Mike Carrell wrote:
From: "Stephen A. Lawrence" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT Re: July 4 (China)
Mike Carrell wrote:
In the early 1400s China was *the* great power and an immense fleet was
built and launched to map the world and bring it under the Chinese tribute
system. The world was mapped, and America discovered in 1421. Philip the
Navigator of Portugal and Columbus had seen copies of the Chinese maps.
Really? Columbus had seen Chinese maps showing America? Then why was
he so confused about the size of the world and so totally ignorant of
the possibility that there might be another continent lurking between
Europe and China?
Surely he must have realized the Chinese had not encountered Europe by
sailing east -- people in Europe would have noticed the arrival of the
Chinese fleet, and they manifestly had not. So a big bunch of land
located far, far off the Chinese coast could only have been another
continent.
Take a look at the 1421 website. There is much more to this story. At the
time, the Chinese dominated trade in the Indian ocean and reached into the
Arab states, and around the horn or Africa. Much of that Europe called
'civilization' filtered in by the silk road and other routes for centuries,
for China was centuries to millennia advanced beyond Europe. The Chinese
world maps were established well before Columbus' voyage. Copies of the maps
or derivatives were around in the 1500's showing details of Antarctica and
the coastlines of eastern South America, well beyond the reach of the
voyages of Columbus or Philip the Navigator.
What is most remarkable is that the Chinese maps, and their derivatives,
show accurate longitude centuries before the Harrison chronometers enabled
the determination of longitude at sea. Another method of determining
longitude for *mapping purposes* is based on observation of the eclipses of
the moon, or transits of the moons of Jupiter.
Using a good sextant you can certainly determine longitude from the
moon, without using a clock (but don't ask me for the details!). Joshua
Slocum mentions that, in the book on his sail around the world; he
didn't use a clock for navigation. Sailor's parlance for a fix taken
with the moon (and no clock) is a "lunar" IIRC, and the technique has
long been well-known, even in the Occident. :-) The drawback is that a
lunar fix tends to be far less accurate than a solar fix obtained with
the aid of a good clock. This is likely to be particularly annoying if
you're trying to set up a rendezvous between two naval fleets, which
surely was an issue of concern to the British admiralty.
I don't know if you could get a reasonable lunar fix with a simple
cross-staff or quadrant; dunno if they'd be accurate enough.
On the other hand, after Ahab jumped up and down on his sextant he was
SOL -- if you can't measure the angles you can't get a fix, with or
without a clock.
Contrary to popular legend, Galileo was not the first to observe the moons
of Jupiter. The Chinese did so centuries earlier.
Well, say, rather, that he was the first European who did it and then
talked about it. Hawking, in his rather fluffy History of Time, claims
Galileo's observation of the moons of Jupiter was the final nail in the
coffin of Ptolemy's Earth-centric universe (since the Jovian moons
obviously don't orbit the Earth, save perhaps very indirectly); if so,
then it was an Important Event even though he wasn't the first to see them.
It has been recently
confirmed that a good human eye under ideal seeing conditions can perceive
Jupiter as a disc and can perceive the moons under right conditions --
again, dig down into the 1421 website for the contemporary story. Galileo's
telescope wasn't all that good, either. These methods don't help to know
where you are while at sea, but with care you can take data that will enable
you to know where you were when you get back home.
As for Columbus, I might be a bit off, since I'm following the other story.
He may have seen the maps, or copies, but did not have the navigational
skill of the Chinese fleet decades earlier. The Chinese apparently did not
get to Europe by sailing across the Atlantic, but they got to Antarctica and
left traces of their presence up and down both coasts of the Americas.
The 1421 story is a whole new look. Before concluding what could or could
not be, it is worthwhile to read the book and the website and see the
accumulation of evidence. It is a most remarkable story.
Oh, I have no reason to doubt that the Chinese discovered America before
Columbus -- that makes perfect sense. All I find puzzling is the
thought that Columbus, with that knowledge in hand, still refused to
accept the fact that America ^= China. But then, from what I've read
Columbus was a bit of a blockhead in a number of ways so perhaps that's
not so surprising.
The fact that Aristotle was a "round-earther" and the Europeans of
Columbus's time were mostly "flat-earthers" says a lot about how
ephemeral such knowledge can be.
