Can the earth be flat

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what they taught you in school, and a lot of it could be false. For example the earth being a sphere. Do you think that the Earth could be flat, and it appears only to be round because it's spinning? Do you think that it's possible for the earth to be like a coin that kept in motion by some higher being?

When you look out at the horizon, it looks flat. When you wake up in the morning it looks flat. When you're having a picnic with your family, it looks flat. Even when you're in a boat with the one you love, it looks flat. Everything in our intuition tells us that it's flat, so why do we believe anything else?

This would explain why the climate is so hot around the equator, and so cold at the poles, right? When you're spinning a disk, the part furthest from the spinning axis would move the fastest, thus creating the most kinetic energy. That's why it's so hot at the equator. It wouldn't make sense that the equator is hot due to the sun, because for half a year one pole is facing the sun at all times which means it should get really hot at the poles. Besides the formula for kinetic energy is [E=1/2mv^2] Energy is only dependent on mass and velocity not sunlight.

Th would also explain why astronauts feel "weightless" in space. Gravity is not due to the mass of the earth, but rather due to the spin. In NASA, gravity is simulated by spinning the astronauts at different rates, not by putting them in a different sized rooms. If we're to use the equation [F=G*M*m/r^2] astronauts would still need to get an infinite distance away to feel weightless. When they're in their spaceships they should fall 20% slower, not just float there. But they DO just float there. And the reason for that is, when they leave the earth they're no longer subjected to the spin that cause gravity.

Flat earth is also the reason why you can't just dig a hole to the other side of the earth to get to China. Because China and the US is on the same side of the earth.

I know there might be some skeptics who would question this, because your whole life you've been told that the earth is a sphere. You were even told that Columbus sailed around the world by going the other way. But, one, you don't actually have prove of this, and two, he might just have sailed around the circumference.

You also might ask, "how does this coin earth keep spinning? It makes no sense". But then I can ask the same question to you; "how does the spherical earth keep spinning?" The coin earth spins because the higher being keeps it spinning, by either blowing on it or flicking it. That's why we have earthquakes and tsunamis. If the earth was round we shouldn't have tsunamis because a sphere is aerodynamic, and it wouldn't make sense to blow on it.

"But how can you control matter?" he burst out. "You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death --"

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing we could not do. Invisibility, levitation - anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get ird of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of natuyre. We make the laws of nature."

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http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Too Great said:

Even when you're in a boat with the one you love, it looks flat.

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Go offshore in a boat. Look for distant mountains and see what they look like as you move away. Do they fade equally into the distance? No. The bottom disappears first as it becomes obscured by the curvature of the earth.

. . . . . . . . . . and thus starts the great CFC:OT Flat Earth vs. spherical Earth argument , modeled on the lines of the Creation vs. Evolution argument . I might as well create a "Perfection KOs Flat Earthism" thread now , and save us the trouble of innumerable threads discussing the same topic .

I can't believe a mod posted here without closing it . . .

I have much to learn . . .

The Earth is not a sphere. It's a geoïd, an ellipsoide with local deformation.

How do you have day and night with a flat Earth? I'm genuinely curious, actually.

ummmm........ said:

I can't believe a mod posted here without closing it . . .

I have much to learn . . .

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If I closed this thread, I'd have to close darn-near every thread in this forum.

But lets not threadjack this.

In all truth, the only evidence anybody here has that the Earth is a sphere is that other people tell us so.

Personally, I believe the planet is a flat rectangle with its left and right edges joined, because it appears that way in my Civ3 games, and I care more about my Civ3 games than I do about that other place some knucklehead decided to call "reality".

BasketCase said:

In all truth, the only evidence anybody here has that the Earth is a sphere is that other people tell us so. (..)

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We believe the earth is a sphere because it best matches our observations.
Some observations I personally made which are diffircult to explain through a "flat earth" theory.
- Orion was upside down when I was in Australia. That would be explainable only if I was at the other side of the flat earth; but that would mean I'd noticed the brim of the coin. I didn't.
- Dusk and dawn are considerable longer in my country than they were when I was on the Canary islands. I can't explain that through a flat earth theory.
- Over the year the sun rises and sets at different times during the day. In summer it's visible at a steeper angle than in winter. I can't find a good explanation for this in a flat earth theory.

Too Great, go find the edge. Until then, "BAH!"

Oh, and learn physics.

I can echo most of Rik's observations.

- In Hawaii daylight hours are nearly unchanged, in Alaska they are dramatically different over the course of a year.

- I have talked to people who have sailed around the world, via Panama/Suez, via Cape Horn/Cape of Good Hope, and via the Arctic Ocean. In the Panama/Suez case, it was the ship's navigator. Anyway, I can't figure out how a flat Earth would allow those circumnavigations.

- At sea I see the masts, then the superstructure, then finally the hull of a ship when I'm closing the distance to it.

It is more likely that I'm the star in some sort of Truman Show than it is that there is a worldwide conspiracy to cover up the fact that the Earth is flat.

I can point that it's simply a troll, and as such, any explanation is pointless.

This one's a "just for fun" thread, yo

Ah, you are thinking inside the box

The Earth may be flat, as may the hosting universe: All gravity-loving particles are trapped on a plane, a plane which allows the tiny graviton waves to pass through it, leaving everything else behind.

Because we only experience part of the gravity wave, it appears to be a much weaker force than, say, electro-magnetic forces.

This leaves us with every other particle and manifestation of energy trapped on a two-dimentional plane of existence, thus the universe and everything in it is actually flat

Throw in curved space and the planet's shape is probably indescribable, really

Put Simply, No.

Actually, that the earth (or for that matter any surface) is not flat can be verified from just local measurements on the surface and does not require any external measurements. Not only will it tell you that it is not flat but also how much it curves and exactly how it curves.

Draw a large triangle on the surface of the earth. The sum of the three angles will total to more than 180 degrees. That means it has +ve curvature. the lenghth of the side and the exact deviation from 180 degrees should also tell us that at least locally (i.e. where the measurement was made) it is the surface of a sphere.

BasketCase said:

In all truth, the only evidence anybody here has that the Earth is a sphere is that other people tell us so.

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Everyone has evidence if only they knew how to do it. the above experiment is done regularly by the civil engineers. all it takes is a stick and a telescope.

He's probably not serious, but I'll address his concerns since no one else will.

Too Great said:

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what they taught you in school, and a lot of it could be false. For example the earth being a sphere. Do you think that the Earth could be flat, and it appears only to be round because it's spinning? Do you think that it's possible for the earth to be like a coin that kept in motion by some higher being?

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I hope you are joking.

Too Great said:

When you look out at the horizon, it looks flat. When you wake up in the morning it looks flat. When you're having a picnic with your family, it looks flat. Even when you're in a boat with the one you love, it looks flat. Everything in our intuition tells us that it's flat, so why do we believe anything else?

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It does not look flat. If you look out far enough (for instance, if you go out into the ocean), then you will see that the Earth is curved. It's just that it's so large that you cannot easily perceive its curvature over short distances, where local geography may not be curved in the same way as the Earth is as a whole.

Too Great said:

This would explain why the climate is so hot around the equator, and so cold at the poles, right? When you're spinning a disk, the part furthest from the spinning axis would move the fastest, thus creating the most kinetic energy. That's why it's so hot at the equator. It wouldn't make sense that the equator is hot due to the sun, because for half a year one pole is facing the sun at all times which means it should get really hot at the poles. Besides the formula for kinetic energy is [E=1/2mv^2] Energy is only dependent on mass and velocity not sunlight.

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Sorry, but no. You said that it must be like a spinning coin that looks like it's spherical. If that's true, then it's spinning around a diameter of the cylindrical earth. Even if there were an equator on a flat Earth (are we just living on one side of the coin or both?), only the outside edges along a line orthogonal to the axis would be going a lot faster. That is, if the Earth coin were on an xy-axis, it would be rotating over the y-axis, with the edges of it directly on the x-axis going the fastest. The direct center of the coin, which is also on the x-axis, however would be going the slowest. Basically, you would have more rotation the farther away you were from the y-axis, or the Prime Meridian (sort of, it doesn't really work with a flat Earth). I suppose you could call it the equator, but those areas would be rotating the slowest, not the fastest.

Too Great said:

Th would also explain why astronauts feel "weightless" in space. Gravity is not due to the mass of the earth, but rather due to the spin. In NASA, gravity is simulated by spinning the astronauts at different rates, not by putting them in a different sized rooms. If we're to use the equation [F=G*M*m/r^2] astronauts would still need to get an infinite distance away to feel weightless. When they're in their spaceships they should fall 20% slower, not just float there. But they DO just float there. And the reason for that is, when they leave the earth they're no longer subjected to the spin that cause gravity.

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I hate to break it to you, but the weightlessness in space is not due to gravity. In an orbiting space station, gravity is still a significant presence: around 9 or 8 m/s/s, still. The weightlessness comes from the fact that they are orbiting the Earth and therefore constantly falling towards it (that's essentially what orbit is). When you are freefalling, you experience weightlessness, which is why they feel weightless.

Too Great said:

Flat earth is also the reason why you can't just dig a hole to the other side of the earth to get to China. Because China and the US is on the same side of the earth.

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Ah, so we're just living on one side of the coin. If that's the case, then why are there disrepancies in day and night between areas on the Earth? If it were a flat surface, then there would surely be an instant where all places on one side of the Earth were illuminated at once, which is not the case.

Too Great said:

I know there might be some skeptics who would question this, because your whole life you've been told that the earth is a sphere. You were even told that Columbus sailed around the world by going the other way. But, one, you don't actually have prove of this, and two, he might just have sailed around the circumference.

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We don't need proof of this, people have gone around the world since. Nasa has taken pictures of the Earth from space. All scientific evidence points to a spherical Earth (though not a perfect sphere).

Too Great said:

You also might ask, "how does this coin earth keep spinning? It makes no sense". But then I can ask the same question to you; "how does the spherical earth keep spinning?" The coin earth spins because the higher being keeps it spinning, by either blowing on it or flicking it. That's why we have earthquakes and tsunamis. If the earth was round we shouldn't have tsunamis because a sphere is aerodynamic, and it wouldn't make sense to blow on it.

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Any theory that depends on a supernatural being to control it violates Occam's Razor and is not scientific. The Earth rotates because in its creation, the particles that made it up had angular momentum that was preserved. As it accumulated more mass with angular momentum, its spin increased.

Mise said:

How do you have day and night with a flat Earth? I'm genuinely curious, actually.

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In Ringworld, Larry Niven had giant black cubes floating over the Ring, that would block the sunlight. IIRC, the Greeks theorized that the flat Earth would be carried into and out of an ocean by a giant turtle, or something like that, and that would simulate the day/night cycle

edit: or was it an elephant