What if the Earth was flat?
Imagine if the earth was flat. What would eclipses look like?
Would gravity work the same? What would the passing of the days be like?
It takes quite a bit of imagination to imagine flat earth,
but would flat earth be physically possible beyond what a specific collective of people can imagine?
In school, we are taught that the earth is only one of the eight planets in the
solar system and that all celestial bodies, including planets, have a spherical shape.
But as impressive as it sounds, today, a select group of people claims that the earth is flat.
But what if the earth was flat? Would we notice any difference from the round earth?
Let's look at some effects that would become daily if the earth were flat.
HELLO GRAVITY Have you ever wondered
why planets are round? Why are the sun, moon, and stars also round? The answer is simple, GRAVITY.
As you know, gravity is that mysterious "force" that pushes everything towards the center of the
earth, and if, although in physics, gravity is not a force but rather the deformation of space-time,
we can daily define gravity as a force of attraction that bodies with mass have.
Gravity causes massive celestial bodies such as planets, stars,
and natural satellites to be round. When a celestial body forms,
gravity causes all matter to clump together in the center,
known as the "center of gravity." This center is where gravity begins to exert its force,
and as gravity is the same in all directions, the celestial body gradually adopts a spherical shape.
So if the reason the earth is round is gravity, what about the flat earth?
Well, as funny as it may seem, those who believe the flat earth DO NOT BELIEVE IN GRAVITY; just as
you listen, these people consider gravity to be a matter of beliefs and not observational facts.
But if we rely on reality, flat earth would also suffer the effects of gravity,
only being a disk and not a sphere; those effects would be strange at least.
In a sphere, the center of gravity is in the center, but in a disk,
the center of gravity is right in the middle.
On the supposed flat earth, things would fall towards the north pole
instead of falling down because it would be where the center of gravity would be.
Can you imagine the chaos that would cause? Nothing would be as we know it;
the things wouldn't fall down, trees would grow sideways and rain would fall sideways too.
In addition, the force of gravitational attraction would be so great at the edges that,
instead of walking, you would have to crawl as if you were climbing a mountain, so leaving the
flat earth by the edges would be impossible. Consider that if the center of gravity of a
flat earth is at the north pole, things that are not fixed to the ground will accumulate
in that place; this includes water and air. That is to say that on a flat earth, all the
water of the oceans and the air of the atmosphere would accumulate in the center like giant bubbles,
leaving without water or air in the areas furthest from the center.
The people in Australia and Argentina would not have water or air to survive on the flat Earth.
Now I understand why some flat earthers decided to remove Australia from the map, so it is
easier to explain everything. GOODBYE MAGNETIC FIELD
Our round planet has a molten iron and nickel core that constantly rotates, producing a vast
magnetic field that covers the entire planet and protects us from dangerous solar radiation.
But what happens on flat earth? Simple, such a core does not exist.
According to flat earthers, there is no core.
Therefore, the earth's magnetic field does not exist either since we cannot see it,
so it must be just an invention orchestrated by the elite who do not want you to know that there
is no magnetic field and thus be able to continue selling you sunscreen when you go to the beach.
Now, let's go up back on the airplane of reality. On a flat earth, there would be no magnetic field.
Therefore, solar radiation would wipe out everything in its path;
the absence of the magnetic field would vaporize water, air, and all living things on the planet.
The few remaining living things would suffer irreversible DNA damage and
have to manage to survive on a planet without an atmosphere, air, or water.
DAYS AND NIGHTS As if all of the above weren't
strange enough, flat earthers think that day and night are pretty different from how we know them.
On our round planet, day and night occur due to the earth's rotational motion.
When it takes a complete turn, it is considered that a day has passed. On the side that looks
at the sun, it is the day, and on the opposite side, it is night, simple and elegant, right?
Well, for flat earthers, this is too simple and boring, so they decided to make it more fun and
thought it would be better to shrink the sun and moon and
make them go around senselessly on the earth. No, it's not a joke; this is the flat earth model.
Instead of it being the earth and the rest of the planets that revolve around the sun,
in the flat earth, it is the sun and the moon that rotate above the earth.
But what about the rest of the planets? Well, we'll talk about that later.
Let's go back to the flat earth with the sun and moon spinning
and apply a little science to this model. In the flat earth model, the sun and moon
are always present in the sky, which is somewhat contradictory since, if the sun is always present,
regardless of where it is, it would be visible all the time,
so on the flat earth, it would always be daytime. The only way there could be day and night on a
flat earth would be if the sun rises on one side of the disk and gets in on the other,
although this would completely change our concept of cardinal points.
In round earth, the cardinal points are based on the direction in which the sun rises and sets,
in this case, east and west. But on the flat earth, the sun would rise
in the south and rise... in the south as well? since the entire edge of the disk is the south,
the sun would rise in the south, pass through the north, and then re-enter the south.
"If you're liking this video, let us know by leaving a like, subscribe to this channel if
you haven't already and don't forget to ring the notification bell so you don't miss any video."
ECLIPSES In our spherical earth, eclipses occur when the
earth, the moon, and the sun align; if it is the moon that stands between the earth and the sun,
it is classified as a solar eclipse, and if it is the earth that stands between the moon
and the sun it is classified as a lunar eclipse. In the case of a flat earth, for an eclipse like
this to occur, we would have to follow precisely the same principle. However,
it would be pretty different since, during a lunar eclipse, the earth's shadow projected on
the moon would not be a circle but a straight line because that is the shadow of a disk.
On the other hand, the solar eclipse is even more difficult since, in the flat earth model,
the sun and the moon rotate themselves in the same plane, so there is no way for the
moon to be placed right in the middle of the sun and the earth at any time.
Even if it did, in the flat earth model, the sun is so small and moves so fast that
solar eclipses would last a couple of seconds. It wouldn't be as fantastic as real eclipses.
PROBLEMS WITH THE SIZE OF THE SUN As we have seen so far, flat earthers have
an overflowing imagination, but this imagination is not necessarily based on scientific facts.
In the model of the flat earth, the sun and moon measure approximately 50 kilometers in
diameter and are located a few kilometers above the surface of the earth, something ridiculous
if we consider that Hipparchus of Nicaea calculated the distance from the earth to
the moon more than 2000 years ago and estimated that this distance was approximately 348,000 km.
A calculation quite close to the real one made by someone more than 2000 years ago, and now it turns
out that the moon is only 50 km in diameter and is located a few hundred km above us.
The problem with the flat earth model is that the sun measures only 50 km in diameter,
but ... Can there be a star of that size? In the universe, there are neutron stars that,
if they can, have just that diameter. But, as we know, neutron stars have an immeasurable mass
and emit radiation that would vaporize all the planets of the solar system in seconds.
So besides neutron stars, there cannot be a star the size of the flat earth model,
and if it existed, even a star of that size at that distance would be enough to burn and vaporize
the entire planet in a matter of seconds. Considering that the sun's temperature is
more than 5000 K, and the jets of plasma it emits can reach several thousand degrees,
no living being could survive. Not to mention, even if it were small,
the sun would still have much more mass than the earth, so its gravitational force would be much
more significant, and the flat earth would be destroyed under the presence of the sun.
A miniature sun like that of the flat earth model cannot exist.
ARE THE REST OF THE PLANETS ALSO FLAT? When we see all this, we can only ask ourselves:
What about the rest of the planets in the solar system? Are all planets flat? Does each
planet have its moon and its miniature sun? After researching all the flat earth forums,
we realized there is no consensus about the rest of the planets.
Some flat earthers think that planets don't exist and are just a NASA invention and that when you
look through a telescope, that telescope has been modified to see planets that aren't there.
Others believe that planets exist but are also flat and that telescopes make us see them round.
Others say that only the Earth is flat since it has been observed that Mars is round.
That is to say, this group of flat earthers says that the Earth is flat
because "this is what science and observations say."
The same science and observations that indicate that Mars is round. Contradictory, isn't it?
Be that as it may, we see that, unlike science, flat earthers are not entirely organized,
nor do they agree on many ideas. The truth is that this group of
people has no real arguments that can scientifically support flat earth.
People who believe in this kind of thing are commonly referred to as deniers,
as they have no different ideas but directly deny the reality in which they live.
They do not understand how science works, nor are they willing to understand it because their idea
is not based on facts nor evidence; it is based on a deep belief that shelters and comforts them
by making them believe that they are right. They deny reality and embrace the illusion
in which they believe; that is why it is not possible to debate correctly with a flat earther;
evidence and facts do not work with them because their idea is not based on facts but on a deep
faith that helps them escape from reality and makes them believe that they have found the truth.
No matter how much evidence you show about the spherical Earth to someone who believes
the Earth is flat, they will say, no, I say the Earth is flat, and finish.
Sadly, people who think about these things are very vulnerable to believing in other,
even more, absurd things, such as that global warming doesn't exist, that viruses
don't exist, or that vaccines do harm. That is why we must cultivate the spark
of curiosity in society so that people doubt instead of deny and think instead of believing.
What do you think? Why is there no flat moon society?
Let us know your opinion with your valuable comment.