Why Some People Believe That The Earth Is Still Flat

The earth is round. Right? Well, not according to some people who believe that the Earth is still flat. The idea of a flat Earth has been around for centuries and it's easy to see why. From an airplane window or when you look out at the horizon, the ground seems flat as far as you can see in any direction. And yet, there are many facts which prove that this theory could not be further from reality! This blog post will explore common myths about gravity and how they disprove the Earth being flat!

Gravity is Real

One argument used by some who believe that the Earth is flat suggests that gravity does not exist because objects do not seem to fall towards the center of the earth. First off, gravity is real. Not only do we know it because of Newton, but also all of our everyday existence proves this to be true. When you are driving down the street, your car falls towards the center of the earth. If you run off a cliff, gravity will make you fall to where ever you 'll be after falling for however long it takes you to hit the ground (assuming no air resistance). The same thing happens with water in rivers or even plants growing towards sunlight.

It's also important to consider that gravity does not pull things into one singular point against their will. Gravity pulls objects toward other objects which have mass, and larger objects have more gravity than smaller ones. Even if people lived on what seems like an edge of the world, they wouldn't just fall off into space or into the void.

So if gravity is real then why don't objects seem to fall towards the exact center of the earth? It turns out that most objects act like pendulums and so their momentum causes them to swing around in an arc rather than fall straight down. This is why you can balance on a swing set or spin around with your arms out without falling over despite feeling like you would! However, unlike a pendulum which would eventually bump along its arc intensely due to friction, things tend not to hit each other when they are swinging because of minimum speed required for collisions.

In fact, this idea of everything being pulled toward everything else was first invented by Isaac Newton in his famous equation, F=ma. This equation tells us that all objects have mass and so they are pulled towards each other by gravity. Gravity has no direction or center, but it does have a strength depending on the mass of the object which is pulling others towards it!

The Earth Does Not Revolve Around The Sun

Another argument used to claim that the earth isn't round is that people once thought that everything revolved around the Earth because we can see stars turn above our heads at night. However, this also goes to show one reason why we know the Earth is indeed round: because we have been able to send astronauts up into space so they could watch as stars revolve around them instead! In fact, even during the day time, the sun doesn't even "move" very much. The sun is actually doing something called geosynchronous motion. This means that it rotates about the same time every day (a little faster than once a month), but this movement isn't enough to cause us to notice any difference from one day to the next!

The Sun Appears To Rise And Set Each Day

One common argument is that since there are different suns in places far away, then the sun must not move. However, this is because of perspective. The reason why it appears that these other stars are moving around us is simply because they are so much farther away than the Sun! If the sun were to be placed among these stars it would appear to rise and set just like all the others!

Why Don't People Fall Off The Earth?

There are different ways one can try to approach this problem, but one way or another we know for a fact that there would be a really bad ending if people fell off of a giant ball in space. First of all, it's important to realize that there is real gravity outside our atmosphere as well as inside our atmosphere. In fact, even things which are not touching the ground experience gravity and inertia. The reason why we do not fall off is because of momentum. This can be explained using Newton's First Law:

Newton's Universal Law Of Gravitation

One of the most important laws in all of physics is Newton's universal law of gravitation which states that all objects with mass attract one another! In fact, experiments such as the Cavendish experiment have demonstrated this over and over without fail! One great example demonstrating this was on a episode on Myth Busters on Discovery Channel where they "debunked" the moon landing by actually showing that things really didn't need to move very fast at first! Instead, they just needed to give an object a good shove and it would continue to move quickly instead of slowing down over time. So it's a little off to say the Moon "accelerated" towards our planet, but instead it just kept moving! However, what might be more interesting is that this force can even work on light! In fact, experiments such as those performed by Fizeau and Michelson-Morely have shown that light does experience some drag as it moves through media such as water and air.

Geological Evidences

A common argument against the shape of our earth is that if it were really spherical, then surely somebody would have noticed that it curves eventually! The problem here is that this statement itself doesn't take into account how much curvature you actually need for something to appear flat to people using simple tools such as sticks or even just their eyesight which was far worse than it is now. For instance, I think one may have measured the Earth's curvature accurately after two months of walking along a path through about 100 miles of jungle! While not impossible, it's clear that human beings don't notice such differences in curvature because the difference in length between our eyes and arms make such measurements difficult to make.

So there you have it. Whether you believe the earth is flat or not, it doesn't really change the way you live. As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "The world just looks different depending on how far away you are."