Leonardo da Vinci - so much undone

It’s the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, born Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, in Vinci, Italy (1452). 

He’s best known for his Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, two of the most famous paintings in the world, but he left fewer than 30 paintings when he died, and most of those were unfinished. 

He was a perfectionist and procrastinator, having worked on the Mona Lisa on and off for the last 15 years of his life. The Last Supper was likely only finished because his patron threatened to cut off his money. Today, he would be described as having attention deficit disorder.

He spent much of his time drawing up plans for inventions like the submarine, the helicopter, the armored tank, and even the alarm clock, none of which came to fruition in his lifetime. He also created very detailed anatomical drawings from life and cadavers to understand how to draw and pain the human form.

Remaining today are at least 6,000 pages of his drawings and notes on everything from astronomy to anatomy — mostly written backward, decipherable only in a mirror. 

Despite being easily distracted by other interests, he accomplished a lot. I find it sad that when he was dying, he apologized “to God and Man for leaving so much undone.”

Leonardo's drawings

Biography by Isaacson

Did Magellan Circumnavigate the Globe?

For more than 500 years, Ferdinand Magellan has been famous for being the first person to circumnavigate the globe. 

Ferdinand Magellan did not actually circumnavigate the globe. 

What did he do?

On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, with five ships and a crew of about 260 men. His mission? Find a "backdoor" route to the East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). He was ambitious, determined, and—to be frank—a bit of a handful. Fast forward two years, and the expedition had reached Mactan Island in the Philippines. Magellan was roughly three-quarters of the way through his epic journey, but this is where the map ended for him. 

Magellan wasn't just exploring; he was also trying to spread Christianity. This didn't sit particularly well with the Indigenous peoples of Mactan. After a skirmish broke out on April 27, 1521, Magellan was struck by a poison arrow and killed. He died thousands of miles away from the finish line, leaving his dwindling crew to figure out how to get home without their leader. 

If you think your last long-haul flight was rough, consider the stats of this expedition:
Starting Crew: ~260 sailors
Total Ships: 5
Duration: 3 years
Survivors who made it home: 18 

On September 9, 1522, only 18 men limped back into Sanlúcar de Barrameda on a single ship. That’s a survival rate of about 7%. 

Victoria, the sole ship of Magellan's fleet to complete the circumnavigation.
Detail from a map by Ortelius, 1590.

If Magellan didn't make it, who was the actual first person to circle the globe? The answer depends on how you define "first." 

Juan Sebastián Elcano, after Magellan’s death, took command and navigated the final stretch back to Spain. He is the man historians usually point to if you're looking for the person who completed the full, continuous loop on one trip. 

Enrique of Malacca is an interesting contender. he was a Malay man that Magellan had captured and enslaved in the East Indies back in 1511. Enrique traveled from the East Indies to Europe, then accompanied Magellan on the 1519 expedition heading west. By the time the ships reached the Philippines, Enrique was essentially back in his home region. If he managed to slip away and make it back to Malacca after Magellan’s death, he would technically be the first person to complete a full circle of the planet, though in two separate stages. 

The first circumnavigation was less of a solo victory and more of a brutal, three-year survival horror story. Whether you give the "win" to the captain who finished the job or the enslaved interpreter who may have beaten everyone to the punch, one thing is true. Magellan really started it.

A Trio of Stars

Apep is a trio of stars with distinct shells of dust swirling around them. Images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope are the crispest view we have of the star system to date. 

Apep is one of those rare places in the galaxy where chaos and abundance seem to spill out in equal measure, almost like a cosmic cornucopia. From far away it looks like a single star, but Webb’s astonishingly sharp mid‑infrared view reveals something far richer: three stars bound together, two of them belonging to the extraordinarily rare Wolf‑Rayet family. These stars are massive, hot, and nearing the end of their lives, shedding material so quickly that their surroundings glow with the dust they cast off. Only about a thousand Wolf‑Rayet stars exist in our entire galaxy, yet Apep contains two of them orbiting each other, with a third supergiant star circling farther out. It’s a stellar arrangement so unusual that astronomers haven’t found another like it.

Before the James Webb Space Telescope, telescopes could make out only a single swirl of dust around Apep. Webb changed that instantly. Its mid‑infrared vision peeled back the darkness and revealed four distinct shells of dust, each one a shimmering layer drifting outward like the rings of a slowly expanding onion. These shells form because the central pair of stars moves in a long, looping orbit that takes 190 years to complete. For a brief window of that orbit—about twenty‑five years—the stars pass close enough to each other to unleash a burst of dust that races outward at thousands of miles per second. Over centuries, these bursts stack up, creating layer after layer of cosmic sculpture.

The beauty of Apep’s spirals is complicated by the presence of the third star. Its powerful stellar winds slice through the expanding dust like a blade, carving gaps and slashes into the shells. The result is a pattern that looks both delicate and turbulent, as if the universe were painting with fire and wind at the same time. Even the faintest outer shell, barely visible at the edge of Webb’s detection, adds to the sense that this system is overflowing with material—an astronomical horn of plenty.

It’s tempting to see Apep as just a distant spectacle, but its story reaches all the way to us. The dust pouring from these stars is rich in the heavy elements that make planets, oceans, and living things possible. When stars like these eventually explode as supernovae, they scatter those elements across space, seeding future generations of stars and worlds. The carbon in our cells and the iron in our blood were forged in the hearts of dying stars, much like the ones in Apep. Studying this system is, in a way, studying our own origins.

Cornucopia

Apep also helps scientists understand some of the most energetic events in the universe. One of its stars may eventually produce a gamma‑ray burst, an explosion so powerful it can reshape the space around it. Apep is far too distant to pose any danger to Earth, but learning how these events work is essential for protecting future astronauts and satellites from high‑energy radiation elsewhere in the galaxy. And beyond the science, there’s something deeply human about the fact that we can see faint dust shells drifting through space from 8,000 light‑years away. Webb’s clarity is a reminder of what curiosity and collaboration can achieve.

In the end, Apep is a portrait of cosmic generosity. Even as its stars approach their final act, they are pouring material into the galaxy, enriching the space around them, and shaping the future long after they’re gone. 

It’s chaos, yes—but it’s also creation, abundance, and the quiet truth that the universe is always giving more than it takes.

When Did the Flat Earth Become a Globe?

A wind farm with the lower parts of the more distant towers
increasingly hidden by the horizon, demonstrating the curvature of the Earth

The persistence of the "Flat Earth" theory in the 21st century represents a sociological anomaly. Despite a rigorous empirical record dating back to antiquity, modern proponents have coalesced into a decentralized digital subculture.

Contemporary Flat Earth belief is not characterized by a formal institutional hierarchy but by a decentralized digital network. While the historical Flat Earth Society remains a vestigial entity, primary discourse occurs via social media platforms, video-sharing sites, and specialized forums.

This movement is underpinned by a profound institutional distrust. Proponents categorize data from governmental agencies (such as NASA) and mainstream scientific communication as part of a multi-generational systemic deception. This "anti-establishment" epistemology prioritizes subjective observation over established scientific consensus.

A common historical fallacy—often termed the "Flat Earth Myth"—suggests that medieval society lacked basic geographical and astronomical literacy. In reality, the spherical nature of the Earth was a settled matter among the educated elite throughout the Middle Ages (approx. 5th to 15th century).

While the Middle Ages are often oversimplified as a period of intellectual stagnation, the reality was more nuanced:

• Literacy Rates: Western European literacy was statistically low, often estimated below 20%.

• Scholarly Continuity: Despite low general literacy, the "spherical Earth" model was preserved through the transmission of Classical texts.

• Common Knowledge: It is hypothesized that even the non-literate population understood the Earth’s curvature through practical observation and the trickle-down of scholarly consensus into general folklore.

Flat Earth map drawn by Orlando Ferguson in 1893. The map contains several references
 to biblical passages as well as various supposed refutations of the "Globe Theory".

The empirical evidence for a spherical Earth was established long before the medieval era, primarily through Greek mathematical and observational astronomy.

Key Empirical Milestones

Figure	Period	Contribution
Aristotle	4th Century BCE	Identified that the Earth casts a circular shadow on the Moon during lunar eclipses and noted that ships disappear "hull-first" over the horizon.
Eratosthenes	c. 240 BCE	Utilized the varying angles of solar shadows in different latitudes (Syene and Alexandria) to calculate the Earth's circumference.

The calculated circumference by Eratosthenes was remarkably accurate, utilizing a formula with the arc length between two locations, the Earth's radius, and the difference in the angle of the sun's rays.

The existence of modern Flat Earthers is not a result of a lack of evidence, but rather a rejection of the scientific method and the institutions that uphold it. Despite the robust proofs provided by ancient polymaths and confirmed by centuries of maritime and space exploration, the movement thrives on the democratization of misinformation in the digital age.