• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Tales Of A Flat Earth

So this is serious? There are those who actually believe the earth is flat?
What about the photos of planet Earth taken from space, showing it is a globe?
Will be more Space for this to be Discussed, I guess!
1657182919688.png
 
That would depend on the composition of that flat Earth...If there is more water than land, then that flat Earth would radiate less ambient heat than if the flat Earth was composed mainly of earth...so...it is over to a flat Rather to let us know the land/ocean ratio.
Good point, but the most common flat-earth models have the entire universe in a dome over the Earth. There's nowhere to radiate heat to. It's a closed system.
 
Lets be quite honest here.....'flerfs' don't believe in plenty of things, probably even don't believe in 'grapefruit' as a thing, even when shown one in the supermarket.
 
What, even when they fall over or something drops on their head?
Their obsession with disproving gravity can be perplexing, but it seems to have roots in how essential gravity is for the heliocentric/globe model (or just reality, as most of us call it). There have been different alternatives. Early on, some flerfs claimed the plane of the Earth is accelerating upwards at 9.8m/s². That didn't catch on with most. The most common alternative is density and buoyancy. Things heavier than air fall, things lighter than air rise. If gravity existed, fire and helium balloons would fall. Now, it's tempting to counter this by saying this system still requires a downward force, just because, you know, that's true. But you have to get into the flerf mindset. If the whole universe is above a flat plane of Earth, you can have a universal 'down' and a universal 'up', which you can't have in the globe model. From the point of view of the flerf, up and down are just apparent things that exist. No gravity is required. Up is up and down is down, exactly as your everyday experience tells you.
 
Although this is indistinguishable from gravity tbf.
At ground level, yes. More curious is they have no explanation as to what force is accelerating the world at that speed, yet they find the belief in gravity, an invisible force that pulls things together, completely improbable. However, like I said, I haven't encountered many who found the accelerating Earth theory convincing.
 
At ground level, yes. More curious is they have no explanation as to what force is accelerating the world at that speed, yet they find the belief in gravity, an invisible force that pulls things together, completely improbable. However, like I said, I haven't encountered many who found the accelerating Earth theory convincing.
I sometimes wonder - as it's gravity that pulls things together, what is it that sits at the center?
Is it an equalisation of forces, when push equals pull therefore cancelling out both forces?
 
Last edited:
At ground level, yes. More curious is they have no explanation as to what force is accelerating the world at that speed, yet they find the belief in gravity, an invisible force that pulls things together, completely improbable. However, like I said, I haven't encountered many who found the accelerating Earth theory convincing.
It's funny that the contorted explanations they are inventing actually introduce extra levels of complexity and improbability.
 
I sometimes wonder - as it's gravity that pulls things together, what is it that sits at the center?
Is it an equalisation of forces, when push equals pull therefore cancelling out both forces?
You mean in a system of two objects orbiting each other, as the Earth and Moon do? It's an equalisation as you say, with centrifugal force and gravity causing them to orbit the barycentre, the centre of gravity between the two.
It's funny that the contorted explanations they are inventing actually introduce extra levels of complexity and improbability.
Perhaps, but it's hilarious they try to frame things scientifically, taking scientific terms out of context. From 'an air pressure can't exist next to a vacuum' (therefore the Earth's atmosphere should be sucked into space), to 'water always finds a level' (therefore it shouldn't be able to wrap around a sphere), all things that most people with (you'd think) a functional amount of intelligence could understand the flaws of, flerfs have had explained to them numerous times but continue to repeat. I often think the current rise in science denial is because of the inscrutability of modern science by anyone not thoroughly immersed in it; whether because of the complex mathematical world of particle physics, the bizarre phenomena of relativity, or the vast number of data points of complex systems, and the press reporting on small, isolated parts of interconnected research leaving much to be misunderstood or quoted out of context. People just don't like being told what to think when they can't really get a grasp of the full reasons why. All science denial uses the same methods, and I respect none of them, but it's hard not to see flat-earthers as more wilfully ignorant than most.
 
You mean in a system of two objects orbiting each other, as the Earth and Moon do? It's an equalisation as you say, with centrifugal force and gravity causing them to orbit the barycentre, the centre of gravity between the two.

Perhaps, but it's hilarious they try to frame things scientifically, taking scientific terms out of context. From 'an air pressure can't exist next to a vacuum' (therefore the Earth's atmosphere should be sucked into space), to 'water always finds a level' (therefore it shouldn't be able to wrap around a sphere), all things that most people with (you'd think) a functional amount of intelligence could understand the flaws of, flerfs have had explained to them numerous times but continue to repeat. I often think the current rise in science denial is because of the inscrutability of modern science by anyone not thoroughly immersed in it; whether because of the complex mathematical world of particle physics, the bizarre phenomena of relativity, or the vast number of data points of complex systems, and the press reporting on small, isolated parts of interconnected research leaving much to be misunderstood or quoted out of context. People just don't like being told what to think when they can't really get a grasp of the full reasons why. All science denial uses the same methods, and I respect none of them, but it's hard not to see flat-earthers as more wilfully ignorant than most.
No, not really, I was referring to the Earth itself (or any other object) and the centre point.
Earth.jpg
 
No, not really, I was referring to the Earth itself (or any other object) and the centre point.
View attachment 56887
Oh, I think I see. Yes, it would be a balance of forces. Gravity is quite weak. I'm getting on, have parkinsons and am not in great shape, but even I can jump a couple of feet in the air in spite of the gravity generated by the entire Earth trying to stop me. So, gravity can't collapse the atomic forces of matter at the Earth's centre, although there are massive pressures down there. There are folk here who can explain it better than I.
 
Oh, I think I see. Yes, it would be a balance of forces. Gravity is quite weak. I'm getting on, have parkinsons and am not in great shape, but even I can jump a couple of feet in the air in spite of the gravity generated by the entire Earth trying to stop me. So, gravity can't collapse the atomic forces of matter at the Earth's centre, although there are massive pressures down there. There are folk here who can explain it better than I.
*Hope their not these folks who are caught in the CG!
Gravity.jpg
"Ha!" I guess gravity does have it's up's, and it's down's!:)
 
Concerning the central point of the Earth;
56763-d5dbcdd641f668f9142a66b1596cf27f.jpg

The gravity of the Earth balances out in the middle, so that there is in fact no effective gravity at the centre.
All the mass around the centre pulls outwards, and (assuming that the Earth is homogenous) this all adds up so that an object at the centre would be pulled in all directions at once equally, cancelling the force of gravity out.
 
Last edited:
All the mass around the centre pulls outwards, and (assuming that the Earth is homogenous) this all adds up so that an object at the centre would be pulled in all directions at one equally, cancelling the force of gravity out.
Although it's probably not, of course. In fact, I'm sure I've heard recently of some discoveries that suggest Earth's iron core has anomalous irregularities. Perhaps I'll investigate further when I'm not getting drunk and listening to soul music.

If you could hypothetically drill a hole right through the centre of the Earth you could fall through it and would have the momentum to carry you through the centre and resist the gravity long enough for you to get to the other side. It would take 42 minutes, which is close to the 45 minutes it takes the ISS to travel half way round the Earth because basically the same forces are involved. Irrelevant to the discussion, it just happens to be something I've heard.
 
resist the gravity long enough for you to get to the other side.
If it were a vacuum, then yeah, sure, but you would have to include air resistance as a drag factor (even this hypothetical hole would need to be subject to the laws of physics and not just gravity alone!)
 
I have often wondered why we see always level land when we know the earth is round.

How is the brain tricked into this perspective ?
 
I have often wondered why we see always level land when we know the earth is round.

How is the brain tricked into this perspective ?
Short, or limited sightedness basically, unless our horizons are wider, or more distantly viewed.
Just think of an Ant and it's limited horizons!
 
It wouldn't be until the 1930s that photographs were taken at a sufficiently high altitude to demonstrate or visibly illustrate the earth's curvature. It wouldn't be until 1946 that photographs from an early suborbital rocket flight (to an altitude of circa 65 miles) were taken that clearly show the curvature. See:

90 Years of Our Changing Views of Earth
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/90-years-of-our-changing-views-of-earth
 
I understand there is a huge horizon, but if I was at the South Pole why don’t I feel like my head is pointing downward ?
 
Back
Top