Why is Earth round?

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Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,904
6,787
126
Damn yakko, if you really are yakko, you got me wondering about that now too. I bet every place gets called earth.
 

Dexion

Golden Member
Apr 30, 2000
1,591
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<< i believe xeon gas was accelerated past the speed of light in a chamber at -423 degrees >>



Actually you are incorrect. Firstly, Xenon is a sythetically extracted element that is present on Earth naturally to an extent of about 0.0000086 percent. Secondly, the element xenon is used in lamps that produce intense, extremely short flashes of light, such as stroboscopes and lights for high-speed photography. Basically, at a vacuum chamber at -423 degrees celsius, what emitts from Xenon Gas would most definately be light. What you might have heard of is the technique to use a frictionless abnormal temperature environment(manmade) to make xenon gas emitted light travel faster than what was recorded (299,792.458km/s). Mind you that in reality, the speed of light depends on the material that light moves through. Thus, for example, light moves slower in glass than in air, and in both cases the speed is less than in a vacuum. However, the density of matter between the stars is sufficiently low that the actual speed of light through most of interstellar space is essentially the speed it would have through a vacuum, so we don't make much error by ignoring the difference. It is quite possible to find light travelling faster than that of been recorded. One thing for sure, there has been nothing faster than the Speed of Light itself. Einstein is still correct.
 

Mday

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
18,647
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gravity which accounts for the centripetal force

centrifugal force is the imaginary force that counters centripetal force... the bulge is due to this imaginary force... friction =)
 

UG

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,370
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Gravity compresses Earth's matter into a sphere. The accretional collapse of the Earth during its formation provided the angular momentum whereby Earth continues to rotate, producing the centripetal force that reshapes Earth into an oblate spheroid with a measureable asymmetry between its northern and southern hemispheres.
 

Capn

Platinum Member
Jun 27, 2000
2,716
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A drop of water is generally spherical because of a reduction in surface energy, however I believe the earth being round has everything to do with gravitational forces.
 

Noriaki

Lifer
Jun 3, 2000
13,640
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in so far as the Earth is round (which it's not, but pretty close) is due to Gravitational forces. There are other forces at work that make it bulge at the waste a bit.
(I wish I could blame the buldge at my waste on those forces, unfortuatnely in my case it's eating to much junk food and being to lazy :D)
 

BA

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 1999
5,004
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You'd probably be getting pretty dizzy enough if your bulge was due to rotation. Although, if you drank enough, and then just tried to keep up with the room...hmmm..
 

zippy

Diamond Member
Nov 10, 1999
9,998
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The proper name for the shape of the earth is: oblate spheroid.

I know why, I just don't have the time or will to put it into words...sorry folks, i'm lazy today, its tough running on 3 hours and 50 minutes of sleep....
 

Shazam

Golden Member
Dec 15, 1999
1,136
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Actually, apparently gravity may have a wave nature with a frequency well above the billion hertz range... Cool eh?

Of course, this theory could be shot down at any time...
 

yakko

Lifer
Apr 18, 2000
25,455
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You guys keep saying gravity. There is no gravity. The Earth(if that really is the name) just sucks that is why we don't fall off. It is called the Monica effect.
 

wolf550e

Golden Member
May 22, 2000
1,370
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its a form which creates minimal ratio between the surface area and its volume.
(check my english)

4*Pi*R^2

-------- ==== minimum

4
-*Pi*R^3
3
 

MrPALCO

Banned
Nov 14, 1999
2,064
0
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<< Why is Earth round? >>



Magnetics play a vital role in the reason God created the Earth as a sphere...gravity is another issue.

How do you think the Pyramids were built?

;)

Edit...spelling..;)