Sail On! Sail On!

"Sail On! Sail On!" is a alternate history short story from Philip José Farmer, originally published in 1952. In this alternative 1492, the Earth "is" flat, despite scepticism from scientists and philosophers over this geological provenance. Moreover, there are dissonances from our world's physics, and an "Angelo Angelli" is mentioned as proving Aristotle's axiom that objects of different weights drop with different velocities, which is not the case in our world.

Radio technology exists in 1492, and the shipboard operator of one such telegraph is a "Friar Sparks", although its principles are described in religious terms involving angel winglength as a substitute for radio waves. Psychology also exists, which means that despite growing unease, Christopher Columbus and his vessels do not turn back despite ominous warning signs. However, in this world, the Americas do not exist, and so, like many other abortive transatlantic travellers here, Columbus and his colleagues sail over the edge of the world into Earth orbit, and never return from their mission.

It is unknown whether this short story has any connection to the later Richard Garfinkle alternate history novel Celestial Matters (1996), which describes a more elaborated Aristotelian physics and geocentric cosmology related to a flat earth.

References

*Mary Brizzi: "Readers Guide to Philip José Farmer": Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House: 1981: ISBN 0916732053