What Shape is the Earth?

[661-Pete]

Flat, and you can fall off the edge. Here's proof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_JvYS1mn4w

I have to admit, I do love those old 'Hamlet' ads. Especially the ones with a "historical" theme. Here are a few more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_UkfOldNJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvZ7FRGrmQs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiZ988uEXT8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl1W_zD24Ik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LgzBnCK_To
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmkCW9Nr0Go

[gaz]

'Tis sausage shaped, in fact more like a whole string of sausages.

[londoncommuter0000]

Oh, man. Bad memories. First year of secondary, in-class geography test.

'The earth is a sphere. True or false?'

Well of course, I knew even then (and this was back in 1979) that the earth was almost a sphere, but that the forces caused by its rotation on its own axis 'flattened' the poles and made the equator bulge.

So I ticked 'False' but added a note to say that well .. what I just wrote above.

I got it wrong, and got into a heated debate with the geography teacher, who insisted that there was no 'flattening', and that if I didn't shut my gob, I'd be getting 'the belt' [1].

I still feel slightly bitter at that, since I was very good at geography, and if it had not been for that question, I'd have scored 100%.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawse

[peetee]

I was led to believe it was shaped like a load of joined up orange segments.

[Oldjohnw]

The UK bit of it is looking increasingly pear-shaped.

[Mick F]

I was led to believe it was shaped like a load of joined up orange segments.

Mercator had different ideas. His world was a rectangle.

[cyclop]

All wrong.Obviously, the earth is mostly uphill with down bits in between.

[Vorpal]

The UK bit of it is looking increasingly pear-shaped.

[peetee]

The UK bit of it is looking increasingly pear-shaped.

That's not a new thing. It is very common to see a plan of the mainland UK with Scotland disproportionally small so town locations elsewhere are more readable.

[661-Pete]

In Mercator's projection of the whole Earth, the size of far Northern countries such as Greenland, Canada, Norway, is grossly exaggerated as compared with countries nearer the Equator. In fact, as you can see:

Greenland looks about the same size as the whole of Africa, whereas in reality it's only about 1/15th the area.

And as for Antarctica! No wonder the FE'ers believe there's an "ice wall" encompassing the whole of Antarctica and completely surrounding the "Flat Earth". It was indeed first observed by the explorer Sir James Ross in 1841, who called it "The Barrier", because he believed it impenetrable. (To ships it is, anyway...)

Perhaps it's just as well Ross didn't try to break his ship through the Barrier, or he'd have fallen off the edge...

[661-Pete]

Have a listen to the immortal Peter Sellers on this very topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdHmzPhuoF8

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Well 1:10 think that the earth is flattish
1:10 Britons also think the holocaust never happened

There you have it, bit of a joke really well that's what I though when I voted for the first option

[661-Pete]

Well, perhaps we need a referendum ( ) on the question "Is the Earth Flat? YES/NO". After all, if 10% think it is, we only need a <20% turnout to deliver a YES vote.

Like what happened in ....... you-know-what.

So, what would the consequences be? Even more so, what if the whole world followed suit? Conveniently, most FE'ers believe (as I said above - and I got this wisdom from perusing their forum) that the "edge" consists of an "ice wall" in Antarctica. This at least spares Columbus his dilemma as posed in the "Hamlet ad" (see above). Magellan has a problem, but it can be dealt with by stating that he simply did a 'lap' around the perimeter of the disc....

What would change? Well, a ban on future exploration of Antarctica, for one thing: we don't want any 'accidents'! Probably a ban on all space flight, to avoid revealing uncomfortable non-truths. We'd have to stop using satellites, because they can't really exist (what holds them up?). Might be a Good Thing in the end. And a new system of terrestrial surveying, since all existing measurements will be shown to be increasingly inaccurate.

Looking forward to it. Unlike......

[Audax67]

I can see it now:

EARTH FAILS TO CHANGE SHAPE FOLLOWING 'FLAT' VOTE
Corbyn: "Shameless denial of democracy",
May: "EU intransigence".
Foster: "We don't give a [faecal reference] what shape it is as long as the micks don't take over".
Cameron: "...pigs, all the way down."

[Oldjohnw]

So basically, it doesn't matter what the realty, if a vote says that the earth is flat, the earth is flat.