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Why is the Earth round?
How do I know it is round? It wanted to be like the Sun :O) When I fly with a plane, and when I look thru the window, the Earth looks round. Maybe plane windows are curved, and that may be the reason why things I see thru it appear round. Well, it also looks round if I look at it from a very tall building like Hancock building in Chicago. This roundedness is not an artifact of a window, but is a real phenomena. If I always walk straight, I'll come back to the same place. Maybe it has a shape of a Moebius strip. If I walk straight on this strip, I will also come to the starting place.[1] But if I walk along Moebius strip and always look up, I will see opposite side of it at some times. This never happens with Earth. maybe I was drunk, hik, and I was walking circles instead of lines! But when I'm drunk, I cant remember where I am, even less if I ended up at the same place where I started walking! Maybe I was just sleeping. No wonder why I would end up at the same place then ;) I never really walked the whole Earth. Maybe if I do this, I will see the opposite side of it somewhere if I keep looking up! More exact question is why is the Earth shaped like a sphere? [2] Actually, Earth's shape is very close to an oblate spheroid.[3]because gravity is uniform & constant?
that's a nice observation. so, since gravity attract towards center, with constant force, it forms a sphere. No, wait! Where was the center before it become a sphere? Also, is gravity uniform, or does it decrease with a distance? God created it like that. Gods like to play football![4] I tend to disagree. They like playing tennis. This is an interesting article for more articles like this check out [5] The answer that says it is very close to being an oblate spheroid is correct. A perfect sphere would have to be absolutely static so as to not allow ANY variations of surface altitude. Closest to this are neutron stars, but all astronomical objects of good size (where gravity dominates all other forces) will tend to be round in order to maximize volume all while minimizing surface area. Circles and all their analogs are the only shapes which allow this.
That is an interesting fact. Gravity maximizes volume while minimizing surface. Life in a way acts differently. Surface on plants and animals seems to be far from minimized. On contrary, there seem to be all these finely grained details on living organisms, that make our bodies and organs so rich and diverse in shapes and surfaces. Also, the surface of the earth is far from smooth. On the large scale, it is round, but when looked at closely, it is everything but round -- more fractal like. I agree - and this becomes evident (on astronomical scales) when we see asteroids - they are rough, and the gravitation is not strong enough to keep them round due to their small mass (relative to planets, etc). Another related fact is that you will not see straight lines occur too often in nature (in terms of landscapes). This only happens on smaller scales, such as crystal structures and such.
Long live knowledge! lol in christian religion because god made it this way.
in science this will keep the planet in balance with the sun and all other planets, there is a very very long theory about it, i recommend you to search it trough the internet also about the moon and stuff.
there are also more theories about it, also like thats even hollow with another world in it that has an sun also that the core of the earth.
but also an theories that i think is also explaned hopefully then here on this topic. The earth is spherical because that is most stable shape in the presence of gravity. It is shaped like an oblate spheroid because it rotates. I think that the earth is a halo. It must be as i am god. YEAh Maybe windows on Hancock are also curved? Brake one window and you will find out. If you look down through some deep well, you may also see the opposite side of it. Not quite, I would see they sky at the and of the 'tunnel' (well). Gravity is a central force, meaning it is equal in every direction, and any distortion from the spherical shape is being "pulled back" by the gravity. But wouldn't the end of the tunnel be also the other end of the Earth? My teacher told me. What do you mean by 'straight'? What is straight?