Technological Advancements In Christopher Columbus's Voyage

853 Words4 Pages

Christopher Columbus ,an explorer who was born in Italy, sailed the Atlantic Ocean planning to find a quicker route to India and its riches in 1492. During this time, Columbus had very limited forms of technology to help carry out his voyage. There are many new forms of technology that could have been an advantage for Columbus in his voyage to India. However, the three main technological advances that would have helped Columbus were in mapmaking ,navigation, and shipbuilding. Therefore the use of new technological advances such as the advancements in mapmaking, navigation, and shipbuilding would have benefited Columbus greatly in navigation during his voyage in 1492.
The methods of mapmaking have greatly changed since the time of Christopher Columbus. Columbus lacked many modern forms of technology that helped …show more content…

During the time of Columbus, celestial navigation and dead reckoning were often used in order to find the altitude, but sailors did not have the technology to find longitude. A marine chronometer would have been a great advantage for Columbus in finding the longitude of where he is at in order to have a more accurate estimate of where he was and which way the ships needed to go. On Columbus’s voyage, he had to have many forms of technology such as the sextant, quadrant, and astrolabe to help determine location and direction, but if Columbus would have had a global positioning satellite (GPS) to help him determine all of the senses of location and direction all in one with ease and efficiency. Computers and computer programs once again would have been a great advantage even in navigation for Columbus since computers can offer accuracy when sailing so there would not be as much confusion and uncertainty of where he was traveling and he could have several options to assure his directions, maps, and decisions were the best for his