how do we prove?

Question

how do you pove earth is round if you cant prove we have been to the moon? and it takes too long to go all the way around the earth?
(what i mean is How do you prove anthing really?)

im not stupid i know what satlittes are, how do you prove satleites are real?

i hate to break it to ya but i cant afford to fly in a plane around the earth

Answer 1

Excellent question! with no good answer ...

Scientists seldom use the word "prove" or "proof" in their work. Science is a self-correcting process, which means that *everything* is subject to correction if something better comes along. That means that, scientifically speaking, there is no absolute proof of anything.

What we can do, however, is examine the evidence for various hypotheses, and point out which hypothesis is the most useful in explaining evidence or making predictions. In most cases, it's easy to see that some hypothesis simply cannot explain certain pieces of evidence. For example, the shadow of Earth on the Moon's surface during a lunar eclipse is always round. This is easy to explain if the Earth is round, but much harder if the Earth is flat.

Eventually, the amount of evidence in favor of a theory becomes so large that it would be preverse to withhold your provisional assent.

Answer 2

Before you're inundated with insulting remarks for asking such a question--I would never do that--let me point out a couple of quick things for you.

First, we HAVE been to the moon-several times, in fact. Please don't be so gullible as to fall for that idiotic nonsense that says otherwise.

Second, we knew the Earth was round--even Columbus knew this very well--from the use of spherical geometry (and trig). You can carefully survey different parts of the Earth's surface at the same moment in time, and compare things like the angle of the sun at that instance between those points. The only way the observations "work" is if the Earth is round. Again, they knew this centuries ago.

This simplest answer for you now, is look a the pictures taken of the Earth from space. It's round. Or, get in an airplane and fly really, really high--you can actually SEE the curvature of the Earth without having to go into space.

So, the answers are: Use well-know math principles to make measurements on the ground, and get up high enough to see for yourself.

I hope this helps you!

Answer 3

I suppose the core of this question is really how do we actually know anything and to answer this you have to be able to pin point what it actually means to know something.
To do this you have to study what the mind is and how it works. How the external environment effects the internal workings of the mind and how that information gets there. The trouble is that if you are going to do all this then you have take things on faith, i.e reading things in books and just accepting them. So now you find your self in a self perpetuating paradox and then pooooof, there goes the totality of existence.

It is thinking like this that has birthed some of our best thinkers, from the Buddha, Mahatma Ghandi, Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein and countless others, that is if you can believe any of this, after all when you get right down to it, you cannot really prove anything. You can only share observations and ideas, but whether you believe any of it, that is up to you.

Answer 4

I don't really think any of this merits a response.

"and it takes too long to go all the way around the earth?"

Prove this. It only takes hours to fly around the Earth at supersonic speeds and a little over an hour to do so in orbit around the Earth. Doesn't seem like to long to me.

The answer you are looking for is we use the Scientific Method to prove something true.

Answer 5

"How do you prove anything, really?"

That is a profound philosophical question, and in fact a whole branch of philosophy, epistemology, is centered around it. Whole libraries have been written on the subject, from ancient times to the present.

Much depends on your terminology, or your use of language, and much depends on what you are willing to accept as evidence. Some would say that you can't prove much of anything beside the fact that you, yourself, exist and that you have certain sensory inputs. Others would argue that you can prove certain mathematical propositions, but nothing about the real world. Still others would argue that you can build a true, comprehensive model of the Universe and human society, and be confident about it.

Answer 6

It takes too long? You can fly around the world in less than 3 days, including a lot of time waiting in airports for connecting flights.

As for "how do you prove anything", ... there are whole college-level courses and thick books on that subject. For physical things, it boils down to making observations, and coming up with an explanation that fits the facts. Simpler explanations are generally better.

Some times these explanations are called "theories". It's mostly just another word for the same thing, but theory implies (to me at least) some predictive component. Somebody who says "its just a theory" (meaning "I don't believe it") puzzles me -- it makes as much sense as saying "its only an explanation that fits all the facts (but I don't believe it)".

Answer 7

you can prove that the earth is round by standing on a dock and watch a departing ship. after a few miles the ship wikk pass over the horizon, this would not occur if the earth were flat. also the fact that while it is day here, it is night on the otherside of the earth, a property of spheres.

Answer 8

About the earth being round. When one looks at a lunar eclipse we notice that the shadow of the earth is round. Were the earth a square, would we not see a square shadow? I am serious.

Answer 9

Gravity

Answer 10

If you study the good professor Al Gore, you do not have to prove a thing....all you do is repeat something over and over and pretty soon it becomes a fact. Just look at Cameron Diaz, for example...even she feels she now knows more about planets than Galileo. bo