The Earth is Round
Some of the most famous historical figures discovered and proved that the world was not flat. Ancient scientists and explorers pushed the boundaries of their times to discover more about our world. A lot of the things that prove the world is round are to do with shadows and the moon. Well, here goes; here are top 10 things that prove the world is round.
If you ever watch a ship disappear into the distance it will always disappear from view from the bottom first. Equally, as a ship comes into view they appear top first. This is due to the curvature of the world.
Also, when sailing out on the ocean the curvature is apparent. You can actually see the slight curve as you look at the uninterrupted horizon.
As land is approached from the sea, the higher areas are visible first, from further away. This would not be the case if the world was flat.
Lunar eclipses were a main factor in the Greeks discovering that the world is round. During a lunar eclipse, the sun, earth, and the moon are aligned so that the shadow of earth shows on the moon. The shadow is always curved because the planet is.
The ancient Greeks observed that during a lunar eclipse the shadow of the earth always had a round profile. They noted that this happened regardless of the time of night that the eclipse occurred, the season, or the direction that the shadow crept across the moon's surface. It has long been proved that the only object that casts a circular shadow no matter how you shine a light across it is a sphere. Any other shape would not be able to cast a round shadow under all of the circumstances.
The moon’s gravitational attraction causes the oceans to bulge out in the moon’s direction. This bulge actually occurs on both the side facing the moon and the opposite side.
The Moon's gravitational pull generates what we call the tidal force. This leads to two high tides per day. This can only occur because of the shape of the ear, because the earth is spherical (round). The gravitational force pulls on the whole earth and not just the water, and because the earth is rotating tides are generated.
This can be demonstrated with water in a bucket that is being spun, you can observe the centrifugal force.
Aristotle observed that the stars and recorded that the difference in visible constellations in different parts of the world prove that the world must be round.
The patterns of the stars change as you move north and south. Constellations that are far north or far south cannot be seen from the opposite hemisphere. This is because they are always below the horizon. Those constellations that can be observed from both above and below the equator appear to be upside down (depending on which you are used to)., when you cross over from one side of the equator to the other.
Associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, Jason Steffen says:
‘On a flat Earth, Polaris would always be visible — no matter how far away from the North Pole you moved, it would still be above the horizon. However, by the time you reach the equator, Polaris is on the northern horizon, and it disappears entirely once you move into the southern hemisphere. You can't see Polaris from Australia.’ -(Steffen, 2019).
A journey travelling west the whole time was undertaken by Portuguese explorer Magellan and his crew, sadly Magellan and some of the crew died before they travelled all the way around, but over 200 crew members successfully circumnavigated the world in the 1500’s by travelling west the whole time.
All the planets we observe from earth are spherical, why would ours be any different. It’s just not logical that all the other planets in the solar system are spherical and the earth is flat.
Astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos 310-230 BC worked out that the sun was at the centre of the known universe with the earth and other planets revolving around it. Even before his presentation of his work, the Greeks had already calculated the size of the earth and its distance from the moon and the sun.
The fact that the earth orbits the sun, leads us to the conclusion that the earth is spherical. The way that the sun rises and sets (to us) and that we have night and day means that the earth itself must be spinning around its axis and must be a spherical shape.
It’s over fifty years ago that man first landed on the moon. Since that time scientists have been able to study photographs of earth taken from space. The photos taken by various different people all show our watery blue planet as round. There are living people who have observed the world from space.
One of the best school science experiments is the camera in the balloon, which demonstrates that when you send the balloon up into a high altitude the footage from the camera will actually show the curvature of the earth.
The time of day, when it gets dark and when it gets light are all dependent our positioning in relation to the sun. Different places are closer or further away from the sun at different times. However, we adjust the times to fit with the way we travel around the sun. On a continent such as North America this has led to a lot of different time zones. This would not be the case if the earth was flat.
If the sun was like a spotlight to create the different times of light and dark then we would see it and experience night time differently. When you go to the theatre even though the audience is in darkness, they can still see the light coming out of a spotlight on the stage. The world is spherical and the way we experience light and dark from the sun proves it.
Finally:
Actually the earth is not round, our planet, our world is actually an oblate spheroid, a type of ellipsoid.
References:
Steffen J, Round Earth Clues: How Science Proves that our Home is a Globe, 2019. https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/round-earth-clues-how-science-proves-our-home-globe
The world is round
The world is round