Bicycle VS Moped - Bang Goes The Theory

[Mick F]

Sorry.
Splitting hairs time!

A car with a load of luggage will roll for longer along a flat than an empty car.

Your words.

A car with a load of luggage will not necessarily roll further - because the tyres could be squidged and present a high rolling resistance.

......... Ford's Parts Warehouse in Daventry with the doors shut. The floor there follows the curvature of the Earth !

Again, your words.

I maintain that the floor in any decent warehouse or even a large room follows the curvature of the earth because it is level.

The floors in our house are level, coz I levelled them with a sprit level.

[[XAP]Bob]

Sorry.
Splitting hairs time!

A car with a load of luggage will roll for longer along a flat than an empty car.

Your words.

A car with a load of luggage will not necessarily roll further - because the tyres could be squidged and present a high rolling resistance.

......... Ford's Parts Warehouse in Daventry with the doors shut. The floor there follows the curvature of the Earth !

Again, your words.

I maintain that the floor in any decent warehouse or even a large room follows the curvature of the earth because it is level.

The floors in our house are level, coz I levelled them with a sprit level.

Unless you used a spot bubble level at every point I assume you approximated the curvature of the earth to be flat as well as level. It's a good approximation on that scale though.

[Mick F]

Yes.
Our floors are tiled. Each tile is level. I haven't got a flat bar long enough to demonstrate our hall is flat, but I doubt it is absolutely flat. Each tile is level and each tile is next to another without a lip. Therefore our hall "follows the curvature of the earth".

Hardly worth the argument, but any floor isn't flat - or cannot be demonstrated as such - because there isn't a long enough straight edge to measure it.

[[XAP]Bob]

Yes.
Our floors are tiled. Each tile is level. I haven't got a flat bar long enough to demonstrate our hall is flat, but I doubt it is absolutely flat. Each tile is level and each tile is next to another without a lip. Therefore our hall "follows the curvature of the earth".

Hardly worth the argument, but any floor isn't flat - or cannot be demonstrated as such - because there isn't a long enough straight edge to measure it.

Ah - I have a set of decent levels, ranging from a couple of feet to about 6 or 7 feet. Use of the long level over the course of a room gives a good indication of straightness - as you can do it in reasonable time and still cover 3' at a time....


"self levelling" floors will of course follow curvature.

Either way it's pointless on small buildings - large buildings are probably self levelling in the main.

Edit - I think it's the humber bridge where the tops of the towers are several inches further apart than the bottom, despite both being vertical (of course this applies to any sufficiently long bridge)


510 feet tall, 1.3 inches further apart at the top - 4,626 feet central span!

In a normal building - or even an extremely big building.... the earth is flat!