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New Results Contradict Long-Held Chemistry Dogma
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have found that the long-held belief that only the outer, valence, electrons of an atom interact may be false. Computer simulations have shown that at pressures like those in the center of the Earth the inner, core, electrons of lithium also interact."
It wasn't forgotten. The reason Columbus had so much trouble getting funding was that the royal courts of the time hadn't forgotten; they used Eratosthenes' old number (confirmed by the astrolabe), and then accepted Ptolemy's assessment that it was 180 degrees from one end of Europe to the opposite end of Asia. They knew there was no way that Columbus could reach Japan from the Canaries, 12,000 miles away, without running out of water (no ship of the era was big enough to carry enough for a trip of that length). So advised against giving him money, no matter how much Columbus insisted it was only 2,300. As it was, the reason why the terms of his contract with Fredinand & Isabella was so generous is that everyone expected him to die on the trip rather than make landfall.
And Columbus wasn't ignorant of Eratosthenes' number and Ptolemy's estimate; it was simply that he reached his error based on a different set of authorities:
1) That of Marinus of Tyre (from the first century AD), who thought that Eurasia was 235 degrees in width instead of about 180.
2) The measurement of Alfraganus that underestimated the size of a degree somewhat.
3) His own mistake of assuming that Alfraganus's mile was the same length as an Italian mile (which were 2/3rd the size).
Based on those numbers, it was perfectly reasonable to believe he'd reached Asia.