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  • Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. In 2003, researchers did the measurements

  • and found that Kansas is in fact literally flatter than a pancake.

  • Of course, the Earth is not flat, the Earth is round.

  • Otherwise travellers would be falling off the edge all the time.

  • Right?

  • Wrong.

  • If the Earth was not a ball shaped, but was instead a flat disk, like this plate, well

  • with the weight, density and thickness, living in the middle could feel pretty normal.

  • But as you move toward the edge, gravity on a disk Earth would slightly skew, pushing

  • at a greater and greater angle back toward the centre.

  • My friend Nick from 'yeti dynamics' put together this great simulation.

  • The person and buildings obviously aren't to scale but check out how such increasingly

  • diagonal gravity would work. Although this is a flat disk, it would feel

  • to a runner headed toward the edge, like they were fighting to climb up a steeper and steeper

  • hill.

  • The building foundations behind the runner

  • reflect how you would have to build structures, closer and closer to the edge, so that people

  • living in them always felt like down was at right angles to the floor - the way we feel

  • it on our big, round Earth. As you approach the edge, things would get

  • scary.

  • Remember, this is a flat Earth, but it would

  • feel like a sheer drop off.

  • What's really cool is that contrary to the

  • "don't fall off the edge" fear, on a flat world because of gravity, the scary risk would

  • actually be falling away from the edge and rolling all the way back to the centre.

  • Once you stepped over the edge, instead of falling off into space, you'd be able to relax.

  • It would be a nice level place.

  • This model, of course, neglects the fact that such

  • a planet shape would be impossible.

  • Anything as massive as the Earth, shaped like

  • a flat disc, would, under its own gravity, naturally collapse back into a ball.

  • This is why in outer space everything more than few hundred miles in diameter is round.

  • Or so we've been told. What if gravity isn't real?

  • What if the Earth is, in fact, flat and science has been wrong all along?

  • It's a misconception that Christopher Columbus discovered that the Earth is round.

  • Virtually every scholar and major religion in the West accepted Earth's rotundity, since

  • at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, who, for instance, had noticed that boats disappear

  • bottom first when sailing away. And, as you walk north and south, stars pop

  • in and out of the view.

  • The misconception that only a few hundred

  • years ago lots and lots of people believed the Earth was flat likely began in the modern

  • era, as a sort of insult. Well, your people recently thought the Earth

  • was flat, so why should we believe you now? The smear was repeated and published so often

  • it became accepted as historical fact. "Flat-Earther" became synonymous with "Anti-science".

  • It might seem flat over short distances, but over longer ones, well the Earth is pretty

  • darn curvy.

  • The VerrazanoNarrows Bridge, connecting

  • Staten Island and Brooklyn, had to be designed with Earth's roundness in mind.

  • Its 2 towers, separated by 1300 metres, and perfectly vertical, are nonetheless 41 milimetres

  • further apart at the top than at the bottom

  • because of Earth's curvature.

  • In the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes measured the differences between shadows cast by poles

  • in Syene and Alexandria to calculate, more than 2000 years before rockets and space travel,

  • the circumference of the entire globular Earth, with, for the time, impressive accuracy.

  • Word got around that the Earth was a round shape after that.

  • But in 1906, Wilbur Glenn Voliva became head of a slightly bizarre religious sect that

  • pretty much ran the city of Zion, Illinois.

  • Voliva believed that the Earth was actually

  • flat and he enforced flat Earth's teachings in schools in Zion.

  • He also enforced that belief on really anyone who entered the city.

  • Voliva believed not only that the Earth was flat, but that the sun was only few thousand

  • miles away from Earth. Not 93 million.

  • He also believed that the sun was only 32 miles across, not 860 000.

  • He sounds crazy, or does he? You see, the same phenomenon Eratosthenes

  • measured could be explained by a flat Earth, if the sun were only few thousand miles away

  • and 32 miles across - the math would work out the same.

  • Today, with the power of the Internet, modern day flat Earthers have picked up where Voliva

  • left off.

  • They have quite good explanations for any

  • evidence you throw at them that the Earth is round.

  • Circumnavigation is really just a flat circle path.

  • The round shadow Earth casts on the Moon during a lunar eclipse could also be made by a flat

  • disc. Time zones are caused by spotlight sun, and

  • remember how gravity would be totally different on a disc-shaped planet?

  • Well, they argue that gravity, as we know it, simply doesn't exist.

  • The flat disc of Earth is merely accelerating up at 9.8 metres per second.

  • As for all of the photos and video evidence we now have that the Earth is round, thanks

  • to space exploration, well all of that material is completely fabricated.

  • A hoax, perpetrated by Big Globe. Space agencies, airlines, globe manufacturers.

  • They are reaping the rewards of our ignorant belief that the Earth is actually round.

  • They know, of course, that it's flat. And they're hiding that truth from us.

  • Is it merely a coincidence that the logo used by the Flat Earth Society is a projection

  • of Earth, centred on the North Pole, and also happens to be the projection used by the United

  • Nations?

  • Are these people for real?

  • Probably not most of them. But this is the crocks of Poe's Law.

  • An adage that states that at their extremes, parody of extremism and sincere extremism

  • are difficult to distinguish.

  • Although clever, flat Earth theories are predominantly

  • ad hoc explanations - excuses made up on the spot that only address one issue and don't

  • fit all the evidence.

  • Science, of course, rejects a theory if a

  • better one fits more of our observations, but why the egoistical obsession with OUR

  • observations?

  • A cosmic ray particle could use the very same

  • scientific method we use and conclude that the Earth was, in fact, flat.

  • You see, at speeds near the speeds of light, time slows down and lengths contract.

  • One way we know this is that unstable muons, created in the upper atmosphere by the collision

  • of cosmic rays with the atmosphere, should mostly decay before reaching Earth's surface.

  • But yet, we detect a lot of them down here, because they're crazy fast speed literally

  • means that, from our perspective, their physics runs according to a slower clock; and to them,

  • the distance they have to cover to the surface during their short lives is, from their perspective,

  • much much shorter than it appears to us. If you're a cosmic ray proton travelling at

  • 99.9999999999991% the speed of light, Earth would appear to be only 17 metres thick in

  • the direction you travel.

  • So Earth is flat to them, but round to us.

  • It is ball shaped to some observers and flat to others.

  • There doesn't appear to be a single most correct-est, in all circumstances, answer.

  • Susan Haack compares knowledge to a crossword puzzle.

  • New answers interweave with old ones, they all reinforce one another.

  • The clues are the questions we ask, and the way the answers fall into a predetermined

  • grid, well, that's our confidence that we're on the right track.

  • But that doesn't mean one day there will be a finished puzzle - a complete answer.

  • Recall The New York Times famous 1996 crossword puzzle that came out the day before the US

  • election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. The clue for 39 across was pretty crazy.

  • You seemed to need to be able to tell the future to answer it correctly.

  • It simply said,

  • "Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper

  • (blank) elected".

  • Well that blank could be Clinton or Bob Dole and who's to say which one until tomorrow?

  • There's no way to know. But, as it turned out, the answer was Clinton,

  • or Bob Dole. No matter which you wrote in, all the other

  • clues fit. For instance, a "black Halloween animal" could

  • either be a cat or a bat.

  • Our knowledge about the outside world might

  • be the same.

  • A puzzle with no answer key, just the reassurance

  • that the answers we think we know fit together, so they're probably correct.

  • Though there's always the possibility that the answer to one clue, or all of them, will

  • fundamentally not have a single definite satisfying answer.

  • The puzzle may be playable forever.

  • I like what Richard Feynman says about this.

  • "Some people say 'How can you live without knowing?' I do not know what they mean. I

  • always live without knowing - that is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know."

  • You know?

  • And as always,

  • thanks for watching.

Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. In 2003, researchers did the measurements

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B1 earth flat flat earth gravity puzzle disc

Is Earth Actually Flat?

  • 157 8
    Yim Chong posted on 2016/01/28
Video vocabulary

Keywords

fall

US /fɔl/

UK /fɔ:l/

  • noun
  • An act of falling; a tumble.
  • Season after summer and before winter; Autumn
  • A drop in amount; decrease
  • The downfall or collapse of a government, regime, or power.
  • Dropping from a standing position to the ground
  • A mass or quantity of hair that hangs loosely.
  • A downward slope or inclination.
  • The season after summer and before winter.
  • verb
  • To be captured or defeated by an enemy.
  • To lose stability and collapse or drop to the ground.
  • To drop in amount; to decrease
  • To decrease in number, amount, intensity, or value.
  • To drop or come down freely under the influence of gravity.
  • To come down from a higher position suddenly
  • To go from standing to the ground, by accident
  • other
  • To come into a particular state or condition.
  • To be captured or defeated.
  • To decrease in number, amount, intensity, or value.
  • To drop or come down freely under the influence of gravity.
  • To be the responsibility or duty of someone.
  • other
  • The season after summer and before winter.
evidence

US /ˈɛvɪdəns/

UK /'evɪdəns/

  • noun
  • Factual proof that helps to establish the truth
  • Facts, objects, or signs that show that something exists or is true.
  • other
  • To indicate clearly; to be evidence of.
  • To show clearly; prove.
  • other
  • Information used in a court of law to prove something.
  • Facts, objects, or signs that make you believe that something is true.
  • other
  • Information presented in court to prove or disprove alleged facts.
  • Facts, objects, or signs that make you believe that something exists or is true.
flat

US /flæt/

UK /flæt/

  • noun
  • Apartment; set of rooms for living in
  • The smooth or level part of something
  • Musical tone lower than another by a small degree
  • A shoe with a very low heel or no heel at all.
  • verb
  • To share an apartment with someone
  • adjective
  • Without gloss or sheen; matte.
  • Having lost air or gas from inside; deflated.
  • Having lost its effervescence; not sparkling.
  • Two-dimensional; having length and width but no thickness.
  • Lacking interest, emotion, or animation; dull.
  • Having a level and even surface without curves, bumps, or irregularities.
  • Level; even; without curves or bumps
  • Lifeless; lacking energy or vitality
  • Fixed; not subject to change or variation.
  • adverb
  • In a certain, direct or absolute manner
  • Against a surface without lifting or curving away
  • So as to be level or lying horizontally.
  • other
  • To fail to produce the intended effect; to be unsuccessful or uninteresting.
fact

US /fækt/

UK /fækt/

  • noun
  • Something that is known or proved to be true
edge

US /ɛdʒ/

UK /edʒ/

  • noun
  • An advantage you have over others
  • Cutting side of a sharp object
  • Boundary of a surface
  • verb
  • To cut something to make the blade sharp
  • To move slowly and carefully alongside something
  • To go around the boundary of something
shape

US /ʃep/

UK /ʃeɪp/

  • noun
  • The outer form of something, what it looks like
  • Condition or state of someone or something
  • Someone or something that cannot be seen clearly
  • verb
  • To influence something to make it the way you want
  • To give a certain material a particular form
space

US / spes/

UK /speɪs/

  • noun
  • Empty area kept for a specific reason, like a car
  • Empty area with nothing in it
  • Area in the sky where the stars are
  • Area between written words on a page
  • verb
  • To make a certain distance or time between
believe

US /bɪˈliv/

UK /bɪ'li:v/

  • other
  • To accept something as true or real
  • To have confidence in; trust
  • verb
  • To think or accept that something is true
  • To have a particular opinion about something
  • other
  • To have faith or confidence in someone or something
gravity

US /ˈɡrævɪti/

UK /ˈgrævəti/

  • noun
  • (Of a situation) extreme seriousness
  • Force making things fall towards the ground
answer

US /ˈænsɚ/

UK /'ɑ:nsə(r)/

  • noun
  • Reply to a question someone asks
  • Solution to a problem or test question
  • verb
  • To reply to a question someone asks
  • To solve a test question or a problem