The Earth Floating on Water

[SiskosTheMan]

Has anyone read "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton? He talks about this theory that used to exist. It said the earth is made of two spheres. One is water. The other is earth. Copernicus had to address this idea. Anyhow, there is a good 3-part discussion of it (not by Wootton) on the Vatican Observatory's blog, called “Copernicus and the High Seas”:

 

http://www.vofoundation.org/blog/copernicus-high-seas/

 

Follow the links from one part to the next. I want to know if anyone else has read of this.

 

 

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

Could you post an excerpt and/or summary - our rules state that members should be able to participate in a thread without needing to access other sites. Thanks

 

[SiskosTheMan]

Here is an excerpt from the first of the three (http://www.vofoundation.org/blog/copernicus-high-seas/):

 

It turns out that there was a very strange idea floating about during Copernicus’s time. That idea was that the earthy stuff was one sphere, and it was partially enveloped by a second sphere of watery stuff. Thus the earthy sphere bulged out from the watery sphere, like this:

This is the “Two Spheres Theory” (TST) on the shape of the world. There had to be a lot more water than earthy stuff. Indeed, as Copernicus notes, according to some people, there was supposed to be ten times as much volume of water as there was of earthy stuff. The earthy bulge included all the known terrestrial world—Europe, Africa, and Asia. The center of the terrestrial bulge was typically taken as being Jerusalem. Jerusalem is more than 30 degrees north of the equator (about the same latitude as Savannah, Georgia or Shanghai, China), so if we look at the world aligned north-south, it would look something like this:

It is hard to imagine this strange thing rotating daily around a north-south axis! Wootton notes that an important first step towards a heliocentric theory, in which the world is rotating daily, is to get rid of the two spheres idea concerning the shape of the world. To do that, Copernicus cites geography, and in particular the discovery of America.

Edited January 2, 2017 by SiskosTheMan

[Bill S]

Hi Siskos.

 

I’ve not read "The Invention of Science", but have just followed your Vatican links. I found it interesting, as I had not met these ideas before, but the interest is, probably, historical, rather than scientific.

 

Obviously, it sparks a particular interest for you. Perhaps you could say a bit more about that|?

Edited January 2, 2017 by Bill S

[SiskosTheMan]

Yes, it is of interest to me. A fascinating idea. Wootton makes a point about how maybe this is the key to the scientific revolution. And he pins it all on Columbus and the discovery of America. Not on Copernicus himself or the telescope or something. Seems to me like Wootton has a true new idea about science. I can't excerpt a chapter of "The Invention of Science," though. And I never, ever heard anything like this before. So, where else but a science forum to ask if anyone else knows something about it? Or to ask where to learn more?

[michel123456]

But for the Earth to be floating, it would have been of less density than water. IOW it would have been hollow. (Archimedes principle was known)

[SiskosTheMan]

According to Wootton, that's the idea. Or (and this is in the "High Seas" blog), the earth is not hollow, but the ocean is held back by some supernatural force. So the ocean is higher than the land. The "High Seas" blog gives links to actual historical sources saying this. So people really did believe it. And wrote about it. I never heard of any of this. Wootton pins the beginning of science to the idea being disproved by Columbus.

[Mr Perfect]

I agree with you