![]() ![]() This model, of course, neglects the fact that such a planet shape would be impossible. Once you stepped over the edge, instead of falling off into space, you'd be able to relax. What's really cool is that contrary to the "don't fall off the edge" fear, on a flat world because of gravity, the scary risk would actually be falling away from the edge and rolling all the way back to the centre. Remember, this is a flat Earth, but it would feel like a sheer drop off. As you approach the edge, things would get scary. The building foundations behind the runner reflect how you would have to build structures, closer and closer to the edge, so that people living in them always felt like down was at right angles to the floor - the way we feel it on our big, round Earth. Although this is a flat disk, it would feel to a runner headed toward the edge, like they were fighting to climb up a steeper and steeper hill. The person and buildings obviously aren't to scale but check out how such increasingly diagonal gravity would work. My friend Nick from 'yeti dynamics' put together this great simulation. But as you move toward the edge, gravity on a disk Earth would slightly skew, pushing at a greater and greater angle back toward the centre. If the Earth was not a ball shaped, but was instead a flat disk, like this plate, well with the weight, density and thickness, living in the middle could feel pretty normal. Otherwise travellers would be falling off the edge all the time. ![]() ![]() Of course, the Earth is not flat, the Earth is round. In 2003, researchers did the measurements and found that Kansas is in fact literally flatter than a pancake. ![]()
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