What would happen if the Earth was flat?

THERE are a growing number of people who have publicly come out and said that they believe our world is flat.

The moon landings? Never happened.

Pictures of our planet from space? Fake.

The curvature of the Earth? Optical illusion.

Flat Earthers have a conspiracy theory answer to every logical argument.

So let’s say – just for a moment – that they are right

Let’s pretend we did indeed live on a flat planet – a disk spinning through space.

Well, scientists have a very good idea what life on a flat planet would be like, and here are at least ten things that would be different…

1 Gravity would pull you North

Gravity doesn’t pull you down; it pulls you toward the centre of the Earth.

That’s why people don’t fall off our planet – because our gravity is pulling everything right into the middle.

It’s a pretty good system as long as you live on a round planet.

On a flat Earth, though, gravity wouldn’t really work the same way.

A flat Earth would be thin and long, which would mean that gravity wouldn’t so much pull you down as it would pull you toward whatever happens to be in the middle of the planet.

Now WATCH: What is gravity? By Minute Physics

2 We would all be fried

The Earth is protected from cosmic flares and solar radiation by a magnetic field, and that field only exists because our planet rotates.

If our planet were to stop rotating for any reason, that field would go away and we would be in a lot of trouble.

First, our planet would be absolutely bombarded by solar radiation.

It would tear away at our planet’s ozone layer and, more importantly, the atmosphere, which would start getting thinner and thinner until it was completely gone.

That would make us vulnerable to asteroids and meteors, too.

Without a magnetic field or an atmosphere to protect us, it would just be a matter of time before our planet started getting pelted with asteroids and comets – until the surface of the Earth looked like the surface of the Moon.

3 The tectonic plates would stop moving

Our tectonic plates aren’t shaped like puzzle pieces – they’re curved to fit the roundness of the planet, and they only really work on a sphere.

Every time a tectonic plate moves, it interacts with a plate on the opposite side of the planet.

If the Earth were flat, none of that would work.

It’s not entirely clear how tectonic plates would work on a flat Earth, but our best guess is pretty simple: They wouldn’t.

They would stop moving.

If our planet had no tectonic shift whatsoever, we wouldn’t have any mountains or valleys, either, the ground would be totally flat and even.

There wouldn’t even be oceans – just a consistent pool of water that would equally cover the whole planet.

Even if we did have mountains – because, for example, a wizard put them there – there would still be major changes.

For one thing, volcanoes wouldn’t work anymore and that would be a huge problem.

Volcanoes are a major reason why our atmosphere has oxygen.

If those things stopped going off, we would all have a much harder time breathing.

4 Crossing Antarctica would be… well… impossible

According to most flat Earth models, Antarctica lies on the outer rim of our world.

It makes a perfect ring around the planet.

Along that edge is a massive ice wall to keep all the water from falling off.

In that case, nobody could ever cross Antarctica – which is something a lot of people have done.

People have done it in the dead of winter, they’ve done it on skis, they’ve done it in a car, and they’ve even done it on foot.

We would have to accept that the ice wall is just there by magic.

And we would have to hope that scientists are right about those tectonic plates staying in place.

Otherwise, the ones on the edge of the Earth would shift like crazy and it would just be a matter of time before that ice wall got pushed over the edge.

We would all be watching the ice wall in terror.

At any moment, it could collapse.

Water would go spilling out of the Earth, and the end would come.

5 It would be the vastest conspiracy imaginable

Flat Earth conspiracy theorists say that the round Earth is a conspiracy perpetrated by NASA.

But not only members of NASA would be behind this theory. Every person on Earth who has ever done anything involving space or Antarctica would be in on it.

It’s hard to get an accurate number of how many people that would be, but around 400,000 people were involved in the Apollo project.

Then there’s every person in the Soviet space programme, every person who has ever piloted a weather balloon, the teachers cramming these lies into every curriculum taught in every classroom of this planet.

If the Earth were flat, there would be millions upon millions of people who knew the truth but refused to tell anyone.

Who are Flat Earthers? (Wikipedia)

Modern flat Earth societies consist of individuals who promote the idea that the Earth is flat rather than a sphere.

Such groups date from the middle of the 20th century; some adherents are serious and some are not.

Those who are serious are often motivated by pseudoscience or religious literalism.

Through the use of social media, flat Earth theories have been increasingly espoused by individuals unaffiliated with larger groups, many of which have members around the world.

Read more on this subject at the source credit: listverse.com

Interested in reading more about Flat Earthers? Visit theflatearthsociety.org

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