For centuries the shape of the Earth has been a topic of discussion and debate. Even though it is widely accepted that the earth is round, some people think otherwise. By some I mean 10 percent of the U.S population which is about 24 million people! The question is why do these people think this?
These believers claim that the Earth is a flat disc, and that evidence or pictures taken from space are an elaborate deception involving multiple governments. Another reason they use is that Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. He is not wrong about this since our globe is not even a perfect circle or sphere, because mass is distributed unevenly within the planet. But this doesn’t make the earth flat. This makes the earth an oblate spheroid. An oblate spheroid is rotating, self-gravitating bodies that have a stable shape resembling a flattened sphere, with a polar radius smaller than the equatorial radius.
To say the earth is flat wouldn’t make sense because eventually we would just walk off the edge floating in space for eternity. If the Earth was flat, we would be able to look out and see very far, assuming that there were no buildings in the way. We could see another city that’s hundreds of miles away. Or a ship sailing out to sea. The boat would stay in view no matter how far out to sea it went. However, if we look out when standing on the ground, we can’t see that far. We can’t look out into the distance and see a town that’s miles away. And a ship will slowly start to disappear from view as it gets farther away. This is because the Earth is round. Things in the distance are not visible because there is a curve to the landscape.
One way to test this is to watch the sunset. Find a spot where you can see the sunset, and also have a place close by where you can safely move higher, like a tree or building. Or even start laying down and then stand up. On the ground, the sun will eventually disappear beyond the horizon. When this happens, quickly go to your higher spot. From there, you’ll be able to see the sun again for a brief time.You have probably seen that when the sun is out, it causes a shadow to form if it hits something. It turns out that we can use shadows as another piece of evidence to prove that the Earth is round.
The sun is in a different position in correlation to different locations. And so the timing of when it will eventually lower in the sky and eventually disappear into the horizon will change. If the Earth were flat but rotating, its shape would be different for eclipses at different times of the day or night. Sometimes it would appear only as a line. The rest of the time it would appear like an oval or circle as it’s spinning. However, we know that the shadow the Earth casts on the moon during an eclipse has always been circular, regardless of time of day. This supports the idea that the Earth isn’t flat.
If we want to try and limit the influence of these flat earthers and bring people back to a more reasonable perspective you should listen to this.
Photo Credits:wikimedia.org
Akinsola (Raphael) Akinyemi- De LaSalle- DMSF Class of 2028