Preface To A Flat Show: Oh It's One Of Those Shows Again

(image from here.)

Yeah, yeah, it's another Self Help Radio based on a word as the theme rather than something that has one fixed meaning.  Flat can mean smooth-surfaced, or deflated, or lacking carbonation, or it can be an apartment or it can be a "note played a semitone lower than a natural," which is something I don't understand because I know very little about music theory & also it's in quotes because I took it from the Wiktionary.  It'll be one of those shows, get over it, whatever.

What I want to talk about is that image up there, which illustrates a fascinating article called "What If The Earth Was Flat?"  In case you don't read it, here are some spoilers:

Well, first, the reason our planet is a sphere is because of gravity, & if it were somehow flattened, gravity would turn it back to its roundish self.  As the article states, "Once you get rid of gravity, everything about our planet rapidly stops making sense."

But things like plate tectonics wouldn't work either, so a flat earth would have no earthquakes.

You know what?  Read the damn article.  It actually says, "Every explanation of the moon's existence involves gravity."  Did they tell that to the illustrator?  Because the earth is flat but the moon in that image is round.  Which makes me wonder - do flat earthers think the moon is flat too?

In this article, which asks that question, we get this fascinating response: "Davidson says he doesn't have any sense of what planets are made of or what shape they would be. 'I wouldn't go so far as to say everything's flat,' he said. The sun, moon, & planets, 'They appear to be spherical, they could be disks,' he added. 'I don't think it really matters too much,' he said. 'I just don't believe that we're on a sphere.'"

Astounding.

Will we talk a bit about flat earthers tomorrow night?  Who knows?  Not me!  Not yet anyway.  Still.  That moon in that picture up there.  Wow.