The Earth is Flat, and you will prove it.

[durangodawood]

...Looking from the moon it will look like a globe.
But once you get back to the planet, it will be flat again.
Reality is reality and not what scientists want reality to be.

I see your problem!
You think only immediate human-body-scale experiences are reality.
...
Thats seems awfully hubristic: that you are the measure of all things.

 

[durangodawood]

It is shaped like like a dropped lump of bead dough.

This is wrong.
The planet shaped basically like a sphere.
(Though I dont account for that, on my tiny little portion, when I design a foundation)

 

[SkyWriting]

I see your problem!
You think only immediate human-body-scale experiences are real.
Thats seems awfully hubristic: that you are the measure of all things.

I'm from the US. We measure things in feet.
A perfectly flat ruler would extend 1.5 miles
from my toes and the step down due to the
earths curve would be about a foot.

Using one mile (1.6 KM) instead of my foot still measures
out to be a practically flat surface.

What measure would you have me use? Your reality perhaps?

 

[SkyWriting]

This is wrong.
The planet shaped basically like a sphere.
(Though I dont account for that, on my tiny little portion, when I design a foundation)

I'm quite sure you specify that the foundation is level on each end.
This does account for the curvature.

 

[durangodawood]

I'm from the US. We measure things in feet.
A perfectly flat ruler would extend 1.5 miles
from my toes and the step down due to the
earths curve would be about a foot.

Using one mile instead of my foot still measures
out to be a practically flat surface.

I already said I agreed with this!
For most of our practical purposes, we can consider our little patch of earth, where we live and build things, functionally flat.

For certain other practical purposes, that doesnt work at all. My friend has built quite a career engineering satellite communications. His round-earth reality is no less real or essential than my local flat earth idealization when I design a building.

And the whole planet itself is basically spherical, obviously. No localized fudge-factoring changes that one bit.
Right?

 

[durangodawood]

I'm quite sure you specify that the foundation is level on each end.
This does account for the curvature.

???
Not at all. They set up near one foundation corner with a laser and shoot all the corners. The effect of gravity on the laser light doesnt remotely account for the full curvature. But its not significant, as we discussed.

 

[SkyWriting]

???
Not at all. They set up at near one foundation corner with a laser and shoot all the corners. The effect of gravity on the laser light doesnt remotely account for the full curvature. But its not significant, as we discussed.

Idiots. Have them set one in the center like real contractors do.

 

[SkyWriting]

I already said I agreed with this!
For most of our practical purposes, we can consider our little patch of earth, where we live and build things, functionally flat.
For certain other practical purposes, that doesnt work at all. My friend has built quite a career engineering satellite communications. His round-earth reality is no less real or essential than my local flat earth idealization when I design a building.
And the whole planet itself is basically spherical, obviously. No localized fudge-factoring changes that one bit.
Right?

That to my point that very few need to care what they cannot measure themselves.
The runway for the space shuttle need nothing more than a marble to construct properly.

 

[durangodawood]

Idiots. Have them set one in the center like real contractors do.

Nice when your site is flat and level. Unlike most I deal with.
(Plus, you said it doesnt matter. We can consider the earth flat.)

 

[durangodawood]

That to my point that very few need to care what they cannot measure themselves.

We can, and should, do both:
1. idealize for local conditions.
2. create accurate models of reality thats beyond human-body scale.

 

[Armoured]

And how well would that "fly" with your employer when the rain puddles in the middle?
Your career building runways is over and your company is dissolved.

It wouldn't pool in the middle, the water would flow over the side. The problem is the design specifications. You didn't explain whether you wanted 2 or 3 dimensional flat.

 

[SkyWriting]

It wouldn't pool in the middle, the water would flow over the side.

Nope. All 4 edges would be higher in sea-level elevation than the middle
if constructed geometrically flat.

 

[Armoured]

Nope. All 4 edges would be higher in sea-level elevation than the middle
if constructed geometrically flat.

Not gunna pool.

 

[durangodawood]

Not gunna pool.

Hes right (in this instance)

 

[SkyWriting]

Not gunna pool.

A geometrically flat surface will pool water.
A crowned but flat surface will pool water.
And a crowned surface will pool water to some degree
due to surface tension.
Light groves will minimize the amount of water that
remains on the cement due to surface tension.

 

[Armoured]

Hes right (in this instance)

I often am, yet people are always surprised...

 

[Armoured]

A geometrically flat surface will pool water.
A crowned but flat surface will pool water.
And a crowned surface will pool water to some degree
due to surface tension.
Light groves will minimize the amount of water that
remains on the cement due to surface tension.

I think what you and everyone else think of as a pool are two different things.

 

[durangodawood]

I often am, yet people are always surprised...

Not you, silly!
Youre wrong.

 

[Armoured]

Not you, silly!
Youre wrong.

How do you figure you'e going to get water pooling on a flat surface?

 

[The Cadet]

And that is how people experience the world...even spacemen.

Right, but we're not talking about "how we experience it". We're talking about how it actually is. Because the moment I put away the microscope and zoom out, my marble stops appearing to be flat. So what shape is the earth?