Fun fact: the Earth in Colombus’ time was thought to be almost pear-shaped with a stem-like protrusion at the very top sticking out into the heavens.

AskingForTrouble said:

Fun fact: the Earth in Colombus’ time was thought to be almost pear-shaped with a stem-like protrusion at the very top sticking out into the heavens.

The only person who may have believed that to be the case was Columbus himself. Nearly all learned Europeans of his day knew the Earth to be spherical, and most scholars accepted Eratosthenes's (roughly accurate) calculations of its diameter. Columbus rejected this in favor of an estimate that was only about 75% of Earth's actual size, but even so, he definitely embarked on his first voyage thinking the Earth was a sphere. It wasn't until his third voyage that he made some incorrect observations of the North Star that led him to remark in his diary that the Earth might be shaped like a pear. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any record of him trying to convince anyone of this theory, so nobody knows for sure how serious he was about it.

iridescent_slime said:

The only person who may have believed that to be the case was Columbus himself. Nearly all learned Europeans of his day knew the Earth to be spherical, and most scholars accepted Eratosthenes's (roughly accurate) calculations of its diameter. Columbus rejected this in favor of an estimate that was only about 75% of Earth's actual size, but even so, he definitely embarked on his first voyage thinking the Earth was a sphere. It wasn't until his third voyage that he made some incorrect observations of the North Star that led him to remark in his diary that the Earth might be shaped like a pear. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any record of him trying to convince anyone of this theory, so nobody knows for sure how serious he was about it.

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