The world is flat.....
Discussion
...according to some.
I'm sure some will be aware that there is a whole 'society' that believes the world is actually flat.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
Even though there is a wealth of evidence/proof that the earth is 'spherical' like shaped. (The society views this as a worldwide conspiracy naturally!)
But one thing that arises from relativity is that the earth can be 'flat' if you approach it at/near the speed of light.
Distance contracts the faster you travel, but only in your own time frame reference. So if you travel at/near the speed of light directly towards the earth then for all intensive purposes any measurement you make will show distances vastly reduced in 'true' (relative) length.
[Its why rapidly short life-span muons (elementary particle) generated from cosmic ray interactions with the upper atmosphere are able to make it down in to earth's ground when they shouldn't really exist long enough to travel that far].
Not sure what the flat earthers would make of the 'Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment' though... http://lbne.fnal.gov/images2/lbne-beam-map.png
Another conspiracy I guess
I'm sure some will be aware that there is a whole 'society' that believes the world is actually flat.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
Even though there is a wealth of evidence/proof that the earth is 'spherical' like shaped. (The society views this as a worldwide conspiracy naturally!)
But one thing that arises from relativity is that the earth can be 'flat' if you approach it at/near the speed of light.
Distance contracts the faster you travel, but only in your own time frame reference. So if you travel at/near the speed of light directly towards the earth then for all intensive purposes any measurement you make will show distances vastly reduced in 'true' (relative) length.
[Its why rapidly short life-span muons (elementary particle) generated from cosmic ray interactions with the upper atmosphere are able to make it down in to earth's ground when they shouldn't really exist long enough to travel that far].
Not sure what the flat earthers would make of the 'Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment' though... http://lbne.fnal.gov/images2/lbne-beam-map.png
Another conspiracy I guess
Edited by AA999 on Tuesday 9th December 11:09
Gassing Station | Science! | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff