The Earth is not flat.

in #science8 years ago

Hi all,

my name is Nicola Ennio and I am an Italian computer scientist. I use a lot the Internet and I think it is a wonderful tool for acquiring knowledge, but there is still a lot of work to do for many topics, especially controversial ones. It looks like people are eager to provide long and detailed opinions, but not short-sentenced relevant facts. Ok, sometimes they are just trolls, but other times they are normal people, like me and you. Steemit, and its incentives mechanism, should be the right place to gather facts about some topic and, hopefully, find the most relevant, opinion-free, and short ones.

The Earth is flat theory

We start with an easy one: the theory that the Earth is flat. Such a theory really exists and it uses mainly two arguments:

  1. Around me I can see a flat landscape, so the Earth is flat.
  2. Conspiratorial forces are trying, for their own advantage, to convince everyone that the Earth is not flat.

Now, let's say it's a bit hilarious to discuss such a thing, but here there are some facts in favor of a spherical* Earth:

  1. All planets, the Moon and the Sun are spheres. Why the planet Earth should be special and different?
  2. Time zones depend on the Earth sphericity. In a flat Earth there would not be time zones.
  3. The Earth casts a rounded shadow on the Moon, just like a sphere.
  4. Distances among cities are like those you would obtain on a sphere, not a flat surface.
  5. We have pictures of the Earth taken from space: it's spherical.

*Actually an oblate spheroid.

So what are your most convincing reasons? Help in the comments :)