Why is the Earth flat?

Question

So many people think the Earth is a Sphere. But it is flat, like a page in a book. Even the Bible says the earth is round.

When I recenly flew "around" the world we flew ok until out in the Atlantic a long way past Africa the plane dipped down. I asked "what's happening" they said "we are just flying over the edge".
When the plane came up at the Eastern side of the Pacific, I had see what the Earth was like underneath. It was dark and rocky.

Answer 1

Of course the earth is flat except for the hills and mountains. People just think its round because they go around in circles.

Answer 2

In early classical antiquity, the Earth was generally believed to be flat.
According to Aristotle, pre-socratic philosopher, including Leucippus (c. 440 BCE) and Democritus (c. 460-370 BCE) believed in a flat earth. Anaximander believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with a flat, circular top which remained stable because it is the same distance from all things. However, the Greek geographer Strabo reported about 10 BC that sailors knew of the sphericity of the earth because of the disappearance of the hulls of distant ships below the horizon and that this idea was known as early as the 7th or 8th century BC by the poet Homer.

By classical times the idea that Earth was spherical became increasingly important in Ancient Greece. Pythagoras in the 6th century BC, apparently on aesthetic grounds, held that all the celestial bodies were spherical. However, most Presocratic Pythagoreans considered the word to be flat. Around 330 BC, Aristotle provided observational evidence for the spherical Earth, nothing that travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon. This is only possible if their horizon is at an angle to northerns' horizon. Thus the Earth's surface cannot be flat. He also noted that the border of the shadow of Earth on the Moon is over the horizon. Only a sphere casts a circular shadow in every direction, whereas a circular disk casts an elliptical shadow in all directions apart from directly above and directly below.

Answer 3

To a first-order approximation the Earth is round. This
is due to gravity. Gravity pulls with equal strength in all
directions; therefore any variations from a spherical
shape will lead to gravitational forces that
bring the shape back into that of a sphere.

This is without considering the rotation of the earth,
however. The rotation of the earth adds centrifugal
effects, which cause the earth to bulge slightly at
its equator and flatten slightly at its poles.
(This is like twirling a rock on the end of a string
and then letting go--the rock flies away from the
twirler.) Because of these centrifugal effects, the
distance from the center of the earth to the surface
of the earth is about 0.33% shorter at the poles
compared to the equator. so the earth is not flat.

Answer 4

Ok that is incorrect. The world is like a sphere, but not quite perfectly spherical. As the equator there is a bulge due to the spin of the Earth and Earth tides due to the moon (movement of the ground not just water). THink of it in a way as a donut around a ball, but not really as the bulge isn't a huge thing. There's no such thing as going over the edge of the Earth, whoever told you that load of b.s. was wrong.

Answer 5

Erastosthenes measure earth know it nearly sphere. He find 25,000 mile around. Bible wrong in many way.

Answer 6

It only *appears* flat, because we are so small in comparison that we don't notice the curvature of the earth at our scale. BTW, the bible is not the best source for scientific facts (it says that bats are birds!)

Answer 7

Silly pumpkin.

Answer 8

ya, o dont know why people think it is round either,dummies!