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Is the Earth round? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:09
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, how do you feel about skepticism. I don't know,
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm a little skeptical of it. Well, I mean, do
0:14
Speaker 1: you think it's always a good thing to be asking questions?
0:17
Speaker 1: I'm always in favor of questions. I mean, that's definitely
0:20
Speaker 1: how we got where we are, and that's how we
0:21
Speaker 1: learned so much about this incredible universe. But you know
0:25
Speaker 1: there are caveats. Okay, so I got a good one
0:27
Speaker 1: for you. Do you believe the Earth is round? Actually
0:31
Speaker 1: know that Earth is not round? What? Are you one
0:34
Speaker 1: of those flat earthers? No? No, No, those people are crazy.
0:38
Speaker 1: There are a lot of them out there. I know
0:40
Speaker 1: there are flat earthers all around the globe, all around
0:42
Speaker 1: the globe, not on top or below the globe exactly. Well,
0:46
Speaker 1: what's your take from a physicist? The official answer is
0:50
Speaker 1: Earth round or flat? It's a false choice. The answer
0:53
Speaker 1: is neither. Stay tuned and find out. Hi. I'm Jorge,
1:13
Speaker 1: I'm a cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics. Hi,
1:17
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Whiteson. I'm a particle physicist by day and
1:20
Speaker 1: a podcaster by any other time. And welcome to our podcast.
1:23
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe, a production of I
1:27
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, in which we try to explain crazy things
1:30
Speaker 1: about the universe, sometimes things really far away, sometimes things
1:33
Speaker 1: in our neighborhood, sometimes things right under our feet. I'm sorry.
1:37
Speaker 1: We try to tackle big questions, small questions, Questions you
1:40
Speaker 1: think you know the answer to, but maybe the universe
1:43
Speaker 1: has a way to surprise you. That's right. Round questions,
1:46
Speaker 1: flat questions, square questions, squiggly questions, and squishy questions. We
1:50
Speaker 1: love all the questions. Questions are our business. Who I
1:53
Speaker 1: like that as our company? Mottel, that's right. Do we
1:57
Speaker 1: have a company, Daniel, Um, we should make one. Yes,
2:00
Speaker 1: We're in a good company. All right. Well, so today
2:02
Speaker 1: we're tackling a question that obviously humans have been um
2:06
Speaker 1: had been struggling with for a long time, and I
2:09
Speaker 1: think for pretty much the last couple of centuries, people
2:12
Speaker 1: think we know that the answer to right. That's right.
2:14
Speaker 1: This is the kind of question people ask, and it's
2:17
Speaker 1: a kind of question it can be hard to answer
2:19
Speaker 1: immediately just by looking at what's around you. But it's
2:22
Speaker 1: a fun question because it's the kind of question that
2:25
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the beginning of cosmology. It's like,
2:28
Speaker 1: let's try to get a larger scale understanding. Let's try
2:31
Speaker 1: to understand not just the world I live in every
2:33
Speaker 1: day when I walk to my friend's house or go
2:36
Speaker 1: to the river and wash my food, but like the
2:39
Speaker 1: larger context where we find ourselves and how it all works.
2:42
Speaker 1: So the beginning of that intellectual struggle, yeah, kind of
2:45
Speaker 1: asking like what's beyond what we can see and touch? Right?
2:50
Speaker 1: That's right? How does it all fit in? Right? Like,
2:52
Speaker 1: you know the picture frame that my life lives in.
2:55
Speaker 1: Am I a tiny little dust mode in the corner?
2:57
Speaker 1: Am I in the center of it? Um? How big
3:00
Speaker 1: is that picture frame? You know? This? These are interesting questions,
3:02
Speaker 1: and I wonder sometimes like who were the first people
3:04
Speaker 1: to think of those questions? You know, as humanity emerge
3:08
Speaker 1: from you know, pre humans into an intelligence, Like when
3:12
Speaker 1: did people post humans? When did people first start to
3:16
Speaker 1: ask these kinds of questions? You know, how big is
3:19
Speaker 1: the earth? What is its shape? Um? You know, where
3:22
Speaker 1: is the sun? All these kind of questions about our
3:24
Speaker 1: basic cosmology? Yeah, Like who do you think was the
3:27
Speaker 1: first sentient being? That just kind of wondered, like if
3:30
Speaker 1: I keep going in that direction, what's going to happen?
3:34
Speaker 1: Or if I shoot straight up, what's going to happen?
3:36
Speaker 1: Or straight down? I don't know, but I think the
3:39
Speaker 1: answer would probably um make you happy, because I think
3:41
Speaker 1: that a lot of anthropologists imagine that humans have been
3:46
Speaker 1: intelligent for tens of thousands of years, and the major
3:49
Speaker 1: evidence of that is basically cartoons. Oh yeah, that's I
3:54
Speaker 1: always say, that's a sure sign of intelligence to draw them,
3:58
Speaker 1: to be able to draw them, or the sign of
4:00
Speaker 1: the society is about to crumble, that's right, and good
4:03
Speaker 1: extinct like those ancient civilizations. No, but it's cave paintings, right,
4:08
Speaker 1: I mean we can see which are basically cartoons like
4:10
Speaker 1: people doing symbolic thinking and describing dogs and buffalo and
4:15
Speaker 1: all sorts of things on the walls of caves describing them.
4:17
Speaker 1: I think that's the first sign of intelligence. So probably
4:20
Speaker 1: around then people started to have thoughts about, you know,
4:22
Speaker 1: their situation and how it works and what's the bigger
4:25
Speaker 1: what's the bigger situation that their life is in, and
4:28
Speaker 1: so I think that's what led them to ask this question.
4:31
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's kind of the question is, uh, you know,
4:33
Speaker 1: what did humans think about when they asked themselves? What
4:36
Speaker 1: happens if I keep going in one direction. And so
4:38
Speaker 1: today on the program, we'll be taggling the question is
4:46
Speaker 1: the Earth round? That's right? What shape is this crazy
4:50
Speaker 1: rock that we're living on? And you know, you can
4:52
Speaker 1: look at a lot of things that people describe early on,
4:55
Speaker 1: you know, drawings from hundreds or thousands of years ago,
4:58
Speaker 1: people trying to draw maps and what the Earth looked like,
5:01
Speaker 1: and there's some pretty crazy ideas out there. But if
5:03
Speaker 1: you just sort of look around you, or if you're
5:05
Speaker 1: just like born in the world and you look around,
5:08
Speaker 1: the world looks pretty flat, right, Like, as far as
5:11
Speaker 1: you can see, the ground is pretty flat. You think
5:13
Speaker 1: that we're sort of on a on a flat surface, right,
5:16
Speaker 1: because you your immediate surface around you is flat, and
5:20
Speaker 1: kind of you look out a little bit further, it's
5:21
Speaker 1: still flat. Yeah, And it seems simple, right, And if
5:24
Speaker 1: you're the goal is to understand around you, well, what's
5:27
Speaker 1: around you, then the first thing you're gonna do is
5:29
Speaker 1: think of the simplest thing. And the world looks kind
5:31
Speaker 1: of flat, and you can't see that far away, and
5:33
Speaker 1: you know, many surfaces, if you're only looking a small
5:36
Speaker 1: portion of them, look flat. I mean, the Earth could
5:39
Speaker 1: be all sorts of crazy shapes, and if you only
5:41
Speaker 1: look in your neighborhood, it might look flat in the vicinity. Yeah. So,
5:44
Speaker 1: and I imagine most of our listeners, um probably think
5:48
Speaker 1: or know that the Earth is not flat. But we're
5:52
Speaker 1: wondering if people actually know the real answer to the question,
5:56
Speaker 1: is the Earth round? Yeah? Or what is the shape
5:58
Speaker 1: of the Earth? That's a different Russian What shape is
6:01
Speaker 1: it in? That's right? What shape it is it? Politically
6:05
Speaker 1: fitness wise, I think we should not be judgmental the Earth.
6:09
Speaker 1: I think we should be Earth positive, you know, I think, um,
6:11
Speaker 1: this is the one only one we have. And he
6:13
Speaker 1: gets depressed and you know, decides to end itself and
6:16
Speaker 1: plumbing into the sun. You'll be sorry. That's right, the
6:18
Speaker 1: Earth is round and proud? That's right? Exactly. Who wants
6:22
Speaker 1: to be on a slender planet anyway? You know? All right? So,
6:28
Speaker 1: as usual, Dad, we were wondering what people how people
6:30
Speaker 1: out there in the street would answer this question. And
6:32
Speaker 1: so Daniel went out there into the street and accosted
6:36
Speaker 1: innocent bystanders and asked them a very basic question. That's right.
6:40
Speaker 1: And not only did I ask them if they believe
6:43
Speaker 1: the Earth was round, but I asked them how they knew,
6:46
Speaker 1: which I thought. Let's some of the more fascinating answers. Well,
6:49
Speaker 1: let's see what people had to say. Do you believe
6:51
Speaker 1: the Earth is round? Yes? Why what evidence do you
6:54
Speaker 1: have that the Earth is round? I think it is
6:57
Speaker 1: best answered by astronomy is like, of the Earth is round,
7:03
Speaker 1: we go. If the Earth is not round, you go.
7:06
Speaker 1: You start from a point and you keep going and
7:09
Speaker 1: you learn reach to this to your first place. Do
7:12
Speaker 1: you agree with me? Says one reason? And there are
7:16
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure there are like lots of proofs about it. Yes.
7:20
Speaker 1: Why whateverence do you have the Earth is round? Because
7:25
Speaker 1: the idea that satellites are free fall and that they
7:28
Speaker 1: free fall around the Earth. So if you throw a ball,
7:30
Speaker 1: it goes, it has a curve, and so that kind
7:32
Speaker 1: of goes ahead improves that like we're falling innocence, and
7:35
Speaker 1: so that can go ahead and explain how satellites can
7:38
Speaker 1: fall around the Earth constantly cool orbits. Okay, good answers around, Yes,
7:42
Speaker 1: why what everything is do you found? Well, based on
7:45
Speaker 1: what everyone else has said, I don't know, there's some evidence,
7:49
Speaker 1: but I do believe the Earth is around. Do you
7:51
Speaker 1: believe that the Earth is round. What evidence do you
7:53
Speaker 1: have inund airplanes? I don't know, pictures of like from
7:58
Speaker 1: the I like that, all right, pictures from space other
8:02
Speaker 1: other astronomical objects are also around, so good point other
8:06
Speaker 1: points around. I do believe there is around. Why is that?
8:09
Speaker 1: Whatever you want? I believe this is around because just
8:11
Speaker 1: what I've learned in my education growing up middle school
8:14
Speaker 1: to high school to college, it's just what I'm familiar with.
8:17
Speaker 1: So yes, why whatever pictures NASA? Al right, pretty no
8:24
Speaker 1: flat earther is you couldn't find any flat earthers out
8:26
Speaker 1: there in Irvine. That's right, good job you see, irline.
8:30
Speaker 1: I was really relieved to not run into any flat earthers.
8:33
Speaker 1: I mean I was a tiny bit curious, like, what
8:35
Speaker 1: would I do if I met a flat earther, Would
8:37
Speaker 1: I like engage them in debate on the spot and
8:40
Speaker 1: be able to persuade them. Anybody who believes the Earth
8:42
Speaker 1: is flat is probably not really open to actual scientific
8:45
Speaker 1: dialogue on the subject um. But I was also sort
8:48
Speaker 1: of relieved that, like in this educational community, at least
8:51
Speaker 1: we've succeeded at that level that everybody understands the basics
8:55
Speaker 1: of the world around them. I think the flat earthers
8:57
Speaker 1: only exist on the Internet. Sometimes I wonder if the
9:02
Speaker 1: flat earthers are all just trolls, you know, if they're
9:04
Speaker 1: just being ridiculous to make everybody mad because they get
9:08
Speaker 1: their kicks by pissing people off. But I did some research,
9:11
Speaker 1: and there's a pretty hardcore group of people out there
9:13
Speaker 1: that really, honestly, sincerely believe the Earth is flat. So
9:17
Speaker 1: you got pretty much everyone said yes, uh, and they
9:19
Speaker 1: all had all pretty good reasons for believing that the
9:22
Speaker 1: Earth is around. Yeah, I'll be great. Some of the
9:24
Speaker 1: reasons as excellent, and some of the reasons is a
9:26
Speaker 1: little weak, like the weaker ones are like, well, everybody
9:30
Speaker 1: says so, you know, and that's okay. Like you, you know,
9:34
Speaker 1: you should be a skeptical person. You should try to
9:36
Speaker 1: think about these things for yourself. On the other hand,
9:38
Speaker 1: like if there's something that everybody is believing, probably it's true.
9:42
Speaker 1: I mean, there's probably a good reason why, you know,
9:45
Speaker 1: scientists and experts and everybody are saying X, y Z
9:48
Speaker 1: is true. So while you should be skeptical, you shouldn't
9:51
Speaker 1: just toss out everything that experts are saying just because
9:54
Speaker 1: you can't prove it yourself. Well, it gets a little
9:57
Speaker 1: bit philosophical, because I mean, it's impossible to know everything
10:01
Speaker 1: and to be aware of all the evidence for every
10:05
Speaker 1: single thing out there in the world, and so at
10:07
Speaker 1: some point you do sort of have to be like,
10:09
Speaker 1: all right, most scientists believe this. I guess it's probably true.
10:12
Speaker 1: That's right. Yes, sometimes you have to talk to an expert.
10:14
Speaker 1: And you know, what's the point of talking to experts
10:16
Speaker 1: if you're not going to believe what they say? Right?
10:18
Speaker 1: Like you ask me physics questions. You don't go off
10:20
Speaker 1: and double check every single thing I say? Or do
10:23
Speaker 1: you a triple check it? Daniel? Does that mean you
10:27
Speaker 1: have to other physicists on the line who are like
10:29
Speaker 1: giving the thumbs up of the thumbs down in your
10:32
Speaker 1: secret Daniels in my pocket? Man, I'd like some secret
10:36
Speaker 1: Daniels in my pocket. Do some of that work for me?
10:38
Speaker 1: That'd be awesome. I have a Daniel Grayson and a
10:41
Speaker 1: Daniel and defeat green Sun, different shades of Daniel, all
10:47
Speaker 1: the colors of Daniel, different fifty shades of Daniel. You
10:51
Speaker 1: know there's a fascilating book. I don't know what that
10:55
Speaker 1: book is about. I have to be the fan fiction
10:57
Speaker 1: version of this podcast, they're not safe for persion. Um.
11:01
Speaker 1: The other answer is that I really liked were the
11:03
Speaker 1: one people who have their own reasons, you know, who
11:05
Speaker 1: had thought about it. They're like, well, that's impossible, and
11:07
Speaker 1: here's why they could actually make an argument, you know, like, um,
11:11
Speaker 1: everything else out there is round, or we know that
11:13
Speaker 1: things are in orbit, right, these are good reasons, um.
11:17
Speaker 1: Or you know, people who don't think that the government
11:19
Speaker 1: is lying to them about everything. They believe the pictures.
11:22
Speaker 1: They believe that, they believe the you know, they believe
11:27
Speaker 1: the pictures of other I mean, and I guess you
11:28
Speaker 1: can see other planets, right, you can see the moon,
11:30
Speaker 1: and with the telescope you can see other planets. Yeah,
11:33
Speaker 1: you certainly can. You can see other planets, and they're
11:35
Speaker 1: all around. Pretty much everything out there in space above
11:38
Speaker 1: a certain size is round, and for good reason, right,
11:41
Speaker 1: it's or round dish at least. And the reason is
11:44
Speaker 1: just gravity. You know. Any if if you have a
11:47
Speaker 1: big enough object, it's gonna have a lot of gravity.
11:49
Speaker 1: And then if it's not around, that means that some
11:52
Speaker 1: part is further from the center than another part, and
11:55
Speaker 1: eventually it's just going to break and roll downhill like
11:57
Speaker 1: all mountains on Earth. All mountains on Earth will event
12:00
Speaker 1: actually crumble, right due to rain and gravity and other forces. Now,
12:04
Speaker 1: a quick word from our sponsor if we're going to
12:19
Speaker 1: answer this question, is the Earth round? Let's let's start
12:21
Speaker 1: kind of where humans started, right, And so let's start
12:24
Speaker 1: first of all with how do we know the Earth
12:26
Speaker 1: is not flat? Because that's kind of what your intuition
12:30
Speaker 1: would tell you if you never traveled or seen pictures
12:32
Speaker 1: from space. Right. Okay, so if you haven't seen pictures
12:34
Speaker 1: from space and you're like, you know, natural science kind
12:37
Speaker 1: of person a few thousand years ago, how might you
12:40
Speaker 1: figure out that the Earth is not flat? Well, the
12:43
Speaker 1: you know, the history of it is that people did
12:45
Speaker 1: things like they did experiments where they stuck sticks in
12:49
Speaker 1: the ground and they look to the shadows. Now, if
12:52
Speaker 1: the Earth is flat and the sun is just like
12:54
Speaker 1: above us, then every stick is going to have a
12:57
Speaker 1: shadow the same length. But if the Earth is round,
13:01
Speaker 1: then those shadows is going to be different lengths at
13:03
Speaker 1: different places. And so this is like what a Greek
13:06
Speaker 1: guy did. He put tall sticks in different towns in Greece,
13:09
Speaker 1: and he knew how far away those towns were from
13:11
Speaker 1: each other, and he measured the angles of those sticks
13:14
Speaker 1: and the length of the shadows, and from that he
13:17
Speaker 1: could estimate he could prove that the Earth was round
13:19
Speaker 1: and estimated size to pretty good accuracy. What is this
13:24
Speaker 1: a like a apocryphal story or for real? Hey? You
13:29
Speaker 1: know everything about ancient Greece could be apocryphal, right, The
13:31
Speaker 1: whole thing could just be invented as far as as
13:34
Speaker 1: far as we know. Um, But you know this is
13:36
Speaker 1: um as far as we understand it, This really happened,
13:41
Speaker 1: you agree, Greece. Let's talk about whether Greece really happened? Right?
13:46
Speaker 1: Is Grease just a conspiracy man? No? But you know,
13:54
Speaker 1: the thing about ancient Greece is that we know so
13:57
Speaker 1: little of what happened because the Dark Ages and so
14:00
Speaker 1: much of what they did was destroyed. And you know,
14:02
Speaker 1: we have like a tiny trickle of the vibrant intellectual
14:06
Speaker 1: product of that civilization. So we really don't know what
14:08
Speaker 1: was going on in ancient Greece. We know a tiny
14:10
Speaker 1: little slipper, which is such a tragedy. It breaks my
14:13
Speaker 1: heart to think about all those great ideas that were
14:15
Speaker 1: just like lost, you know. Um. But anyway, all those
14:19
Speaker 1: big wine parties. No, it's just to me. It's it
14:23
Speaker 1: breaks my heart when I when I think about you know, um,
14:26
Speaker 1: progress that's been made, Things have been figured out, mathematics
14:30
Speaker 1: has been developed, and then just just discarded or lost,
14:34
Speaker 1: you know, like in huge fires of ancient libraries and
14:37
Speaker 1: destructions of civilization. Anyway, we do have some clues about
14:41
Speaker 1: what happened in ancient Greece, and there are stories about
14:43
Speaker 1: the about folks measuring the size of the Earth using
14:47
Speaker 1: basically just two sticks in the ground. Okay, and so
14:49
Speaker 1: the ideas that he planted a stick in one town
14:53
Speaker 1: and then it's kind of like if you plant the
14:55
Speaker 1: stick in California and then you run over to Florida
15:00
Speaker 1: and plant another stick there. At any given time of
15:03
Speaker 1: the day, the shadows are might be different. Yeah, there
15:07
Speaker 1: will be different lengths, right, because those two sticks have
15:10
Speaker 1: a different angle with respect to the sun. They're seeing
15:13
Speaker 1: the sun at different points in the sky. Yeah, exactly.
15:16
Speaker 1: And if the earth, but if the Earth was flat,
15:18
Speaker 1: the shadows would be identical. That's right, that's right, Yeah,
15:22
Speaker 1: that's that's the point. Yeah. Um No, they wouldn't be
15:25
Speaker 1: the same, would they, But there would be the same
15:27
Speaker 1: length there might be a different angle, but there would
15:29
Speaker 1: be the same length. Pretty sure, Pretty sure. I mean
15:31
Speaker 1: it depends on your particular flat earth model, right, But
15:35
Speaker 1: on a sphere, it's definitely true that there are different
15:38
Speaker 1: lengths and angles and that you can use that to
15:41
Speaker 1: measure the size of the sphere. And another key element,
15:44
Speaker 1: of course, is knowing that the Sun is really really
15:46
Speaker 1: far away, so that the light that comes from it
15:49
Speaker 1: is basically always parallel, because otherwise you could try to
15:52
Speaker 1: explain the different angles that you get from sticks to
15:55
Speaker 1: different places and make it consistent with a flat earth.
15:58
Speaker 1: You could try to do that by saying, oh, well,
16:00
Speaker 1: maybe the Sun is really close to the Earth and
16:02
Speaker 1: that's why we get different angles right over a flat earth.
16:05
Speaker 1: But that's silly. We know the Sun is far away.
16:08
Speaker 1: If the Sun was that close to the Earth, you
16:09
Speaker 1: could see it's apparent size like change as you move
16:12
Speaker 1: around the Earth, and we don't see that. So that's
16:14
Speaker 1: an important part of the argument. Interesting, but wouldn't that
16:19
Speaker 1: require you to have like a walkie talkie between the
16:22
Speaker 1: two places, you know, to say, all right, right now,
16:26
Speaker 1: measure the length of the shadow. But if you don't
16:28
Speaker 1: have that instant communication, how would you like coordinated and
16:30
Speaker 1: know that it was measured at the same time. That's
16:32
Speaker 1: a good question. I don't know how they managed it.
16:35
Speaker 1: Maybe they had walkie talkies in ancient Greece increase, They
16:40
Speaker 1: definitely didn't. We don't know anything they could have burned
16:42
Speaker 1: with the labrary. I mean that the power of the
16:45
Speaker 1: test is greater the further the sticks are apart. But
16:48
Speaker 1: I don't know how far apart they have to be
16:50
Speaker 1: for you to have a measurable effect. It might not
16:52
Speaker 1: have to be very far, you know, so you might
16:54
Speaker 1: be able to say, like, all right, we'll both walk
16:56
Speaker 1: for an hour and then plant a stick and then
16:58
Speaker 1: measure the length, and it might be enough, Oh I see,
17:01
Speaker 1: or maybe like a smoke signals or something like if
17:03
Speaker 1: it's several miles and you can still do it, yeah,
17:06
Speaker 1: smoke signals exactly. Um, you'd be good at inventing physics
17:10
Speaker 1: experiments in ancient Greece. Yeah, I definitely want to around. Um.
17:13
Speaker 1: But there are also other ways. You don't have to
17:15
Speaker 1: do two sticks in the ground, Like, there are other
17:17
Speaker 1: ways to figure out that the Earth is round, even
17:20
Speaker 1: even without technology. All right, what are those ways? Well,
17:23
Speaker 1: you can just look at the stars. Right, travel the
17:25
Speaker 1: Earth and look at the stars. You see different stars
17:28
Speaker 1: from different parts of the Earth. Right. If the Earth
17:31
Speaker 1: is flat, then everybody should be seeing the same sky.
17:34
Speaker 1: I mean, you'll be seeing it from a slightly different
17:36
Speaker 1: point of view if you're in a different spot on
17:38
Speaker 1: the Earth. But some stars are blocked by the earth.
17:42
Speaker 1: Right you walk from you walk from North America to
17:45
Speaker 1: South America, you're gonna see different stars in the sky. Right,
17:48
Speaker 1: the northern stars you can't see them because the Earth's
17:51
Speaker 1: curvatures in the way. Oh I see. So if you
17:55
Speaker 1: assuming you can remember the sky right, or you can
17:58
Speaker 1: draw it for example, Yeah, you heard of that drawing
18:03
Speaker 1: only in caves. I only know that kind. And you
18:06
Speaker 1: can't see the stars when you're in a cave, so
18:08
Speaker 1: you can sort of you chisel along the side of
18:09
Speaker 1: you join on the side of the cave. You walk
18:11
Speaker 1: to South America, you draw another cave, and they're like, hmmmm,
18:15
Speaker 1: I should have brought my cave with me. That's how
18:17
Speaker 1: they invented the portable cave, probably otherwise known as the tent. Okay.
18:26
Speaker 1: So that's another way you would tell, right, is you
18:28
Speaker 1: would uh notice that the stars are different in different
18:32
Speaker 1: parts of the Earth, which means that the Earth can't
18:36
Speaker 1: be flat. That's right, that's another reason. Another way you
18:39
Speaker 1: can tell, again without really much technology, is just seasons.
18:43
Speaker 1: Like how do you get seasons on a flat earth? Right?
18:47
Speaker 1: I mean different parts of the earth have difference. You
18:49
Speaker 1: might say, okay, we can get north, we can get
18:51
Speaker 1: winter the sun goes further away, we can get summer
18:53
Speaker 1: when the sun gets closer. But we have different seasons
18:56
Speaker 1: and different part of the earth. Right, we have summer
18:58
Speaker 1: in the northern hemisphere when we have during the southern hemisphere.
19:01
Speaker 1: How do you account for that? Well, I mean if
19:03
Speaker 1: I if I live thousands of years ago, I mean
19:05
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know anything, right for all?
19:07
Speaker 1: For all I know there are gods and weird you know,
19:11
Speaker 1: magical beings that make it winter here, and some are there, yes, absolutely,
19:15
Speaker 1: And there is always another explanation that's like ridiculously complicated,
19:20
Speaker 1: involves magic and gods are like crazy trajectories that can
19:24
Speaker 1: explain all the data. But we prefer the simplest, right,
19:27
Speaker 1: If the simplest explanation is that the Earth is a
19:30
Speaker 1: body just like all the other ones we see, and
19:32
Speaker 1: it looks just like them, and it's also circular. It's
19:35
Speaker 1: also basically spherical, and that explains everything we see. And
19:39
Speaker 1: so it's like, by far the explanation we prefer to,
19:43
Speaker 1: there's some crazy magic aliens out there doing some crazy
19:47
Speaker 1: tricks on us, or here on Earth? Are you here
19:50
Speaker 1: on Earth? Exactly? Okay? Cool? And then what's the last
19:52
Speaker 1: last experiment you as a Greek scientist can do. Well?
19:56
Speaker 1: The simplest one is that you can see hints of
19:58
Speaker 1: the curvature. I mean you can look at ships, for example,
20:02
Speaker 1: coming over the horizon from far away, like what's blocking them? Right? Ships? Um?
20:08
Speaker 1: Coming over the horizon, You're seeing them come over the
20:10
Speaker 1: curvature of the Earth. Right, that's pretty direct right there. Um.
20:14
Speaker 1: And in a similar way, you can see further when
20:18
Speaker 1: you get higher up, Like if the Earth was flat,
20:21
Speaker 1: then you couldn't see any further by getting any higher up,
20:24
Speaker 1: or you can see at a different angle, right, but
20:26
Speaker 1: you couldn't see any further. But on a spherical Earth
20:29
Speaker 1: or nearly spherical earth, the higher you go, the less
20:32
Speaker 1: the Earth's curvature blocks you, the larger your field of view.
20:35
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what you experience. You go to a skyscraper.
20:38
Speaker 1: At the top of a mountain, you can see much further. Okay,
20:41
Speaker 1: so I guess the idea is that is that if
20:42
Speaker 1: the Earth was flat and you were standing at the
20:46
Speaker 1: beach and you saw a ship go off and away
20:49
Speaker 1: from you, it would just get smaller and smaller and
20:52
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. It
20:54
Speaker 1: wouldn't ever disappear from view, that's right, and you could
20:57
Speaker 1: eventually see it like doc in Japan or something. Right,
21:00
Speaker 1: if you had a super duper telescope. Oh, it would
21:04
Speaker 1: just look really really really small. But you could technically
21:07
Speaker 1: see Japan if the Earth was flat, I mean, Japan
21:09
Speaker 1: is close. You'd be limited by basically the air, right,
21:13
Speaker 1: the air wiggles makes things fuzzy. But yeah, technically you'd
21:16
Speaker 1: be able to see all the way across the ocean.
21:17
Speaker 1: If the Earth was flat. Oh wow, that would be cool. Yeah,
21:21
Speaker 1: that would be pretty cool, wouldn't it. It would be
21:23
Speaker 1: cool was flat, But I guess it'd be nighttime in Japan.
21:27
Speaker 1: That would be awesome. Actually, you could like see different
21:29
Speaker 1: time zones. Oh, I see, but even if I take
21:31
Speaker 1: a telescope and I look out into the ocean with
21:34
Speaker 1: a telescope, I would just at some point see nothing
21:37
Speaker 1: because my line aside would just go off into space.
21:39
Speaker 1: That's right. And if you're on a boat in the
21:41
Speaker 1: middle of the ocean, all you can see is water
21:45
Speaker 1: because everything else is around the curve of the Earth, right, Okay,
21:49
Speaker 1: And then you have one more last um Greek experiment
21:53
Speaker 1: you can do right involving sunsets. Yeah. I mean there's
21:56
Speaker 1: a long list of reasons, some that we believe the
21:58
Speaker 1: Earth is round, but another one is, yeah, sunsets, Like
22:01
Speaker 1: how do you explain sunsets on a flat earth? You
22:04
Speaker 1: know the models I've seen a flat earth to have, Like,
22:07
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. But you have this
22:10
Speaker 1: flat plane and then you have the Sun which is
22:12
Speaker 1: really small compared to the Earth, and it's sort of
22:15
Speaker 1: moving around the circular Earth, right for the flat earth
22:19
Speaker 1: like a lamb, because like a lamb just going around
22:22
Speaker 1: around it. Yeah, and it's like shining like a spotlight,
22:25
Speaker 1: like it's directional or something. So you know, I don't
22:28
Speaker 1: understand how you get day or night because the Sun
22:30
Speaker 1: is a sphere. We can see that it's a sphere, right,
22:34
Speaker 1: It's definitely it would shine on the whole surface of
22:36
Speaker 1: the Earth all the time. I mean, if you had
22:37
Speaker 1: a flat Earth with the sun above it, then you
22:39
Speaker 1: would have never had night time unless the sun went
22:42
Speaker 1: below the flat Earth, in which case every part of
22:45
Speaker 1: the Earth would see sunset at the same time, which
22:47
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't happen. Okay. So I think the point is
22:49
Speaker 1: that even if you are super skeptical of scientists and
22:53
Speaker 1: you don't believe anything anyone ever tells you or believe
22:56
Speaker 1: any pictures you see, there are still ways that you
23:00
Speaker 1: could be convinced yourself that the Earth is not flat.
23:03
Speaker 1: That's right. And people did these things and they figured
23:05
Speaker 1: them out, and that's why people believe the Earth is round,
23:08
Speaker 1: even well before we had technology. But now that we
23:11
Speaker 1: have amazing technology, it's pretty easy to discover that the
23:14
Speaker 1: Earth is round. So the because you know, I grew
23:17
Speaker 1: up in um in Panama, and for us, you know,
23:21
Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus was like a big deal, and so you know,
23:25
Speaker 1: as a kid, you just like you always hear like, oh,
23:27
Speaker 1: he proved that the Earth was round. But that's um,
23:29
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of historical Bologna're right, Yeah, I
23:32
Speaker 1: think it was widely spread among anybody who had any education. Uh,
23:36
Speaker 1: the belief that the Earth was round was already widely
23:39
Speaker 1: spread by then, but I guess he was the first
23:43
Speaker 1: or one of the first to really kind of connected physically.
23:46
Speaker 1: I mean, I never really understood that argument because Christopher
23:48
Speaker 1: Columbus was trying to use the fact that the Earth
23:52
Speaker 1: was round to get to India, right, and so he
23:55
Speaker 1: thought he got to India. He's like, okay, look, I
23:57
Speaker 1: got to India, and therefore the Earth is round. But
23:59
Speaker 1: the problem is he didn't get to India, so he
24:01
Speaker 1: didn't prove anything, right. He just proved that if you
24:04
Speaker 1: get in the in the boat and sail, you get
24:06
Speaker 1: to some more land. He didn't really prove anything at all.
24:08
Speaker 1: I mean, Christopher Columbus, Like, there's so much trouble with
24:11
Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus, you know, on top of genocide and miss
24:15
Speaker 1: miss naming Americans as Indians and all that sort of stuff,
24:18
Speaker 1: but he didn't he didn't really prove the Earth is
24:20
Speaker 1: round at all. Okay, but I guess, um, I guess
24:23
Speaker 1: we won't get into the politics of it. It's pretty dark.
24:28
Speaker 1: But yeah, so alright, so then, um, that's how we
24:30
Speaker 1: know that Earth is not flat. And so let's let's
24:32
Speaker 1: get into whether the Earth is actually round or not.
24:36
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, So
24:51
Speaker 1: we talked about how if you were a Greek scientist
24:54
Speaker 1: back in the day, you might be able to figure
24:56
Speaker 1: out that the Earth is not flat. But yeah, how
24:59
Speaker 1: about today, like you know, we we as citizens have
25:03
Speaker 1: every day sittings, have access to a little bit more technology. Um,
25:07
Speaker 1: so how would how could a scientists today without if
25:10
Speaker 1: they didn't believe pictures or other scientists, how could we
25:14
Speaker 1: um find out? How can we be be scientists and
25:17
Speaker 1: conclude that the Earth is not flat? You mean without
25:19
Speaker 1: being Elon Musk and having our own spaceship company and
25:22
Speaker 1: going into space ourselves with that being billionaires, let's say
25:26
Speaker 1: you just have like, you know, a hundred dollars ten
25:29
Speaker 1: dollars in your pocket. Because the billionaire the billionaire demographic
25:32
Speaker 1: of our listeners is probably pretty small, right, but if
25:35
Speaker 1: we have one, hey, give us a call. Please send
25:39
Speaker 1: us an email. All the billionaires out there, please send
25:41
Speaker 1: us an email. We want to record an episode from
25:43
Speaker 1: space that's right, featuring you. Well, first I want to
25:46
Speaker 1: comment on like should you disbelieve other scientists? And again
25:50
Speaker 1: it's healthy to be skeptical. There are times when people
25:53
Speaker 1: everybody's wrong about something, But let's remember that everybody out
25:57
Speaker 1: there doing science is trying to be right, you know,
26:00
Speaker 1: they want to figure it out. They're not out there
26:02
Speaker 1: trying to convince people of things that are not true.
26:04
Speaker 1: Like NASA is not lying to people. There's no crazy agenda,
26:09
Speaker 1: and it's impossible for that to even be Um, it's
26:12
Speaker 1: not practical for that to happen because NASA is filled
26:15
Speaker 1: with a bunch of scientists who all want to figure
26:17
Speaker 1: out the right answer and share it. So if there
26:20
Speaker 1: was some absurd conspiracy to like lie to the public
26:23
Speaker 1: for ridiculous reasons about the shape of the Earth, somebody
26:26
Speaker 1: out there would just prove it. Somebody out there and
26:28
Speaker 1: be like ha ha, look I'm um, I have proof,
26:31
Speaker 1: and somebody would would get the credit for that. So
26:34
Speaker 1: science is filled with people who want the truth and
26:36
Speaker 1: want to share the truth, and sometimes they make honest mistakes.
26:40
Speaker 1: But it's it's impossible to imagine a widespread scientific conspiracy.
26:45
Speaker 1: I think also, even if you don't believe in the
26:48
Speaker 1: altruism of scientists, I always like to think and sit
26:52
Speaker 1: tell people that you know, like if you ever meet
26:54
Speaker 1: a scientist, each one of them, and maybe you can
26:58
Speaker 1: prove me wrong. But like I think, each one each
27:01
Speaker 1: scientists out there would love nothing more than to be
27:04
Speaker 1: the guy that disproves everybody else. Yeah, exactly, even from
27:07
Speaker 1: a cynical point of view, right, they all want the
27:10
Speaker 1: glory that I would love to reveal that all of
27:13
Speaker 1: science has misunderstood something. I mean, I think I've said
27:16
Speaker 1: that on this podcast before. That's my personal scientific fantasies
27:19
Speaker 1: to discover something which forces us to rethink foundational ideas. Right,
27:24
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. Everybody would love to be in that position.
27:27
Speaker 1: And so to prove that the Earth is a different
27:29
Speaker 1: shape than everybody thought, Wow, that would be fantastic. So, yeah,
27:33
Speaker 1: you're right, from a purely selfish point of view, if
27:36
Speaker 1: scientists say something and you know that they're all trying
27:40
Speaker 1: to prove each other wrong, you know the fact that
27:42
Speaker 1: they agree is like extra extra validity, exactly exactly. But
27:47
Speaker 1: imagine that, you know you want to check her for yourself.
27:50
Speaker 1: You want to be the scientist to disprove everybody. How
27:52
Speaker 1: could you do that? That was your question, And these
27:54
Speaker 1: days it's actually not that hard because of the ubiquity
27:57
Speaker 1: of basically high resolution cameras. Um, all you need to
28:01
Speaker 1: do is take a picture from high enough that you
28:05
Speaker 1: can see the curvature of the Earth. And to get
28:08
Speaker 1: high enough to like really see the curvature in an
28:11
Speaker 1: indisputable way, you need to be like thirty five forty
28:14
Speaker 1: forty feet up above the ground to see the curvature
28:17
Speaker 1: of the Earth. I guess, you know, um, it's not
28:20
Speaker 1: immediately clear what that means. So I guess if you
28:23
Speaker 1: go out really really far, like to the moon, you
28:25
Speaker 1: would definitely see the Earth is round, right, that's right,
28:28
Speaker 1: and but down here it looks flat. And so as
28:31
Speaker 1: you keep going up and out, you're going to see
28:33
Speaker 1: kind of more more of the rounded shape of the Earth. Exactly. So,
28:36
Speaker 1: as you imagine you're floating up from the Earth, right
28:40
Speaker 1: first it seems flat, and then you get higher and
28:42
Speaker 1: higher up, you're, like you know, at airplane levels, it
28:46
Speaker 1: still seems mostly flat. But as you zoom out you
28:48
Speaker 1: see it more as a planet, unless it's just a surface, right,
28:52
Speaker 1: You're zooming away from it to get more perspective on
28:54
Speaker 1: the overall shape of it, and then you can start
28:56
Speaker 1: to see the overall shape. You can see this curvature,
28:59
Speaker 1: and you know, above forty feet or so, it becomes
29:02
Speaker 1: pretty clear and you might be thinking, well, how do
29:05
Speaker 1: I get about forty feet? And the only way to
29:06
Speaker 1: do that through an airplane and those windows are weird
29:09
Speaker 1: and have curves and whatever, how do I really believe that? Well,
29:12
Speaker 1: all you need to do is send your phone up there,
29:14
Speaker 1: and folks have done this. You can. You can just
29:17
Speaker 1: build a weather balloon, which is basically just a big
29:20
Speaker 1: bag of helium or hydrogen, and attach a phone to
29:23
Speaker 1: it and it'll go up really really high, you know,
29:26
Speaker 1: eighty thou ft a hundred thousand feet basically up to
29:29
Speaker 1: near space. And high schoolers have done this. You know,
29:32
Speaker 1: you can google for pictures of it. Wait, what what
29:34
Speaker 1: do you do? Though? You do? You start like a
29:36
Speaker 1: FaceTime conversation and then send it up. There's no service
29:40
Speaker 1: up there, but you you know, you start recording and
29:42
Speaker 1: you send it up. And then the trick of course,
29:45
Speaker 1: is recovering it. Right where does it come down? So
29:47
Speaker 1: you just have it like take pictures. Every couple of
29:50
Speaker 1: seconds it goes up, the balloon, balloon pops, it falls down,
29:54
Speaker 1: and then you recover it and you get the pictures. Yeah, exactly.
29:56
Speaker 1: You have a little parachute, right, so it doesn't just
29:58
Speaker 1: plummet to earth and burn up and re entry and smash.
30:01
Speaker 1: And then you get the pictures and they're pretty fantastic
30:03
Speaker 1: pictures and it's very clear, and those pictures the curvature
30:06
Speaker 1: of the Earth, and they're gorgeous too. I mean, they're
30:08
Speaker 1: beautiful pictures. It wouldn't be like an effect of the
30:11
Speaker 1: fish eyelands or anything. No, absolutely not. I mean you
30:14
Speaker 1: can see it increasing with altitude, right, So it's not
30:16
Speaker 1: an artifact. So if you have an iPhone to spare
30:19
Speaker 1: and a weather balloon, you could you could discover that
30:21
Speaker 1: the Earth is round or or are they right? That's
30:24
Speaker 1: kind of the question that we post at the beginning, right,
30:26
Speaker 1: is the Earth actually round or not? That's right? And
30:30
Speaker 1: so we're pretty sure that is not flat. And if
30:33
Speaker 1: you look at pictures some space, you're like, okay, the
30:35
Speaker 1: Earth is round, right, it looks pretty round, But let's
30:37
Speaker 1: get precise, like do we really mean the Earth is
30:40
Speaker 1: like round? Is it a perfect sphere? Well, the key
30:43
Speaker 1: is that the Earth is spinning, right, and spinning things
30:47
Speaker 1: have extra complications, like if the Earth was not spinning
30:51
Speaker 1: it would, it would be perfectly round. You think, if
30:53
Speaker 1: the Earth is not spinning, would be much closer to
30:55
Speaker 1: perfectly round. Now, perfectly perfectly round is impossible. I mean,
30:59
Speaker 1: even if you like sanded the Earth down microscopically, there's
31:03
Speaker 1: no way to get all the atoms exactly the same
31:06
Speaker 1: distance from the center of the Earth, you know, and
31:09
Speaker 1: microscopic level level, perfectly round is impossible, even perfectly around
31:13
Speaker 1: it like the you know, the one mile level is
31:15
Speaker 1: pretty tough because you've got mountains, right, mountains and valleys
31:18
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff, um, and eventually those will
31:21
Speaker 1: you know, roll down into rubble. But then thanks to
31:24
Speaker 1: play technoics, you'll get new mountains. So the one two
31:27
Speaker 1: mile level, you know, the level even of like Mount Everest,
31:30
Speaker 1: it's pretty hard to have it be perfectly flat. But
31:32
Speaker 1: there's an even bigger effect, which is because the Earth
31:35
Speaker 1: is spinning, and so it's it's not perfectly symmetric anymore. Right,
31:39
Speaker 1: the Earth is round, it seems you might think like
31:41
Speaker 1: every direction should be the same, but it's not, because
31:44
Speaker 1: the Earth is spinning on a specific axis, and that
31:46
Speaker 1: spinning has this effect of pushing things away from that axis.
31:50
Speaker 1: The north, south axis. It's like if you're on a
31:52
Speaker 1: merry go round and somebody spins it, you feel this
31:55
Speaker 1: this effect that's trying to throw you off the merry
31:58
Speaker 1: go round, right, unless you're holding on. And so the
32:00
Speaker 1: same way if you if you spin up, if you
32:03
Speaker 1: take a planet that's not spinning and you spin it,
32:05
Speaker 1: it's gonna make it a little bit flatter and a
32:08
Speaker 1: little bit of sort of blobbier. Right, It's gonna make
32:11
Speaker 1: things further away from the center at the equator and
32:14
Speaker 1: a little closer in at the polls. Is it that
32:17
Speaker 1: it's pushing the stuff out in the on the equator
32:19
Speaker 1: outwards or is it that maybe the stuff on the
32:22
Speaker 1: equator doesn't feel as much gravity as the stuff in
32:25
Speaker 1: the north and South pole. No, it's an effect of
32:27
Speaker 1: the rotation. It's like if you take um, you know, pizza,
32:31
Speaker 1: you're spinning to take a pizza and you spin it, right,
32:33
Speaker 1: it gets bigger. Why does it get bigger? Right? Because
32:36
Speaker 1: it's the spinning. The spinning has this effective forces centrifugal
32:40
Speaker 1: force um that pushes things out and it's an artifact
32:43
Speaker 1: of the spinning. So like if if I'm feeling a
32:46
Speaker 1: little bit round and padded in my middle section here.
32:49
Speaker 1: It could be because I've been spinning too much. There
32:52
Speaker 1: are other explanations, but the has really simpler explanations. Too
32:58
Speaker 1: many banana cream pies, don't know. Yeah, but if you
33:02
Speaker 1: take something, you know, take like a ball of dough,
33:05
Speaker 1: and you spin it, then it will flatten, right, it
33:08
Speaker 1: will flatten, and it'll get um wider and in the
33:11
Speaker 1: middle and and uh and shorter on the top, oh,
33:14
Speaker 1: get shorter. And so that's what's happened to the Earth.
33:17
Speaker 1: That's what happened to Earth. Yeah, but you know, don't
33:19
Speaker 1: be alarmed as it formed or after it formed, do
33:22
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Or like it's always been oblong,
33:25
Speaker 1: it's always been not round. That's a great question. It's
33:28
Speaker 1: definitely true as long as the Earth has been spinning.
33:30
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure the Earth has been spinning since
33:32
Speaker 1: it was formed, because it's been angular momentum um. But
33:36
Speaker 1: that must have changed, like for example, on the planet Uranus. Right,
33:39
Speaker 1: Urinus was hit by something really big that knocked it
33:42
Speaker 1: off at spinning in a different direction. That probably changed
33:45
Speaker 1: the shape of Urinus also, so that's a cool question. Yeah, yes,
33:49
Speaker 1: So if you change the spin of a planet, it
33:50
Speaker 1: will change its shape. And aren't their theories that say
33:53
Speaker 1: that our moon. We had a whole podcast about it,
33:55
Speaker 1: by the way, you guys can look at it, look
33:57
Speaker 1: for it in the arch in the archive. But it
34:00
Speaker 1: isn't there a theory that maybe we were hit by
34:02
Speaker 1: a giant rock and that's how the moon form, and
34:04
Speaker 1: so maybe our ax has also changed. Yeah, it could be.
34:07
Speaker 1: It could be we were spending a faster or slower
34:09
Speaker 1: before that massive collision and that would change the shape
34:12
Speaker 1: of the Earth. But you know, taking a moon size
34:15
Speaker 1: chunk also changes the shape of the Earth. So that
34:18
Speaker 1: was a big event in terms of shape of the Earth. Um.
34:21
Speaker 1: But people might be wondering out there, like how big
34:23
Speaker 1: an effect is this is, like, you know, because if
34:26
Speaker 1: you look at the pictures from the from space, the
34:28
Speaker 1: Earth looks pretty round. I mean maybe people haven't done
34:30
Speaker 1: like precise measurements of those photographs, but it does look
34:33
Speaker 1: pretty round, and it is pretty round. The answer is
34:36
Speaker 1: that the at the equator, the distance to the center
34:40
Speaker 1: is about thirteen miles more than it is at the polls.
34:43
Speaker 1: So the Earth is wider than it is taller by
34:46
Speaker 1: thirteen miles by thirteen miles and on one hand, that's
34:50
Speaker 1: a big difference in each direction. Each direction. Yeah, from radius.
34:54
Speaker 1: On one hand, that's a big difference because like some
34:56
Speaker 1: of the biggest features on Earth, like Mount Everest, are
34:58
Speaker 1: only a few miles high, so this is like two
35:01
Speaker 1: or three times bigger than that. Right. On the other hand,
35:04
Speaker 1: it's pretty tiny because you know, the radius of the
35:06
Speaker 1: Earth is thousands of miles, so it's a really pretty
35:10
Speaker 1: small effect. Like if you were holding the Earth in
35:12
Speaker 1: your hand, could you tell this difference if you like
35:14
Speaker 1: roll the Earth against a um along a smooth surface,
35:18
Speaker 1: when you notice it not rolling perfectly smoothly. I'm not sure.
35:22
Speaker 1: I think we would, we who live on the surface
35:24
Speaker 1: of Earth would notice it for sure. I'm trying to
35:27
Speaker 1: be that cosmic alien that's playing games with us, right,
35:29
Speaker 1: it's playing tricks. Imagine the galactus, your galactus just there.
35:34
Speaker 1: Um yeah, thanks. From from that point of view, I
35:36
Speaker 1: think it'd be pretty hard to tell. You know, I
35:38
Speaker 1: don't know. For example, like a very high quality poolball,
35:42
Speaker 1: you know, like billiard ball, Um, what's the level of
35:45
Speaker 1: sphericity of that and how does it compare to the Earth.
35:47
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Like a professional great billiard ball ball.
35:52
Speaker 1: Is it actually also even a sphere? Yeah, I don't
35:55
Speaker 1: even know. It might be more spherical mirath, or it
35:57
Speaker 1: might be spherical within the same tolerance, right, because thirteen
36:00
Speaker 1: miles is a small fraction of the radius of the Earth.
36:03
Speaker 1: And you're talking about kind of like the average distance
36:05
Speaker 1: to the center of the Earth, right, because there are
36:07
Speaker 1: sort of dips and valleys and oceans and stuff, but
36:09
Speaker 1: like the average that's right. Yeah, Well, I guess the
36:12
Speaker 1: question is why isn't it more oblong? You know what
36:16
Speaker 1: I mean? Like the Earth is speling pretty fast at
36:19
Speaker 1: least once a day that I know of, and that's
36:21
Speaker 1: a lot of earth to move around. Why is it
36:24
Speaker 1: it more like opal shaped? Yeah? Well that depends on
36:27
Speaker 1: sort of the internal strength of the earth. Right. If
36:29
Speaker 1: the Earth was made out of like, I don't know,
36:32
Speaker 1: cotton candy or something, and you spun it this fast,
36:35
Speaker 1: then probably a bunch of the cotton candy would get
36:37
Speaker 1: flung out in the space. Um, but it holds itself together, right,
36:41
Speaker 1: depends on the strength of the material. Like if the
36:43
Speaker 1: Earth was made out of pizza dough, we would be
36:46
Speaker 1: much flatter, that's right. And also there's gravity, right, Gravity
36:52
Speaker 1: does like to keep things together. So there's a bunch
36:54
Speaker 1: of things at play there. But you have the Earth
36:55
Speaker 1: is made out of pizza dough, it would have a
36:57
Speaker 1: different shape than it does today. Let's do that experience.
37:00
Speaker 1: Let's build a planet sized blob of pizza, just just
37:04
Speaker 1: to find out that's right. Let's make a piece of
37:07
Speaker 1: shop for the galactuses of the universe. Any listening billionaires,
37:11
Speaker 1: that's where you should send your funds, and then also
37:13
Speaker 1: send us into space to go eat some of this pizza.
37:17
Speaker 1: That's right. That's gonna take a lot of sauce. Al right. Well,
37:21
Speaker 1: so that that's the answer to the question. Is the
37:23
Speaker 1: Earth round? The answer is no, right, it's around dead right,
37:28
Speaker 1: round dish, but almost sort around. It's rounded, more rounded
37:33
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Earth is definitely not flat,
37:36
Speaker 1: but I mean it's definitely not flat, that's right, Like
37:38
Speaker 1: many of us, the Earth is definitely not flat. Definitely
37:41
Speaker 1: not flat. So not flat, oh my god, definitely not flat. Um,
37:46
Speaker 1: it's almost perfectly spherical. And that well. The other way
37:49
Speaker 1: you can just test that the Earth is round is
37:52
Speaker 1: just go off in one direction, right and just get
37:53
Speaker 1: on a plane and keep going. That's right, you know.
37:55
Speaker 1: The flat earthers have an answer to that. They say, well,
37:58
Speaker 1: the Earth is flat, um, and if you move in
38:00
Speaker 1: a circle, you're actually moving in a circle on that surface,
38:03
Speaker 1: which is crazy. It doesn't make any sense because if
38:06
Speaker 1: I see, there's an answer for you, well, but then
38:08
Speaker 1: you know, no, those answers make sense. Like if the
38:10
Speaker 1: Earth was flat, they put the north pole at the
38:13
Speaker 1: center and the South pole is like this wall of
38:16
Speaker 1: ice around the circular flat Earth. But if that were true,
38:20
Speaker 1: then that would really stretch out distances between stuff in
38:23
Speaker 1: the southern hemisphere because the sun the hemisphere would become huge.
38:26
Speaker 1: In the northern hemisphere would be compressed, and so you
38:29
Speaker 1: would definitely notice, like if you try to sail on
38:31
Speaker 1: a ship from you know, Chile to China, you would
38:35
Speaker 1: notice that it took you way longer than it should.
38:37
Speaker 1: Shipping captains and airplane pilots would definitely notice if the
38:40
Speaker 1: Earth was flat, all right, Well, and there's then then
38:42
Speaker 1: there's a whole totally different question, which is is space flat? Right?
38:46
Speaker 1: Like we could be a rounded Earth on a flat
38:49
Speaker 1: on flat space, right, or a rounded Earth on a
38:53
Speaker 1: round space. That's right, And I'm definitely a flat spacer.
39:00
Speaker 1: Were a round earther put a flat space. That's right,
39:03
Speaker 1: No space seems to be flat, and that's really weird, right,
39:06
Speaker 1: we don't understand why space is flat. For those of
39:08
Speaker 1: you who don't even know what that means, check out
39:10
Speaker 1: our podcast on the shape and size of space. Space
39:13
Speaker 1: is a weird, crazy thing and do all sorts of
39:16
Speaker 1: stuff you never imagined, including being curved or not being curved.
39:20
Speaker 1: And you might be able to send your iPhone out
39:22
Speaker 1: into the universe to find out that's right, leave the
39:26
Speaker 1: round Earth and go into flat space and learn some things. Um.
39:30
Speaker 1: But this is what I love about these questions, you know,
39:31
Speaker 1: they tell us so much about where we are in
39:33
Speaker 1: the world. And to discover that the Earth is round
39:36
Speaker 1: and it looks just like all those other planets must
39:38
Speaker 1: have been a huge shock to the people who discovered that, right,
39:41
Speaker 1: to understand something so deep about this, this situation we
39:45
Speaker 1: find ourselves in. Those are the wonderful moments in science,
39:48
Speaker 1: right when you get these flashes of insight and reveal
39:50
Speaker 1: something about the context of the human experience. Yeah, or
39:53
Speaker 1: like challenges everyday conceptions or ideas that you might have
39:58
Speaker 1: right exactly. The first guid figure out the Earth was round.
40:01
Speaker 1: Probably everybody scoffed at him and thought, oh, he's crazy.
40:03
Speaker 1: He's one of those round earthers. Right. The Internet, the
40:09
Speaker 1: Greek Internet, the Marble net, I think that a marble
40:12
Speaker 1: net back in Asian Greece. Yeah, they're all just talking
40:16
Speaker 1: under walkie talkies, posting trolling comments. It's too bad we lost.
40:21
Speaker 1: I mean, the Greeks developed the walkie talkie technology and
40:24
Speaker 1: then we lost in the Dark Ages. We had to
40:25
Speaker 1: reinvent it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, man, we had to
40:28
Speaker 1: reinvent the walkie talkie. Yeah, exactly. So much of human
40:33
Speaker 1: civilization was lost. Um no, but I think it's it's
40:36
Speaker 1: wonderful when we have those moments when we understand something
40:39
Speaker 1: deep about the human experience. All right, well, if you
40:42
Speaker 1: are a flat earther, um, we're sorry that this podcast
40:46
Speaker 1: disappointed you, And if you were around Earth, we're also sorry.
40:50
Speaker 1: Sorry that you're disappointed that the Earth is not round.
40:54
Speaker 1: But if you're a pizza ball earther, then congratulations, you're right,
40:57
Speaker 1: the Earth is a pizza ball. And if you were
40:59
Speaker 1: a flat there and you listen to this podcast and
41:02
Speaker 1: you were convinced link, congratulations for having an open mind.
41:05
Speaker 1: We'll hope you guys enjoyed that. Thank you for listening,
41:08
Speaker 1: See you next time. If you still have a question
41:18
Speaker 1: after listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line.
41:22
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
41:24
Speaker 1: at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's
41:28
Speaker 1: one Word, or email us at Feedback at Daniel and
41:31
Speaker 1: Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel
41:35
Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I
41:38
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit
41:41
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
41:45
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.