“I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries” – Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus is the iconic example of a traveler who was clear about his direction, but had no real idea of exactly where it would lead him and his crew. Convinced that the Earth was spherical and that he could reach the East Indies by sailing West long enough, Columbus used a compass to stick to his (magnetic) westward course for weeks at a time. By doing so, he ended up discovering a whole new world, unknown to Europeans of the time and launched the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents.