did people actually think the world was flat?

The Running Man · 4 May 2010 at 17:07

but that the earth itself is not...as a whole...

how much square area is flat then?

its strange to think of the sea as being not flat?

'Wes · 4 May 2010 at 17:10

Nickg said:
but that the earth itself is not...as a whole...

how much square area is flat then?

its strange to think of the sea as being not flat?

It isn't, it has waves and ripples and stuff

.

B@Th*nG · 4 May 2010 at 17:10

platypus said:
I wish the earth was flat. It would make mowing my lawn a damned sight easier.

what? lol. i take it you have a bumpy lawn?

B@

Cosimo · 4 May 2010 at 17:11

LOAM said:
The earth is flat

... and the universe orbits the earth, no wait, the sun.....

SourChipmunk · 4 May 2010 at 17:13

B@Th*nG said:
what? lol. i take it you have a bumpy lawn?

B@

A HUGE lawn. It stretches over the horizon and he can't tell as he's mowed it or not. :eek:

Efour · 4 May 2010 at 17:16

This was a question on QI, and the answer was no, it was never thought it was flat, tho i have a lot of things come to mind about it, like ships falling off the edge of the world etc, QI (lol) is usually good and correct on silly trivia

neodude · 4 May 2010 at 17:19

Gilly said:
I fail to see how that makes a difference to it being flat :/ Or at least non-spherical.

The earth is not spherical, it is an oblate spheroid [/pedantic]

starfighter · 4 May 2010 at 17:21

Even the Greeks new it wasn't flat because they thought the Earth was the centre of the universe and planets/sun orbited it.

You would have to be really stupid, I mean how do you explain the horizon?

B@Th*nG · 4 May 2010 at 17:23

Raist said:
A HUGE lawn. It stretches over the horizon and he can't tell as he's mowed it or not.

my heart bleeds!

B@

*Moangroan* · 4 May 2010 at 18:00

there is no evidence to support whether they thought it was flat or they did not. Infact that goes for most if not all history. Just one persons or one writers viewpoint.

aardvark · 4 May 2010 at 18:04

nope, next question.

markweatherill · 4 May 2010 at 18:20

platypus said:
I suppose, if one wanted to be pedantic, you could argue that at any one point on the earth's circumference, it is flat.

Put another way, the Earth may well be spherical, but its surface is darn near flat.

manoz · 4 May 2010 at 18:22

I suppose it depended where you lived lol.

Cosimo · 4 May 2010 at 18:34

manoz said:
I suppose it depended where you lived lol.

The ones living close to the edge must have been a bit worried.

Qdos · 4 May 2010 at 18:50

Zatoichi.uK said:
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Must be a hoax though....

Sadly, it isn't. While a few people join it as a joke and use it to stimulate thought on established scientific "facts" (like a spherical Earth), there's a large amount of people who do indeed believe that the Earth is flat.

Gilly · 4 May 2010 at 20:29

neodude said:
The earth is not spherical, it is an oblate spheroid [/pedantic]

Take your pedantry elsewhere, I didn't say the Earth

nex20 · 4 May 2010 at 20:31

WUT?! The world isn't flat!?

mcast123 · 4 May 2010 at 20:45

If I put myself living 2000 years ago with no education, I'd probably say the earth was flat. I'd also believe in some crazy sun/sea/moon god or maybe be dumb enough to believe some smart guy that said he was the son of a god....not that anyone would believe that these days...oh wait...

K.C. Leblanc · 4 May 2010 at 20:52

The world is just a great big onion.

snowdog · 4 May 2010 at 21:24

Who was it that said ''One does not discover new lands without losing sight of the shore'' ? Because people were afraid to go too far into the sea to not fall off the earth?