Thomas Izbicki wrote:
> The poem, whose author I have forgotten, has Columbus use an egg as
an
> prop in an argument that the world is round.
>
The story I remember is that Columbus was dining at a banquet where
another guest claimed that "any competent seaman" could have sailed to
the New World.
Columbus took a hard-boiled egg, and challenged the guest to stand it
upright on the narrow end. After a number of fruitless tries on the
guest's part, Columbus retrieved the egg, and tapped the narrow end on
the table, thus breaking the shell, and creating a flat enough surface
for the egg to stand upright.
"But anyone could have done that," said the guest.
"Yes," said Columbus, "but I did it first."
Alasdair
P.S. This is really rigourous historical research, eh?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|