still in use. The "new World" would of course be inhabited by Native Americans, same as before Columbus. Basically you would have two seperate Worlds.

Answer 5

Columbus only made his voyage because he believed the world was round. He calculated the circumference of the earth and figured he just had to continue west until he bumped into Asia. The only thing to mess up his great idea was that the earth was much bigger than he thought and there was a whole huge continental mass in between him and his goal.

One of the big impacts of knowing that the world is not flat is that it is not like a map. If you look at ancient maps, they are usually focusing on the center of the world/map, which is where "we" live, and everybody else lives toward the edges. Europeans, when they did believe the world was flat, placed Jerusalem at the center. China placed itself at the center, hence China's name for itself, "The Middle Kingdom". Globes made the world less ethnocentric.

Answer 6

As has already been pointed out, there wasn't an intelligent person in the world in Columbus' day who believed the world was flat. He didn't prive anything beyond a doubt - it was alreayd known to be beyond a doubt. His voyages were just a few of many made by other explorers, and if he hadn't done it others would have. The overall impact would have been minor.

Answer 7

As many others have shown, learned men of the 15th c. knew the earth was round. What was in doubt was the circumference of the earth, and all calculations were off by the approximate distance of the Pacific Ocean.
Hence the decisive exploration was not Columbus's alone, but Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe that revealed the true size of the earth.

Answer 8

What would the world be like if Christopher Columbus hadn't discovered that the earth was round?
It still would have been round, and someone, sooner or later, would have made the same observation.

Like another of your posters, I think you are giving Columbus more credit than he is due. His ideas were not entirely his own. However, his industry and salesmanship were what got him recognized. Others would have had those traits had he not had them first.

Answer 9

Gordon B is on the right track.

Additionally, in contrary to popular opinion, Columbus wasn't attempting to prove otherwise. He, like so many, was trying to find a quicker route to India--the infamous Northwest Passage--that no one every found. He just happen to "bump" into the West Indies (his name).

But to answer your question, there were a fair amount of explorers, besides Columbus, making their way east *and* west. Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the globe and his route and Columbus's were not even close to each other. Eventually, someone would have done the same thing that Columbus did...he just gets all the publicity.

Answer 10

The story about the flat or round earth was invented by Washington Iriving in the 19th century.
All educated people in the Middle Ages knew the earth was round.

Answer 11

Contrary to common belief, most people did not beleive that the world was flat. Even during the time of Ancient Greace, it was commonly beleived that the earth was round (a Greek mathemitician even was able to find the circumfrence of the earth).
During the time of Christopher Colombus (Cristobal Colone, as he was called in Spain), very few people still beleived that the world was flat, an idea that originated during the Dark Age of Europe.

So, in short, the only effects of Colombus NOT making his voyage would have been a delay in the colonization of the American continents by the European powers.

Additionaly, it was not Colombus who circumnavigated the globe, it was Magellen.