If you hear the two words “Flat Earth” you’d think it to be a joke and laugh as any normal human would do. But one look at the Flat Earth Society Facebook page and Reddit forums and you’d know this is no joke. Even in the year 2018, there are many people who wholeheartedly believe in the lie that the Earth is flat.
They are not delusional but truly believe it that the Earth is flat and stick by their beliefs like a religion. There are meetings and conventions where like-minded people of the Flat Earth Community meet and have discussions on this topic.
The Flat Earth Society is a group of people who still believe that the Earth is not round like a sphere but flat like a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures believed this and their work are followed even today by a few.
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You must be thinking that why are people even following this today? Are they fools to believe this? It’s more like pop culture that brought the rise of flat earth once again. The most recent one was the solar eclipse of 2017 in the month of August. This event saw the rise of videos on YouTube showing details of how the eclipse proves that the Earth is flat.
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Another scandal in the same year involving "the Tunisian and Arab scientific and educational world" took place when a Ph.D. student submitted a thesis paper saying that the earth was flat, 13,500 years old and at the centre of the universe.
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Today we are going to see how an ordinary man’s ordinary picture of Lake Michigan along with a bit of curiosity and maths helped him prove that the Earth is round and not flat. The man in question in 47-year-old Greg Pagel.
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This long panorama shot of Lake Michigan was taken by Greg Pagel, standing a few miles away from his house in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The shot does look good and has been something Greg has seen a lot. Upon further inspection of the image, Greg came to a conclusion.
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Upon looking closer he noticed he could see the beach at Silver Creek Park on the right of the image and to the left, he could see the south side of Tow Rivers. It’s called Two Rivers because it sounds nicer than “Three trees and a couple of rocks”. So what’s wrong with the image you must be thinking? I look like any normal image of the horizon.
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Looking hard at the image he noticed the horizon was flat. Yes, of course, the horizon is flat, you’ll say. Even after zooming in, there wasn’t even a slight curve in the horizon. Thinking back to what he was taught in school he kept looking. The earth is round, so why isn’t there even a slight bend or curve on the horizon.
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Even after zooming in closer the horizon was flat and no hint of a curve was visible. You could put a ruler and draw and you’d draw right over the horizon. Now, instead of running and joining the Flat Earth Society he waited and did a little research on the topic.
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So, after seeing this did Greg give up? Nope! Making use of the advanced technology we have today, like Google Earth, Greg was able to pinpoint where he was standing and where the two points in his image were. This gave him a better idea of the place as he could see an aerial view of it.
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He noticed that the distance shown between Silver Creek and Two River’s south side was 8.4 miles 13 and a half kilometre. All this was thanks to the tech we have available at home and a bit of curiosity to know more. But this wasn’t enough, Greg wanted to know more. So, he turned to maths.
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He then brought maths in to solve this case. From a simple photo of a lake to Google Earth to distance and then to maths, Greg went in head first to prove his point. He used maths to find out how much of an arc would 8.4 miles makes out of the entire earth’s circumference. He found out that 8.4 miles of the Earth’s circumference makes an arc of 0.12 degrees.
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Now Greg needed to see for himself what a 0.12-degree arc would look like. For this, he broke out the graph paper. There was no better or easier way to know this. On a graph, you can easily graph a circle and pinpoint precise locations.
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First Greg needed to get the right degree. He started with 90, the 45, then 20 and lastly to 1 degree. As you can see, a 1-degree arc is quite flat and has no curve. This would explain why a 0.12-degree arc would not be visible to the naked eye. But he still found it.
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After a while, Greg was able to see what a 0.12-degree arc would look like. That’s when he realized that it isn’t much, it’s barely noticeable. In a simple graph drawing one can see it better but on the horizon, it becomes harder to see. In this way, he was able to prove the earth is round.
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So, finally, Greg was able to prove the earth is round. Yes, we all knew this from the start but it is quite enjoyable and a good learning experience to see how a man’s curiosity can get him to find answers. Yes, Greg could’ve just left the image as it is and ignored any reason to get an explanation. But that is what’s so beautiful about the human mind. Our thirst for knowledge, our hunger for answers.
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