Christopher Columbus Influence On Today's Modern Technology

Do you ever wonder if Christopher Columbus would have landed in India if he had had today’s modern technology? If Christopher Columbus had the modern day technology such as a GPS and radar, his voyage may have possibly led him to India as planned or at least helped him get to America easier. I believe that Columbus would have greatly benefited from the use of today's technology. Celestial navigation is the measuring of latitude using the sun, moon and stars (Pickering) .Columbus used celestial navigation by using a tool called a quadrant (Pickering). The quadrant was a metal plate in the shape of a quarter circle (Pickering). Celestial navigation was not a very accurate way to find latitude, but it was the best Christopher Columbus had. To use the quadrant, you would sight the North Star on one edge and the point that the sting crossed the edges showered the angle of the horizon (Pickering). It was nearly impossible for sailors to find their longitude (Pickering). The only other way to find the longitude was the method of

Christopher Columbus’s crew measured time using a sand glass; it was turned every thirty minutes by a ship's boy (Pickerling). To determine midnight they would have to use a Nocturnal (Pickering). A nocturnal tells the time of the night by the rotation of the stars around a celestial pole (Pickerling). What if they flipped the hour glass too late? It must have not been an accurate way to calculate time. If they had a clock they definitely would have had a little bit more time to rest and a more accurate sense of time. On his boat, Christopher Columbus used a regular magnetic compass, which was normally, pretty accurate on land, but on a boat or a plane, it was a different story. The Earth’s magnetism may cause a magnetic compass to be inaccurate, so today a gyro compass is used out at sea because it is not affected by the earth’s magnetism