What are the
consequences of a flat Earth?
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
03 May 2009
Peter Wanjohi is not alone in extending the discussion on the shape of the Earth to the third week: Almost ten other readers have asked various questions all focused on the search for proof that our planet is round. In my assessment, the common denominator in all the suggestions is a lack of appreciation of the size the world. There also appears to be some confusion between “the world” and “the universe”.
First, let me clarify: “the world” refers to the planet Earth and all the life living on (and inside) it; “the universe” is everything and everywhere, including the Earth, the sun, the stars, galaxies and all other heavenly bodies. Thus when we say the world is round, we mean the Earth and NOT the universe!
Now, the world (i.e., our planet) is a very large place. Measurements carried out both on the ground and from spacecrafts indicate that the diameter of our planet is about 12,800km. This means that if you travelled all the way round, you would cover a distance of about 40,000km.
Now on this immense sphere, our view of the world is limited to only about 5km. We cannot see beyond that because of the curvature of the surface of the planet. This is a very narrow perspective: We see only about 80 square kilometres of a sphere measuring over 50 million square km – that is only 0.00016 percent!
In this narrow view, it becomes very difficult to observe and appreciate the curvature of the planet. For example; Wanjohi suggests that a spirit level indicating that a surface is flat might be good proof that the whole world is also flat.
Unfortunately, spirit levels are normally only about 25cm to 50cm long. Using such a device to draw conclusions about the shape of an object thousands of kilometres in size will not yield very good results.
We might try to construct a very large spirit level, perhaps 10km long. Unfortunately, there is not material rigid enough to remain straight at such a size. It would bend under its own weight and touch the ground all along its length thereby invalidating the experiment!
Many different situations have been sited to prove that the world is flat, but we don’t have enough space in this column to discuss them all. Instead, let us turn the question around and consider the consequences of a flat Earth.
First of all, a flat planet must be a disc: after all, when we look around, we see a circular horizon. Secondly, it is a very thick disc as evidenced by the deep man-made mines and natural craters.
The biggest problem with such a shape would be how to explain the action of gravity. Isaac Newton proved that the force of gravity acts towards the centre of an object – regardless of its shape.
Now, if the Earth were a cylindrical disc, people living nearer the edge
would see falling things moving at an angle. There is no place on Earth
where this happens; therefore this shape is improbable…unless we want to
challenge
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