Is the world round like a ball? or flat? Why dont we fall off if its round?

Answer 1

The earth is not quite a sphere--it is not perfectly round--and it's definitely not flat. The correct term is "oblate spheroid". That's just a fancy way of saying "shaped like a slightly squished ball".

The earth is just very slightly wider at the equator--the halfway point between the north and the south pole--than it is anywhere else. If you take an object on a string and spin it around your head (don't break the furniture!), you'll notice that the object is always pulling away from you. The earth is also spinning and that very same pull generated by all spinning objects--centripetal force--causes the equator to bulge out just a bit.

However, this bulge only a very slght difference. If you could shrink the earth to the size of a bowling ball, it would look like a perfectly round ball.

And why don't we fall off? Nobody knows exactly why. What we do know is that there is a force called gravity. There's a force that nobody completely understands but it makes objects tend to move towards other objects. This force is rather weak but it gets stronger when one or both of those objects is bigger and it gets even stronger when the two objects are nearby. (Scientists would use the word "massive" instead of "bigger". "Bigger" isn't quite the right word but it is close enough for now.)

We're all very close to a gigantic object--the earth. We're so close and the earth is so big (okay, so the earth is so _massive_) that gravity is strong enough to pull us down to the ground. It's possible to overpower gravity and leave the earth, but this takes a very powerful tool such as a rocket ship.

There's also gravity between you and all other objects. There's a slight pulling force that is trying to pull you and your computer monitor together right now. Don't worry--since both you and your computer are not giagantic like the earth, this force is very weak and gravity won't cause your monitor to slam into your face. The same thing goes for you and the door, the door and your computer, your shoes and the door, your house and the moon--for any two objects at all!

However, all of these pulls are so weak that you'll never, ever notice most of them. Still, there's a few that you can notice. Ever wonder why there's such things as high and low tides? The moon is always pulling on the water. Fortunately, the gravity between the moon and the oceans is not strong enough to pull the water all the way to the moon. It's just strong enough to pull the water a very short distance--just enough to cause the tide to go up and down a bit.

There's been theories as to how gravity works but we cannot prove them yet. Maybe there are some gravity rays that we can't see yet. Maybe it is something else. However, we can say that gravity does work and we can make caclutions that tell us how strong the forces of gravity are between two objects.

(Incidently, massive is a harder term to explain that big and that's why I used the inaccurate term "bigger". The easiest way would be to compare an object like a golf ball and an inflated balloon. The balloon is bigger but the golf ball weighs more because the golf ball has more mass. When a scientist calculates things based on gravity, he or she wants to know how massive the objects are, not how big they are.)

Answer 2

You have it backwards. If the world was flat, then we would fall off the edge. There is no up or down in space. Gravity pulls things to the center of the Earth. Man gives names to things for convenience. Things such as the northern and southern hemisphere. It does not mean that Australia is 'under' the Earth and the US is on top of the Earth. It is only a way that man uses to referrence the globe. Everything on the surface of Earth is being pulled toward the center of the Earth. That is gravity.

Answer 3

The world is round like a ball and we don't fly off because of gravity.

Answer 4

It's not round like a ball - more like a piece of rock. You don't fall off because of gravity.

Answer 5

It's round. Gravity.

Answer 6

Gravity

Answer 7

it's round like a ball it just looks flat on a map because the map people want to stretch out the map so u can c everything. we don't fall off cuz god dont want us ta

Answer 8

its mostly round, a little flattened at the poles. We stick onto it because of gravity. Large massive objects have gravity. The larger , the more gravity.

Answer 9

It's slightly oval-rather flattened at the poles. Ever heard of gravity????

Answer 10

Gravity holds us there.... Did we not pay attention in school?