• Question: how do we know the world isn't flat

    Asked by Saffrone to Alice, Bose, Christian, Emma, Steve on 16 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Steve Marsden

      Steve Marsden answered on 16 Mar 2016:


      From the point of view of humanity, we know that it isn’t flat because we’ve been around it. We’ve flown aircraft around it, we’ve sailed around it. Currently there are a large number of satellites in orbit around the Earth. These are necessary for GPS, and satellite TV. There are people in orbit aboard the International Space Station, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes. All they’d have to do is look out of the window.

      Also, we can use telescopes to look at other planets. We can watch them as they rotate, and so know that they’re circular. Why would Earth be any different?

      From a personal point of view, there are a couple of ways to be able to tell. If you look out to sea, and see a ship go beyond the horizon, you’d only be able to see the top of the ship.

      The position of the sun appears to be in different places depending on where you are. In the extreme case, if in the middle of the day you were to call someone in Australia, they’d tell you that it was the middle of the night.

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