![Physical world map in Hellerick triaxial boreal projection - shallow](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Physical_world_map_in_Hellerick_triaxial_boreal_projection_-_shallow.jpg)
Modern flat Earth beliefs are promoted by organizations and individuals which make claims that the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
is flat while denying the
Earth's sphericity, contrary to over two millennia of scientific consensus.
Flat Earth
The flat-Earth model is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period (5th century BC), t ...
beliefs are
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
; the hypotheses and assertions are not based on
scientific knowledge
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
. Flat Earth advocates are classified by experts in philosophy and physics as
science deniers.
Flat Earth groups of the modern era date from the middle of the 20th century; some adherents are serious and some are not. Those who are serious are often motivated by
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
or
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
. Through the use of
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
, flat Earth theories have been increasingly espoused and promoted by individuals unaffiliated with larger groups. Many believers make use of social media to spread their views.
[
]
19th and early 20th centuries
There is a popular yet false belief that the Earth was generally believed to be flat until a few hundred years ago. Earth's sphericity has been widely accepted in the Western world since at least the Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
(323 BCE–31 BCE). It was not until the 19th century that the Flat Earth concept had a resurgence.
Modern flat Earth belief originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham
Samuel Birley Rowbotham (; 1816 – 23 December 1884, in London) was an English inventor, writer and utopian socialist who wrote ''Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe'' under the pseudonym Parallax. His work was originally published as a 16-page ...
(1816–1884). Based on conclusions derived from his 1838 Bedford Level experiment
The Bedford Level experiment is a series of observations carried out along a length of the Old Bedford River on the Bedford Level of the Cambridgeshire Fens in the United Kingdom, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, to measure the curvat ...
, Rowbotham published the 1849 pamphlet titled ''Zetetic Astronomy'', writing under the pseudonym "Parallax". He later expanded this into the book ''Earth Not a Globe'', proposing the Earth is a flat disc centred at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice, Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
. Rowbotham further held that the Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
and Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
were above Earth and that the "cosmos" was above the Earth. He also published a leaflet titled ''The Inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scriptures'', which argued that the "Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
, alongside our senses, supported the idea that the Earth was flat and immovable and this essential truth should not be set aside for a system based solely on human conjecture".
Rowbotham and followers like William Carpenter gained attention by successful use of pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
in public debates with leading scientists such as Alfred Russel Wallace. Rowbotham created a Zetetic Society in England and New York, shipping over a thousand copies of ''Zetetic Astronomy''. Wallace repeated the Bedford Level experiment
The Bedford Level experiment is a series of observations carried out along a length of the Old Bedford River on the Bedford Level of the Cambridgeshire Fens in the United Kingdom, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, to measure the curvat ...
in 1870, correcting for atmospheric refraction and showing a spherical Earth.
In 1877, Hampden produced a book ''A New Manual of Biblical Cosmography''. Rowbotham also produced studies that purported to show that the effects of ships disappearing below the horizon could be explained by the laws of perspective in relation to the human eye. In 1883, he founded Zetetic Societies in England and New York, to which he shipped a thousand copies of ''Zetetic Astronomy''.
After Rowbotham's death, Lady Elizabeth Blount
Elizabeth Anne Mould de Sodington Blount, Lady de Sodington Blount (born Elizabeth Anne Mould Williams lastly Elizabeth Anne Mould Morgan; 7 May 1850 – 2 January 1935) was an English pamphlet writer and social activist. She led a society who be ...
established the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893, whose objective was "the propagation of knowledge related to Natural Cosmogony in confirmation of the Holy Scriptures, based on practical scientific investigation". The society published a magazine, ''The Earth Not a Globe Review'', which sold for twopence and remained active well into the early 20th century. A flat Earth journal, ''Earth: a Monthly Magazine of Sense and Science'', was published between 1901 and 1904, edited by Lady Blount. She held that the Bible was the unquestionable authority on the natural world and argued that one could not be a Christian and believe the Earth is a globe. Well-known members included E. W. Bullinger of the Trinitarian Bible Society
The Trinitarian Bible Society was founded in 1831 "to promote the Glory of God and the salvation of men by circulating, both at home and abroad, in dependence on the Divine blessing, the Holy Scriptures, which are given by inspiration of God and ...
, Edward Haughton, senior moderator in natural science in Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
and an archbishop. She repeated Rowbotham's experiments, generating some counter-experiments, but interest declined after the First World War. The movement gave rise to several books that argued for a flat, stationary Earth, including ''Terra Firma'' by David Wardlaw Scott.
Other notable flat Earthers from this time period include:
* William Carpenter, a printer originally from Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
, was a supporter of Rowbotham. Carpenter published ''Theoretical Astronomy Examined and Exposed – Proving the Earth not a Globe'' in eight parts from 1864 under the name ''Common Sense''. He later emigrated to Baltimore, where he published ''One Hundred Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe'' in 1885. He wrote: "There are rivers that flow for hundreds of miles towards the level of the sea without falling more than a few feet – notably, the Nile, which, in a thousand miles, falls but a foot. A level expanse of this extent is quite incompatible with the idea of the Earth's convexity. It is, therefore, a reasonable proof that Earth is not a globe", as well as: "If the Earth were a globe, a small model globe would be the very best – because the truest – thing for the navigator to take to sea with him. But such a thing as that is not known: with such a toy as a guide, the mariner would wreck his ship, of a certainty! This is a proof that Earth is not a globe."
* John Jasper
John Jasper (July 4, 1812 – March 30, 1901) was an ex-slave who became a Baptist minister and noted public speaker for Christianity after the American Civil War.
Early life
Born into slavery on July 4, 1812, in Fluvanna County, Virginia, to Phi ...
, an American slave turned prolific preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...
, and friend of Carpenter's, echoed his friend's sentiments in his most famous sermon "The Sun do move", preached over 250 times, always by invitation. In a written account of his sermon, published in ''The Richmond Whig'' of March 19, 1878, Jasper says he would frequently cite the verse "I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth" and follow up by arguing: "So we are living on a four-cornered earth; then, my friends, will you tell me how in the name of God can an earth with four corners be round!" In the same article he argued: "if the earth is like others say, who hold a different theory, peopled on the other side, those people would be obliged to walk on the ground with their feet upward like flies on the ceiling of a room".
* In Brockport, New York, in 1887, M. C. Flanders argued the case of a flat Earth for three nights against two scientific gentlemen defending sphericity. Five townsmen chosen as judges voted unanimously for a flat Earth at the end. The case was reported in the ''Brockport Democrat''.
* Joseph W. Holden of Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
, a former justice of the peace, gave numerous lectures in New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
and lectured on flat-Earth theory at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His fame stretched to North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
, where the Statesville ''Semi-weekly Landmark'' recorded at his death in 1900: "We hold to the doctrine that the Earth is flat ourselves and we regret exceedingly to learn that one of our members is dead."[Garwood ( 2007).]
* In 1898, during his solo circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth.
The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Mage ...
of the world, Joshua Slocum encountered a group of flat-Earthers in Durban, South Africa
Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...
. Three Boers
Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this are ...
, one of them a clergyman, presented Slocum with a pamphlet in which they set out to prove that the world was flat. Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South African Republic, South Africa, and President of the So ...
, President of the Transvaal Republic
The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...
, advanced the same view: "You don't mean ''round'' the world, it is impossible! You mean ''in'' the world. Impossible!"
* From 1915 to 1942 Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who in 1906 took over the Christian Catholic Church, a Pentecostal
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement sect that established a utopian community in Zion
Zion ( he, צִיּוֹן ''Ṣīyyōn'', LXX , also variously transliterated ''Sion'', ''Tzion'', ''Tsion'', ''Tsiyyon'') is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see Nam ...
, Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
, preached flat Earth doctrine. He used a photograph of a stretch of the shoreline at Lake Winnebago
Lake Winnebago ( mez, Wenepekōw Nepēhsæh, oj, Wiinibiigoo-zaaga'igan, one, kanyataláheleˀ) is a shallow freshwater lake in the north central United States, located in east central Wisconsin. At 137,700 acres it is the largest lake entire ...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, taken above the waterline to prove his point. When the airship ''Italia'' disappeared on an expedition to the North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
in 1928, he warned the world's press that it had sailed over the edge of the world. He offered a $5000 award ($98,590 in 2022 terms) for proving that the Earth is not flat, under his own conditions. Teaching a globular Earth was banned in the Zion schools, and the message was transmitted on his WCBD radio station.
* Along with those who followed him, Frank Cherry
Frank S Cherry (circa 1875-1963) was the founder and leader of one of the early Black Hebrew Israelite groups in the United States.
Biography
Little is known about Cherry's early and adult life, but we do know that he was born in the Southern Un ...
(died 1963), the founder of the Black Hebrew Israelite
Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are groups of African Americans who believe that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups belie ...
religion, taught the existence of a flat Earth "surrounded by three layers of heaven."
International Flat Earth Research Society
In 1956, Samuel Shenton
Samuel Shenton (30 March 1903 – 2 March 1971) was an English conspiracy theorist and lecturer. In 1956, he founded the International Flat Earth Research Society, based in Dover. He lectured tirelessly on this to youth clubs, political and s ...
created the International Flat Earth Research Society as a successor to the Universal Zetetic Society, running it as "organising secretary" from his home in Dover, England.[ Readable clippings in four parts]
1
2
3
4
/ref> Given Shenton's interest in alternative science and technology, the emphasis on religious arguments was less than in the predecessor society. This was just before the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
launched the first artificial satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisoto ...
, Sputnik; he responded: "Would sailing round the Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
prove that it were spherical? It is just the same for those satellites."
His primary aim was to reach children before they were convinced about a spherical Earth. Despite plenty of publicity, the space race eroded Shenton's support in Britain until 1967, when he started to become famous due to the Apollo program. When satellite images showed Earth as a sphere, Shenton remarked: "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye". Later asked about similar photographs taken by astronauts, he attributed curvature to the use of wide-angle lens
In photography and cinematography, a wide-angle lens refers to a lens whose focal length is substantially smaller than the focal length of a normal lens for a given film plane. This type of lens allows more of the scene to be included in the ...
, adding, "It's a deception of the public and it isn't right".
In 1969, Shenton persuaded Ellis Hillman
Ellis Simon Hillman (17 November 1928 – 21 January 1996) was a British Labour politician, local councillor, Mayor of the London Borough of Barnet (1994–95) and polytechnic history lecturer.
Hillman was born into a political family, related b ...
, a Polytechnic of East London
, mottoeng = Knowledge and the fulfilment of vows
, established = 1898 – West Ham Technical Institute1952 – West Ham College of Technology1970 – North East London Polytechnic1989 – Polytechnic of East London ...
lecturer, to become president of the Flat Earth Society; but there is little evidence of any activity on his part until after Shenton's death, when he added most of Shenton's library to the archives of the Science Fiction Foundation
The Science Fiction Foundation is a Registered Charity established 1970 in England by George Hay and others. Its purpose is to "promote science fiction and bring together those who read, write, study, teach, research or archive science fiction i ...
he helped to establish.
Shenton died in 1971. Charles K. Johnson, a correspondent from California, inherited part of Shenton's library from Shenton's wife; he incorporated and became president of the International Flat Earth Research Society of America and Covenant People's Church in California. Over the next three decades, under his leadership, the Flat Earth Society grew to a reported 3,500 members.
Johnson spent years examining the studies of flat- and round-Earth theories and proposed evidence of a conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...
against flat Earth: "The idea of a spinning globe is only a conspiracy of error that Moses, Columbus, and FDR all fought..." His article was published in the magazine ''Science Digest
''Science Digest'' was a monthly American magazine published by the Hearst Corporation from 1937 through 1988.
History
''Science Digest'' was first published in January 1937 in an 8 x 5 inch digest size format of about 100 pages. ...
'' in 1980. It goes on to state: "If it is a sphere, the surface of a large body of water must be curved. The Johnsons have checked the surfaces of Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gulf ...
without detecting any curvature."
Johnson issued many publications and handled all membership applications. The most famous publication was ''Flat Earth News,'' a quarterly, four-page tabloid. Johnson paid for these publications through annual member dues costing US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
6 to US$10 over the course of his leadership. Johnson cited the Bible for his beliefs, and he saw scientists as pulling a hoax which would replace religion with science.
The Flat Earth Society's most recent planet model is that humanity lives on a disc, with the North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
at its centre and a wall of ice, Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
, at the outer edge. The resulting map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
resembles the symbol of the United Nations, which Johnson used as evidence for his position. In this model, the Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
and Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
are each in diameter.
The Flat Earth Society recruited members by speaking against the US government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
and all its agencies, particularly NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
. Much of the society's literature in its early days focused on interpreting the Bible to mean that the Earth is flat, although they did try to offer scientific explanations and evidence.
Criticism
Eugenie Scott
Eugenie Carol Scott (born October 24, 1945) is an American physical anthropologist, a former university professor and educator who has been active in opposing the teaching of young Earth creationism and intelligent design in schools. She coined t ...
called the group an example of "extreme Biblical-literalist theology: The earth is flat because the Bible says it is flat, regardless of what science tells us".
According to some flat Earthers, the Flat Earth Society is a government-controlled organization whose true purpose is to make ridiculous claims about flat Earth and therefore discredit the flat Earth movement.
Decline and relaunch
According to Charles K. Johnson, the membership of the group rose to 3,500 under his leadership but began to decline after a fire at his house in 1997 which destroyed all of the records and contacts of the society's members. Johnson's wife, who helped manage the membership database, died shortly thereafter. Johnson himself died on 19 March 2001.
In 2004, Daniel Shenton (not related to Samuel) resurrected the Flat Earth Society, basing it around a web-based discussion forum
Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to:
Common uses
* Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States
*Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city
**Roman Forum, most famous example
*Internet ...
. He believes that no one has provided proof that the world is not flat.
This eventually led to the official relaunch of the society in October 2009, and the creation of a new website, featuring a public collection of flat Earth literature and a wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
. Moreover, the society began accepting new members for the first time since 2001, with musician Thomas Dolby
Thomas Morgan Robertson (born 14 October 1958), known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, is an English musician, producer, composer, entrepreneur and teacher.
Dolby came to prominence in the 1980s, releasing hit singles including "She Blinded Me ...
becoming the first to join the newly reconvened society. , over 500 people have become members.
In 2013, part of this society broke away to form a new web-based group also featuring a forum and wiki.
Per country
Canada
Flat Earth Society of Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
was established on 8 November 1970 by philosopher Leo Ferrari
Leo Charles Ferrari (December 8, 1927 – October 7, 2010) was a St. Thomas University philosophy professor, noted Saint Augustine scholar, and founding member of the organization Flat Earth Society of Canada.
Flat Earth Society activities
...
, writer Raymond Fraser
Raymond Fraser (May 8, 1941 – October 22, 2018) was a Canadian biographer, editor, essayist, memoirist, novelist, poet and short story writer. Fraser published fourteen books of fiction, three of non-fiction, and eight poetry collections. Fras ...
and poet Alden Nowlan
Alden Albert Nowlan (; January 25, 1933 – June 27, 1983) was a Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright.
History
Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia, adjacent to Mosherville, and close to the small town of Windsor ...
; and was active until 1984. Its archives are held at the University of New Brunswick.
Calling themselves "planoterrestrialists", their aims were quite different from other flat Earth societies. They claimed a prevailing problem of the new technological age was the willingness of people to accept theories "on blind faith and to reject the evidence of their own senses."[ The parodic intention of the Society appeared in the writings of Ferrari, as he attributed everything from gender to racial inequality on the globularist and the ]spherical Earth
Spherical Earth or Earth's curvature refers to the approximation of figure of the Earth as a sphere.
The earliest documented mention of the concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it appears in the writings of Greek philosophers. ...
model. Ferrari even claimed to have nearly fallen off "the Edge" of the Earth at Brimstone Head on Fogo Island.
Ferrari was interviewed as an "expert" in the 1990 flat Earth mockumentary
A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary.
These productions are often used to analyze or comment on c ...
''In Search of the Edge'' by Pancake Productions (a reference to the expression "as flat as a pancake"). In the accompanying study guide, Ferrari is outed as a "globularist", a nonce word
A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ...
for someone who believes the Earth is spherical. The real intent of the film, which was part-funded by the Ontario Arts Council
The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly-funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by O ...
and National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
, was to promote schoolchildren's critical thinking and media literacy
Media literacy is an expanded conceptualization of literacy that includes the ability to access and analyze media messages as well as create, reflect and take action, using the power of information and communication to make a difference in the w ...
by " ttemptingto prove in convincing fashion, something everyone knew to be false."
Relaunch
Multi-media artist Kay Burns re-created the Flat Earth Society of Canada as an art project with her alter ego Iris Taylor as its president. Burns created an installation entitled the Museum of the Flat Earth, which included some artefacts from the 1970 group. It was exhibited in 2016 at the Flat Earth Outpost Café in Shoal Bay
In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. I ...
, Newfoundland.
Italy
In Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
there are no centralised societies on flat Earth. However, since the 2010s, small groups of conspiracy theorists, who carry out meetings, started to emerge and to spread flat Earth theories. Among these are Calogero Greco, Albino Galuppini and Agostino Favari, who organised in 2018–2019 several meetings in Palermo, Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
, with an entry price of €
The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...
20.
Among their claims, some include:
* NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
is similar to Disneyland
Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envision ...
and that astronauts are actors.[
* The April 2019 ]supermassive black hole
A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical ob ...
photo at the core of the supergiant
Supergiants are among the most massive and most luminous stars. Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram with absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperature range of supergiant stars spa ...
elliptical galaxy
An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Real ...
Messier 87
Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, generally abbreviated to M87) is a supergiant elliptical galaxy with several trillion stars in the constellation Virgo. One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local ...
is fake.[
* The proof Earth is flat lies in a filled bottle where, if placed horizontally, water never curves.][
In addition to these, it is their common belief that the ]United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
has a plan to create in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
a new America open to everyone, where the only value is consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...
and that George Soros
George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...
commands a satanic globalist conspiracy.[ They reject the past existence of ]dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
s, the Darwinian
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...
theory of evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variatio ...
, and the authority of the scientific community
The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
, claiming scientists are Freemasons.
Former leader of the Five Star Movement political party Beppe Grillo
Giuseppe Piero "Beppe" Grillo (; born 21 July 1948) is an Italian comedian, actor, blogger, and politician.
He has been involved in politics since 2009 as the co-founder (together with Gianroberto Casaleggio) of the Italian Five Star Movement ...
showed interest in the group, admitting to admiring their free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...
spirit and to wanting to participate at the May 2019 conference. In the end, however, Grillo did not appear.[
]
Internet-era resurgence
Sociological explanations for counterfactual beliefs
In the Information Age
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
, the availability of communications technology and social media like YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
, Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
and Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
have made it easy for individuals, famous or not, to spread disinformation and attract others to erroneous ideas. One of the topics that has flourished in this environment is that of the flat Earth.
These sites have made it easier for like-minded theorists to connect with one another and mutually reinforce their beliefs. Social media has had a "levelling effect", in that experts have less sway in the public mind than they used to.
YouTube had faced criticism for allowing the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories through its platform. In 2019, YouTube stated that it was making changes in its software to reduce the distribution of videos based on conspiracy theories including flat Earth.
In 2018, the documentary '' Behind the Curve'' was released, which follows prominent modern flat-Earthers including Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere, as well as astrophysicists and psychologists who attempt to explain the growing fad. Dr. Joe Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, blamed the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which people who know very little think of themselves as experts; misunderstandings of simple observation; pseudoscientific practices which fail to separate reliable from unreliable conclusions; and a progressive divergence from reality that starts with a belief that conventional information sources and the government aren't to be trusted.
Modern flat-Earthers generally embrace some form of conspiracy theory out of the necessity of explaining why major institutions such as governments, media outlets, schools, scientists, and airlines all assert that the world is a sphere. They tend to not trust observations they have not made themselves, and often distrust or disagree with each other. Patricia Steere admitted in ''Behind the Curve'' that she wouldn't believe an event like the Boston Marathon bombing
The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...
was real unless she had gotten her own leg blown off. Flat Earth believers in the documentary also professed belief in conspiracy theories about vaccines
A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.[< ...]
, genetically modified organisms
A genetically modified organism (GMO) is any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. The exact definition of a genetically modified organism and what constitutes genetic engineering varies, with ...
, chemtrails
The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the erroneous belief that long-lasting condensation trails are "chemtrails" consisting of chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic prope ...
, 9/11, and transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
people; some said dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
s and evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
were also fake, and that heliocentrism is a form of Sun worship.
The scientific experts in ''Behind the Curve'' pointed to confirmation bias as a way to maintain a counterfactual belief, by cherry-picking only supporting evidence, and dismissing any disconfirming evidence as part of the purported global conspiracy.
Some flat Earth believers, such as authors Zen Garcia and Edward Hendrie cite the Christian Bible as evidence. Some critics of the flat Earth idea, such as astronomer Danny R. Faulkner, are young Earth creationists
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between approximately 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widesp ...
and attempt to explain away the Bible's flat Earth language.
On 3 May 2018, Steven Novella
Steven Paul Novella (born July 29, 1964) is an American clinical neurologist and associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement in the skeptical movement as a host of '' The Skeptics' Guide ...
analysed the modern belief in a flat Earth, and concluded that, despite what most people think about the subject, the believers are being sincere in their belief that the Earth is flat, and are not "just saying that to wind us up". He stated that:
The British sceptical activist Michael Marshall attended the UK's annual Flat Earth UK Convention on 27–29 April 2018 and noted disagreement on several views of the believers in a flat Earth. To Marshall, one of the most telling moments at the convention was the "Flat Earth Addiction" test that was based on a checklist used to determine whether someone is in a cult, without the convention attendees realising the possibility of themselves being in a cult.[
]
Beliefs
Based on the speakers at the 2018 UK's Flat Earth UK Convention, believers in a flat Earth vary widely in their views. While most agree upon a disc-shaped Earth, some are convinced the Earth is diamond-shaped. Furthermore, while most believers do not believe in outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
and none believe humans have ever travelled there, they vary widely in their views of the universe.
Filmmakers of ''Behind the Curve'' attended another flat Earth conference at which a substantial number of people believed the Earth was an infinite plane, potentially with more continents beyond the purported circular ice wall of Antarctica. Some flat Earth believers are so conspiratorial they suspect other flat Earth believers are also somehow part of the global conspiracy and aren't to be trusted. In the documentary, conference attendees were warned against attending by Math Powerland a.k.a. Matt Boylan, who posted videos alleging others were working for the CIA or Warner Brothers.
Members of the Flat Earth Society and other flat-Earthers claim that NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
and other government agencies conspire to fabricate evidence that the Earth is spherical. According to the most widely spread version of current flat-Earth theory, NASA is guarding the Antarctic ice wall that surrounds Earth. Flat-Earthers argue that NASA manipulates and fabricates its satellite images
Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...
, based on observations that the color of the oceans changes from image to image and that continents seem to be in different places. The publicly perpetuated image is kept up through a large-scale practice of "compartmentalization", according to which only a select number of individuals have knowledge about the truth.
Research on the arguments that flat Earthers wield shows three distinct factions, each one subscribing to its own set of beliefs.
The first faction subscribes to a faith-based conflict in which atheists use science to suppress the Christian faith. Their argument is that atheists use pseudo-science – evolution, Big Bang, and the round Earth – to make people believe that God is an abstract idea, not real. Instead, their arguments use the Scripture – word-by-word- to support an argument that enables God to really exist above us. This faction frames flat-Earth arguments as revelatory.
The second faction believes in an overarching conspiracy for knowledge suppression. Building upon the premise that knowledge is power, the flat Earth conspiracy argues that a shadowy group of "elites" control knowledge to remain in power. In their view, lying about the fundamental nature of the Earth primes the population to believe a host of other conspiracies. This faction frames flat-Earth arguments as liberatory.
The third faction believes that knowledge is personal and experiential. They are skeptical of knowledge that comes from authoritative sources, especially government-sanctioned "experts", especially book knowledge. This faction would like to find out themselves whether the Earth truly is round or flat. Because they distrust book knowledge and mathematical proof, this faction believes that the Earth is flat because their observations and lived experiences make it appear as if we live on a flat surface. This faction frames flat-Earth arguments as experimental.
Social and experimental activities of skeptics and believers
Organisations sceptical of fringe beliefs have occasionally performed tests to demonstrate the local curvature of the Earth. One of these, conducted by members of the Independent Investigations Group
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a US nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal, as well as to fight the influence of religion in government.
History
The Center for Inquiry was established in ...
, at the Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gulf ...
on 10 June 2018 was attended also by supporters of a flat Earth, and the encounter between the two groups was recorded by the National Geographic Explorer
''National Geographic Explorer'' (or simply ''Explorer'') is an American documentary television series that originally premiered on Nickelodeon on April 7, 1985, after having been produced as a less costly and intensive alternative to PBS's ' ...
. This experiment successfully demonstrated the curvature of the Earth via the disappearance over distance of boat-based and shore-based targets.
The 2018 documentary '' Behind the Curve'' followed two groups of American flat Earth believers who were attempting to gather first-hand empirical proof for that belief. One group from the YouTube show GlobeBusters used a ring laser gyroscope in an attempt to show the Earth was not rotating. Instead, they detected the actual 15-degree-per-hour rotation of the Earth, a measurement they dismissed as corrupted by the device somehow picking up the rotation of the "firmament
In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God during his creation of the world to divide the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear. The concept was adopted into the subsequent ...
". Another group used lasers in an attempt to show a several-mile stretch of water is perfectly flat by measuring the distance between the water level and the laser beam along three vertical posts. They were unable to align the beam as they expected to because the surface of the still water was in fact bent by several feet over the distance measured; the experiment was dismissed as inconclusive.
'' Behind the Curve'' illustrated how flat Earth believers rely on poorly-verified claims. Mark Sargent claimed to have watche
flightaware.com
for a very long time to check if any flights traveled between continents in the Southern Hemisphere, which in his disc model would be much further apart than they are on the globe. He claimed to see no such flights, and took this as evidence for the disc model. Caltech astrophysicist Hannalore Gerling-Dunsmore went to the site and immediately found flights that contradicted Sargent's claims.
The solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 gave rise to numerous YouTube videos purporting to show how the details of the eclipse prove the Earth is flat. In 2017, "the Tunisian and Arab scientific and educational world" had a scandal when a PhD student submitted a thesis "declaring Earth to be flat, unmoving, young (only 13,500 years of age), and the centre of the universe".
In 2018, astronomer Yaël Nazé
Yaël Nazé (born 1976) is a Belgian astrophysicist who works at the University of Liège. She specializes in massive stars and their interactions with their surroundings.
Biography
She came from what she described as a poor part of Belgium w ...
analyzed the controversy over a Ph.D. dissertation proposed by a student at the University of Sfax
The University of Sfax (Arabic: جامعة صفاقس French: Université de Sfax) is a university located in Sfax, Tunisia. It was founded in 1986 under the name University of the South with the purpose of covering all academic institutions in S ...
in Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
, which defended a flat Earth, as well as a geocentric model of the solar system and a young Earth. The dissertation, which had not been approved by the committee overseeing environmental studies theses, had been made public and denounced in 2017 by Hafedh Ateb, a founder of the Tunisian Astronomical Society, on his Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
page.
In March 2019, social media personality Logan Paul
Logan Alexander Paul (born April 1, 1995) is an American media personality, podcaster, actor, and professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand, but is inactive due to a knee injury. He has over 23 m ...
released a satirical documentary film about the flat Earth called ''FLAT EARTH: To The Edge And Back''.
The Flat Earth Society has a Twitter account, @FlatEarthOrg. This account shares information about their group and promotes flat Earth ideologies.
Mike Hughes
Mike Hughes, a daredevil and flat-Earth conspiracy theorist, used a homebuilt crewed-rocket in an attempt to see for himself if the Earth is flat on 24 March 2018. His rocket made of scrap metal was estimated to cost $20,000, and using a mobile home as a custom launchpad managed to climb with Hughes inside and ended with a hard landing but with parachutes successfully deploying. The amateur rocketeer was not seriously injured and remained firm in his flat Earth beliefs. He claimed that real evidence will come with "larger rockets". Hughes was killed in an accident on 22 February 2020 while piloting a flight of his steam-powered rocket in a further attempt to prove the Earth was flat. The accident was caused by an early deployment and separation of the return parachute on the vehicle. The rocket impacted after falling from an altitude of several hundred feet. Hughes was killed instantly.
After Hughes' death, his public relations representative Darren Shuster stated that Hughes "didn't believe in flat Earth" and that it was "a PR stunt" to get publicity, while Michael Linn, who worked on the documentary ''Rocketman: Mad Mike's Mission to Prove the Flat-Earth'', said that Hughes' belief appeared genuine.
Social consequences and responses
'' Behind the Curve'' filmmakers spoke with several people who said that as a result of their flat Earth beliefs they had lost romantic partners and no longer spoke to many friends and family. One said he was tired of being told he was an idiot. The Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
group Flat Earth Match is a dating site used by some to find romantic partners who share these beliefs. Experts pointed out that after social ties to people outside the flat Earth community are lost, one consequence of abandoning the flat Earth belief would be loss of all remaining relationships.
Caltech physicist Spiros Michaelakis opined that instead of looking down on flat Earthers, scientists should do a better job of teaching scientific facts. Various scientific and medical experts in the documentary supported improving scientific literacy
Scientific literacy or science literacy encompasses written, numerical, and digital literacy as they pertain to understanding science, its methodology, observations, and theories. Scientific literacy is chiefly concerned with an understanding ...
and avoiding marginalization of flat Earthers. They pointed out that people who distrust all of science, including truths about vaccines, evolution, and climate change, would make poorly informed-decisions, and that people who do not exercise the skill of critical thinking can be easily manipulated. They also pointed out that some believers were motivated to spread false ideas, and that because they are unconstrained by facts they can mutate and become less harmless than a mere belief about the shape of the Earth.
Effects of and empirical evidence for spherical shape
The roughly spherical shape of Earth can be confirmed by many different types of observation from ground level, aircraft, and spacecraft. The shape causes a number of phenomena that a flat Earth would not. Some of these phenomena and observations would be possible on other shapes, such as a curved disk or torus
In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle.
If the axis of revolution does not tou ...
, but no other shape would explain all of them.
Visibility of distant objects on Earth's surface
On a flat Earth without obstructions, the ground itself would never obscure distant objects; it would be possible to see all the way to the edge of the world. A spherical surface has a horizon which is closer when viewed from a lower altitude. In theory, a person standing on the surface with eyes above the ground can see the ground up to about away, but a person at the top of the Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
at can see the ground up to about away.
This phenomenon permits a way of confirming that Earth's surface is locally convex: If the degree of curvature is determined to be the same everywhere on Earth's surface, and that surface was determined to be large enough, the constant curvature would show that Earth is spherical. In practice, this method is not reliable because of variations in atmospheric refraction
Atmospheric refraction is the deviation of light or other electromagnetic wave from a straight line as it passes through the atmosphere due to the variation in air density as a function of height. This refraction is due to the velocity of ligh ...
, which is how much the atmosphere bends light traveling through it. Refraction can give the impression that Earth's surface is flat, curved more convexly than it is, or even that it is concave (this is what happened in various trials of the Bedford Level experiment
The Bedford Level experiment is a series of observations carried out along a length of the Old Bedford River on the Bedford Level of the Cambridgeshire Fens in the United Kingdom, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, to measure the curvat ...
).
The phenomenon of variable atmospheric bending can be seen when distant objects appear to be broken into pieces or even turned upside down. This is often seen at sunset, when the Sun's shape is distorted, but has also been photographed happening to ships, and has caused the city of Chicago to appear normally, upside down, and broken into pieces from across Lake Michigan (from where it is normally below the horizon).
When the atmosphere is relatively well-mixed, the visual effects generally expected of a spherical Earth can be observed. For example, ships travelling on large bodies of water (such as the ocean) disappear over the horizon progressively, such that the highest part of the ship can still be seen even when lower parts cannot, proportional to distance from the observer. Likewise, in the days of sailing ships, a sailor would climb up a mast to see farther. The same is true of the coastline or mountain when viewed from a ship or from across a large lake or flat terrain.
Lunar eclipses
The shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is always a dark circle that moves from one side of the Moon to the other (partially grazing it during a partial eclipse). The only shape that casts a round shadow no matter which direction it is pointed is a sphere, and the ancient Greeks deduced that this must mean Earth is spherical.
The effect could be produced by a disk that always faces the Moon head-on during the eclipse, but this is inconsistent with the fact that the Moon is only rarely directly overhead during an eclipse. For each eclipse, the local surface of Earth is pointed in a different direction. The shadow of a disk held at an angle is an oval
An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.) it is given a more precise definition, which may include either one ...
, not a circle as is seen during the eclipse. The idea of Earth being a disk is also inconsistent with the fact that a given lunar eclipse is only visible from half of Earth at a time.
Appearance of the Moon
The Moon's tidal lock
Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where a tidally locked bo ...
to Earth results in the Moon always showing only one side to Earth (see animated image). If Earth were flat, with the Moon hovering above it, then the portion of the Moon's surface visible to people on Earth would vary according to location on Earth, rather than showing an identical "face side" to everyone. If Earth were flat, with the Moon revolving around it tidally locked, then the Moon would be seen simultaneously at all places on Earth at once, but its apparent size, the portion facing the viewer, and facing side's orientation would gradually change for each viewer as its position moved across the sky over the course of the night.[Archived a]
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine
Observation of the sky from altitude
On a perfectly spherical Earth, not considering obstructions and atmospheric refraction, its surface blocks half the sky for an observer close against the surface. Moving away from the surface of Earth means that the ground blocks less and less of the sky. For example, when viewed from the Moon, Earth blocks only a small portion of the sky because it is so distant. This effect of geometry means that, when viewed from a high mountain, flat ground or ocean blocks less than 180° of the sky. With the presumption of a spherical Earth, an expedition commissioned by caliph al-Ma'mun used this fact to calculate Earth's circumference
Earth's circumference is the distance around Earth. Measured around the Equator, it is . Measured around the poles, the circumference is .
Measurement of Earth's circumference has been important to navigation since ancient times. The first kno ...
to within of the correct value of around , and possibly as accurately as . The rate of change in the angle blocked by Earth as altitude increases would be different for a disk than for a sphere. The amount of surface blocked would be different for a mountain close to the edge of a flat Earth compared to a mountain in the middle of a flat Earth, but this is not observed. Surveys from all over Earth show that its shape is everywhere locally convex, confirming that it is very close to spherical.
Observation of certain, fixed stars from different locations
The fixed stars can be demonstrated to be very far away by diurnal parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...
measurements. Such measurements show no shifts in the stars' positions. Unlike the Sun, Moon, and planets, they do not change position with respect to one another over human lifetimes; the shapes of the constellations are constant. This makes them a convenient reference background for determining the shape of Earth. Adding distance measurements on the ground allows calculation of Earth's size.
The fact that different stars are visible from different locations on Earth was noticed in ancient times. Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
wrote that some stars are visible from Egypt which are not visible from Europe. This would not be possible if Earth was flat.
A star has an altitude above the horizon for an observer if the star is visible. Observing the same star at the same time from two different latitudes gives two different altitudes. Using geometry, the two altitudes along with the distance between the two locations allows for a calculation of Earth's size. Using observations at Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...
(in Greece) and Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
(in Egypt) and the distance between them, the Ancient Greek philosopher Posidonius
Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher nativ ...
used this technique to calculate the circumference of the planet to within perhaps 4% of the correct value. Modern equivalents of his units of measure are not precisely known, so it is not clear how accurate his measurement was.
Observation of constellations on North and South hemispheres at different seasons
The fact that some stars are only visible from either the north or south poles must mean that the two observation spots are on opposite sides of Earth, which is not possible if Earth is a single-sided disk, but is possible for other shapes (like a sphere, but also any other convex shape like a donut or dumbbell).
The North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
is in continuous night for six months of the year. The star Polaris (the "North Star") is almost directly overhead and therefore at the center of this rotation. Some of the 88 modern constellations visible are Ursa Major
Ursa Major (; also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear," referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa ...
(including the Big Dipper
The Big Dipper ( US, Canada) or the Plough ( UK, Ireland) is a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major; six of them are of second magnitude and one, Megrez (δ), of third magnitude. Four define a "bowl" ...
), Cassiopeia, and Andromeda. The other six months of the year, the North Pole is in continuous daylight, with light from the Sun blotting out the stars. This phenomenon, and its analogous effects at the South Pole, are what defines the two poles. More than 24 hours of continuous daylight can only occur north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle
The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, and the zone immediately to the north is called the Southern Temperate Zone. So ...
.)
At the South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...
, a completely different set of constellations are visible during the six months of continuous night, including Crux
Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for ...
, and Centaurus
Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. ...
. This 180° hemisphere of stars rotates clockwise once every 24 hours around a point directly overhead.
From any point on the equator, all of the stars visible anywhere on Earth on that day are visible at some time during the year as the sky rotates around a line drawn from due north to due south. When facing east, the stars visible from the north pole are on the left, and the stars visible from the south pole are on the right.
The direction any intermediate spot on Earth is facing can also be calculated by measuring the angles of the fixed stars and determining how much of the sky is visible. For example, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
is about 40° north of the equator. The apparent motion of the Sun blots out slightly different parts of the sky from day to day, but over the course of the entire year it sees a dome of 280° (360° - 80°). So for example, both Orion and the Big Dipper
The Big Dipper ( US, Canada) or the Plough ( UK, Ireland) is a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major; six of them are of second magnitude and one, Megrez (δ), of third magnitude. Four define a "bowl" ...
are visible during at least part of the year.
Making stellar observations from a representative set of points across Earth, combined with knowing the shortest on-the-ground distance between any two given points, makes an approximate sphere the only possible shape for Earth.
Observing the Sun
On a flat Earth, a Sun that shines in all directions would illuminate the entire surface at the same time, and all places would experience sunrise and sunset at the horizon at about the same time. With a spherical Earth, half the planet is in daylight at any given time and the other half experiences nighttime. When a given location on the spherical Earth is in sunlight, its antipodethe location exactly on the opposite side of Earthis in darkness. The spherical shape of Earth causes the Sun to rise and set at different times in different places, and different locations get different amounts of sunlight each day.
In order to explain day and night, time zones, and the seasons, some flat Earth conjecturists propose that the Sun does not emit light in all directions, but acts more like a spotlight, only illuminating part of the flat Earth at a time. This conjecture is not consistent with observation: At sunrise and sunset, a spotlight Sun would be up in the sky at least a little bit, rather than at the horizon where it is always actually observed. A spotlight Sun would also appear at different angles in the sky with respect to a flat ground than it does with respect to a curved ground. Assuming light travels in straight lines, actual measurements of the Sun's angle in the sky from locations very distant from each other are only consistent with a geometry where the Sun is very far away and is being seen from the daylight half of a spherical Earth. These two phenomena are related: A low-altitude spotlight Sun would spend most of the day near the horizon for most locations on Earth, which is not observed, but rise and set fairly close to the horizon. A high-altitude Sun would spend more of the day away from the horizon, but rise and set fairly far from the horizon, which is also not observed.
Changing length of the day
On a flat Earth with an omnidirectional Sun, all places would experience the same amount of daylight every day, and all places would get daylight at the same time. Actual day length varies considerably, with places closer to the poles getting very long days in the summer and very short days in the winter, with northerly summer happening at the same time as southerly winter. Places north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle
The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, and the zone immediately to the north is called the Southern Temperate Zone. So ...
get no sunlight for at least one day a year, and get 24-hour sunlight for at least one day a year. Both the poles experience sunlight for 6 months and darkness for 6 months, at opposite times.
The movement of daylight between the northern and southern hemispheres happens because of the axial tilt
In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, which is the line perpendicular to its orbital plane; equivalently, it is the angle between its equatorial plane and orb ...
of Earth. The imaginary line around which Earth spins, which goes between the North Pole and South Pole, is tilted about 23° from the oval that describes its orbit around the Sun. Earth always points in the same direction as it moves around the Sun, so for half the year ( summer in the Northern Hemisphere), the North Pole is pointed slightly toward the Sun, keeping it in daylight all the time because the Sun lights up the half of Earth that is facing it (and the North Pole is always in that half due to the tilt). For the other half of the orbit, the South Pole is tilted slightly toward the Sun, and it is winter
Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultur ...
in the Northern Hemisphere. This means that at the equator, the Sun is not directly overhead at noon, except around the March
March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March ...
and September equinox
The September equinox (or southward equinox) is the moment when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading southward. Because of differences between the calendar year and the tropical year, the September equinox may occur anyt ...
es, when one spot on the equator is pointed directly at the Sun.
Length of the day beyond polar circles
The length of the day varies because as Earth rotates, some places (near the poles) pass through only a short curve near the top or bottom of the sunlight half; other places (near the equator) travel along much longer curves through the middle. In locations just outside the polar circles, there are so-called "white nights" in the middle of summer, in which the sun is never more than a few degrees below the horizon in June such that a bright twilight persists from sunset to sunrise. In Russia, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
uses this phenomenon in its tourist marketing.
Length of the twilight
Longer twilights are observed at higher latitudes (near the poles) due to a shallower angle of the Sun's apparent movement compared to the horizon. On a flat Earth, the Sun's shadow would reach the upper atmosphere very quickly, except near the closest edge of Earth, and would always set at the same angle to the ground (which is not what is observed).
The length of twilight
Twilight is light produced by sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere, when the Sun is below the horizon, which illuminates the lower atmosphere and the Earth's surface. The word twilight can also refer to the periods of time when this i ...
would be very different on a flat Earth. On a round Earth, the atmosphere above the ground is lit for a while before sunrise and after sunset are observed at ground level, because the Sun is still visible from higher altitudes.
The "spotlight Sun" conjecture is also not consistent with this observation, since the air cannot be lit without the ground below it also being lit (except for shadows of mountains, hi-rises and other surface obstacles).
Observing sunlight before or after seeing Sun
It is possible to see sun-lit windows of nearby high-rise buildings from ground level a few minutes before seeing the sun rise or after seeing the sun set. On a non-curved, flat landmass it would only take seconds, due to minuscule ratio (compare ~45 meters / 150 feet of a 14-story building to intercontinental distances). If such a phenomenon were caused by a prismatic property of atmosphere in a flat world, with a relatively small source of light revolving around Earth (as in later, 1800's-dated, maps of Flat Earth
The flat-Earth model is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period (5th century BC), t ...
), it would contradict with one's ability to see a proper panorama of starry sky at a time at night, rather than a small yet distorted, "stretched" patch of it.
Likewise, the top of a mountain is illuminated before sunrise and after sunset, as are clouds.
Watching the sun set twice
On level ground, the difference in the distance to the horizon between lying down and standing up is large enough to watch the Sun set twice by quickly standing up immediately after seeing it set for the first time while lying down. This also can be done with an aerial work platform
An aerial work platform (AWP), also known as an aerial device, elevating work platform (EWP), cherry picker, bucket truck or mobile elevating work platform (MEWP) is a mechanical device used to provide temporary access for people or equipment t ...
or with a fast elevator. On a flat Earth or a significantly large flat segment, it would not be possible to see the Sun again (unless standing near the edge closest to the Sun) due to a much faster-moving Sun shadow.
Local solar time and time zones
Ancient timekeeping reckoned "noon" as the time of day when the Sun is highest in the sky, with the rest of the hours in the day measured against that. During the day, the apparent solar time
Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Two types of solar time are apparent solar time (sundial ti ...
can be measured directly with a sundial. In ancient Egypt, the first known sundials divided the day into 12 hours, though because the length of the day changed with the season, the length of the hours also changed. Sundials that defined hours as always being the same duration appeared in the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
. In Western Europe, clock towers and striking clocks were used in the Middle Ages to keep people nearby appraised of the local time, though compared to modern times this was less important in a largely agrarian society.
Because the Sun reaches its highest point at different times for different longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...
s (about four minutes of time for every degree of longitude difference east or west), the local solar noon in each city is different except for those directly north or south of each other. This means that the clocks in different cities could be offset from each other by minutes or hours. As clocks became more precise and industrialization made timekeeping more important, cities switched to mean solar time
Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Two types of solar time are apparent solar time ( sundial ...
, which ignores minor variations in the timing of local solar noon over the year, due to the elliptical nature of Earth's orbit, and its tilt.
The differences in clock time between cities was not generally a problem until the advent of railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
travel in the 1800s, which both made travel between distant cities much faster than by walking or horse, and also required passengers to show up at specific times to meet their desired trains. In the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, railroads gradually switched to Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a con ...
(set from local time at the Greenwich observatory in London), followed by public clocks across the country generally, forming a single time zone. In the United States, railroads published schedules based on local time, then later based on standard time for that railroad (typically the local time at the railroad's headquarters), and then finally based on four standard time zones shared across all railroads, where neighboring zones differed by exactly one hour. At first railroad time was synchronized by portable chronometer
A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and th ...
s, and then later by telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
and radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
signals.
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
is at 122.41°W longitude and Richmond, Virginia is at 77.46°W longitude. They are both at about 37.6°N latitude (±.2°). The approximately 45° of longitude difference translates into about 180 minutes, or 3 hours, of time between sunsets in the two cities, for example. San Francisco is in the Pacific Time
The Pacific Time Zone (PT) is a time zone encompassing parts of western Canada, the western United States, and western Mexico. Places in this zone observe standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−08:00). ...
zone, and Richmond is in the Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...
zone, which are three hours apart, so the local clocks in each city show that the Sun sets at about the same time when using the local time zone. But a phone call from Richmond to San Francisco at sunset will reveal that there are still three hours of daylight left in California.
Determining the size of Earth by Eratosthenes
Under the assumption that the Sun is very far away, the ancient Greek geographer Eratosthenes performed an experiment using the differences in the observed angle of the Sun from two different locations to calculate the circumference of Earth. Though modern telecommunications and timekeeping were not available, he was able to make sure the measurements happened at the same time by having them taken when the Sun was highest in the sky (local noon) at both locations. Using slightly inaccurate assumptions about the locations of two cities, he came to a result within 15% of the correct value. While his results could theoretically also be compatible with a Flat Earth if the light rays from the Sun are assumed not to be parallel, many people have repeated the experiment with three or more data points and found results unambiguously supporting the globe model.
Determining the shape of Earth
On a given day, if many different cities measure the angle of the Sun at local noon, the resulting data, when combined with the known distances between cities, shows that Earth has 180 degrees of north-south curvature. (A full range of angles will be observed if the north and south poles are included, and the day chosen is either the autumnal or spring equinox.) This is consistent with many rounded shapes, including a sphere, and is inconsistent with a flat shape.
Some claim that this experiment assumes a very distant Sun, such that the incoming rays are essentially parallel, and if a flat Earth is assumed, that the measured angles can allow one to calculate the distance to the Sun, which must be small enough that its incoming rays are not very parallel. However, if more than two relatively well-separated cities are included in the experiment, the calculation will make clear whether the Sun is distant or nearby. For example, on the equinox, the 0 degree angle from the North Pole and the 90 degree angle from the equator predict a Sun which would have to be located essentially next to the surface of a flat Earth, but the difference in angle between the equator and New York City would predict a Sun much further away if Earth is flat. Because these results are contradictory, the surface of Earth cannot be flat; the data are, instead, consistent with a nearly spherical Earth and a Sun which is very far away compared with the diameter of Earth.
Surface navigation
The first circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth.
The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Mage ...
of the Earth by the Magellan expedition
The Magellan expedition, also known as the Magellan–Elcano expedition, was the first voyage around the world in recorded history. It was a 16th century Spanish expedition initially led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to the Moluccas ...
lost a day, confirmed by subsequent circumnavigations, which eventually led to the creation of the International Date Line.
The shortest way to travel between two distant points is by great circle navigation, as known by ocean navigators for some time. This route shows as curved on any map except for one using a gnomonic projection. Radio waves also follow a great circle, so navies have produced maps using gnomonic projection for use in radio direction finding
Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), isin accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)defined as radio location that uses the reception of radio waves to determine the direction in which a radio stati ...
to locate enemy warships.
Since the 1500s, many people have sailed or flown completely around Earth in all directions, and none have discovered an edge or impenetrable barrier. (See Arctic exploration
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored ...
and History of Antarctica
The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term ''Antarctic'', referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Mar ...
.)
Some flat Earth conjectures that propose that Earth is a north-pole-centered disk conceive of Antarctica as an impenetrable ice wall that encircles the planet and hides any edges. This disk model explains east-west circumnavigation as simply moving around the disk in a circle. (East-west paths form a circle in both disk and spherical geometry.) It is possible in this model to traverse the North Pole, but it would not be possible to perform a circumnavigation that includes the South Pole (which it posits does not exist).
The Arctic Circle is roughly long, as is the Antarctic Circle. A "true circumnavigation" of Earth is defined, in order to account for the shape of Earth, to be about 2.5 times as long, including a crossing of the equator, at about . On the flat Earth model, the ratios would require the Antarctic Circle to be 2.5 times the length of the circumnavigation, or 2.5 × 2.5 = 6.25 times the length of the Arctic Circle.
Explorers, government researchers, commercial pilots, and tourists have been to Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
and found that it is not a large ring that encircles the entirety of Earth, but actually a roughly disk-shaped continent smaller than South America but larger than Australia, with an interior that can in fact be traversed in order to take a shorter path from, for example, the tip of South America to Australia than would be possible on a disk.
The first land crossing of the entirety of Antarctica was the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958 was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. It was the first expedition to reach the South ...
in 1955–1958, and many exploratory airplanes have since passed over the continent in various directions.
Grid distortion on a spherical surface
A meridian
Meridian or a meridian line (from Latin ''meridies'' via Old French ''meridiane'', meaning “midday”) may refer to
Science
* Meridian (astronomy), imaginary circle in a plane perpendicular to the planes of the celestial equator and horizon
* ...
of longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...
is a line where local solar noon occurs at the same time each day. These lines define "north" and "south". These are perpendicular to lines of latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...
that define "east" and "west", where the Sun is at the same angle at local noon on the same day. If the Sun were travelling from east to west over a flat Earth, meridian lines would always be the same distance apartthey would form a square grid when combined with lines of latitude. In reality, meridian lines get farther apart as one travels toward the equator, which is only possible on a round Earth. In places where land is plotted on a grid system, this causes discontinuities in the grid. For example, in areas of the Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
that use the Public Land Survey System
The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...
, the northernmost and westernmost sections of a township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...
deviate from what would otherwise be an exact square mile. The resulting discontinuities are sometimes reflected directly in local roads, which have kinks where the grid cannot follow completely straight lines. This distortion also affects how aerial photographs
Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.
Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircra ...
taken over large areas can be stitched together.
The Mercator projection has examples of size distortions.
Spherical versus flat triangles
Because Earth is spherical, long-distance travel sometimes requires heading in different directions than one would head on a flat Earth. An example would be an airplane travelling in a straight line, taking a 90-degree right turn, travelling another , taking another 90-degree right turn, and travelling a third time. On a flat Earth, the aircraft would have travelled along three sides of a square, and arrive at a spot about from where it started. But because Earth is spherical, in reality it will have travelled along three sides of a triangle, and arrive back very close to its starting point. If the starting point is the North Pole, it would have travelled due south from the North Pole to the equator, then west for a quarter of the way around Earth, and then due north back to the North Pole.
In spherical geometry, the sum of angles inside a triangle is greater than 180° (in this example 270°, having arrived back at the north pole a 90° angle to the departure path) unlike on a flat surface, where it is always exactly 180°.
Weather systems
Low-pressure weather systems with inward winds (such as a hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
) spin counterclockwise north of the equator, but clockwise south of the equator. This is due to the Coriolis force, and requires that (assuming they are attached to each other and rotating in the same direction) the north and southern halves of Earth are angled in opposite directions (as in, the north is facing toward Polaris and the south is facing away from it).
Gravity
The laws of gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
, chemistry, and physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
that explain the formation and rounding of Earth are well-tested through experiment, and applied successfully to many engineering tasks.
From these laws, the amount of mass Earth contains is known, as is the fact that a non-spherical planet the size of Earth would not be able to support itself against its own gravity. A disk the size of Earth, for example, would likely crack, heat up, liquefy, and re-form into a roughly spherical shape. On a disk strong enough to maintain its shape, gravity would not pull downward with respect to the surface, but would pull toward the center of the disk, contrary to what is observed on level terrain (and which would cause major problems with oceans flowing toward the center of the disk).
Ignoring the other concerns, some flat Earth conjecturists explain the observed surface "gravity" by proposing that the flat Earth is constantly accelerating upwards. Such a conjecture would also leave open for explanation the tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another.
Tide tables ...
s seen in Earth's oceans, which are conventionally explained by the gravity exerted by the Sun and Moon.
Evidence based on modern technology
Observations of Foucault pendulum
The Foucault pendulum or Foucault's pendulum is a simple device named after French physicist Léon Foucault, conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. A long and heavy pendulum suspended from the high roof above a circular ...
s, popular in science museums around the world, demonstrate both that the world is spherical and that it rotates (not that the stars are rotating around it).
The mathematics of navigation using Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
(GPS) satellites assumes that they are moving in known orbits around an approximately spherical surface. The accuracy of GPS navigation in determining latitude and longitude and the way these numbers map onto locations on the ground show that these assumptions are correct. The same is true for the operational GLONASS
GLONASS (russian: ГЛОНАСС, label=none, ; rus, links=no, Глобальная навигационная спутниковая система, r=Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema, t=Global Navigation Satellite System) is ...
system run by Russia, the in-development European Galileo, the Chinese BeiDou
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS; ) is a Chinese satellite navigation system. It consists of two separate satellite constellations. The first BeiDou system, officially called the BeiDou Satellite Navigation Experimental System and ...
, and the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System
The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), with an operational name of NavIC (acronym for 'Navigation with Indian Constellation; also, 'sailor' or 'navigator' in Indian languages), is an autonomous regional satellite navigation s ...
.
Satellites, including communications satellites used for television, telephone, and Internet connections, would not stay in orbit unless the modern theory of gravitation were correct. The details of which satellites are visible from which places on the ground at which times prove an approximately spherical shape of Earth.
Radio transmitters are mounted on tall towers because they generally rely on line-of-sight propagation. The distance to the horizon is further at higher altitude, so mounting them higher significantly increases the area they can serve. Some signals can be transmitted at much longer distances, but only if they are at frequencies where they can use groundwave propagation, tropospheric propagation
Tropospheric propagation describes electromagnetic propagation in relation to the troposphere.
The service area from a VHF or UHF radio transmitter extends to just beyond the optical horizon, at which point signals start to rapidly reduce in str ...
, tropospheric scatter
Tropospheric scatter, also known as troposcatter, is a method of communicating with microwave radio signals over considerable distances – often up to and further depending on frequency of operation, equipment type, terrain, and climate fact ...
, or ionospheric propagation
In radio communication, skywave or skip refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not limited by the curvature ...
to reflect or refract signals around the curve of Earth.
Equatorial mounts allow astronomers to point telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observ ...
s at the same celestial object for longer times while compensating for Earth's rotation in an easy way. The axis of an equatorial mount is parallel to Earth's surface when observing stars at Earth's equatorbut perpendicular to it when observing from one of Earth's poles. Equatorial mounts were specifically developed for a spherical and rotating Earth. If Earth were flat, an equatorial mount would not make sense.
Building engineering
The design of some large structures needs to take the shape of Earth into account. For example, the towers of the Humber Bridge, although both vertical with respect to gravity, are farther apart at the top than the bottom due to Earth's curvature.
Aircraft and spacecraft
People in high-flying aircraft or skydiving from high-altitude balloons can plainly see the curvature of Earth. Low-flying planes and commercial airliners do not necessarily fly high enough to make this obvious, especially when passenger windows narrow the field of view or clouds or terrain reduce the effective height from the visible surface. Trying to measure the curvature of the horizon by taking a picture is complicated by the fact that both windows and camera lenses can produce distorted images depending on the angle used. An extreme version of this effect can be seen in the fisheye lens
A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremely wide angles of view, well beyond any rectilinear lens. Instead of p ...
. Scientific measurements would require a carefully calibrated lens.
Photos of the ground taken from airplanes over a large enough area also do not fit seamlessly together on a flat surface, but do fit on a roughly spherical surface. Aerial photographs of large areas must be corrected to account for curvature.
Many pictures have been taken of the entirety of Earth by satellites launched by a variety of governments and private organizations. From high orbits, where half the planet can be seen at once, it is plainly spherical. The only way to piece together all the pictures taken of the ground from lower orbits so that all the surface features line up seamlessly and without distortion is to put them on an approximately spherical surface.
Astronauts in low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
can personally see the curvature of the planet, and travel all the way around several times a day. The astronauts who travelled to the Moon have seen the entire Moon-facing half at once, and can watch the sphere rotate once a day (approximately; the Moon is also moving with respect to Earth).
When the supersonic aircraft Concorde
The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC).
Studies started in 1954, and France an ...
took off not long after sunset from London and flew westward to New York, it outran the Sun's apparent motion westwardand therefore passengers aboard observed the Sun rising in the west as they travelled. After landing in New York, passengers watched a second sunset in the west.
Because the speed of the Sun's shadow is slower in polar regions (due to the steeper angle), even a subsonic aircraft can overtake the sunset when flying at high latitudes. One photographer used a roughly circular route around the North Pole to take pictures of 24 sunsets in the same 24-hour period, pausing westward progress in each time zone to let the shadow of the Sun catch up. The surface of Earth rotates at at 80° north or south, and at the equator.
See also
* Figure of the Earth
* Geodesy
* Hollow Earth
The Hollow Earth is a concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was disproven, first tentatively by Pierre Bougue ...
* :Flat Earth proponents
Notes and references
Notes
References
*
*
* Valenzuela, S. (19 April 2019). History's most famous Flat Earth believers: Athletes, celebrities, and ancient Greeks. Retrieved 3 March 2020
Further reading
Scientific sources
* Raymond Fraser
Raymond Fraser (May 8, 1941 – October 22, 2018) was a Canadian biographer, editor, essayist, memoirist, novelist, poet and short story writer. Fraser published fourteen books of fiction, three of non-fiction, and eight poetry collections. Fras ...
(2007). ''When The Earth Was Flat: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters.'' Black Moss Press,
* Christine Garwood (2007) ''Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea'', Pan Books,
Flat Earth believers
* Arguments based on Christian Bible and related writings.
* Christian basis.
External links
The Flat Earth Society (2004/2009)
The Flat Earth Society (2013)
The International Flat Earth Research Society
The Modern Day Flat Earth Community
by the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
Article on Daniel Shenton
{{Authority control
Anti-intellectualism
Conspiracy theories
Denialism
*
Religious practices
Modern geocentrism
Pseudoastronomy