Re: The Flat Earth?

Philip Young (young@bunyip.ap.dg.com)
5 May 1995 01:02:07 GMT

In article <3o48kh$vcr@news.sas.ab.ca>,
davidwss@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () writes:
|> Jarrod J. Williamson (jarrod@breeze.seas.ucla.edu) wrote:
|>
|> : Hmmm . . . ever wonder why those photos from the shuttle only can show
|> : one side at a time? The illusion, from space, that the earth is round come from
|> : the little recognized fact that, while truely flat, the earth is dish-shaped!
|>
|> Golly! And here I thought the illusion of roundness in the photos was
|> just the normal distortion from using fisheye lenses! The things you can
|> learn from Usenet!

So close, so close ... the real truth of the matter is that the
Earth is indeed flat. Infinitely repeating tessellations cover the
plane, so dimension is 2, not less. Therefore, you won't ever fall
off the edge, you'll just move into the next (deformed? transformed?)
square.

Objection 1: The supposed impossibility of mapping a spherical surface
onto a flat plane while preserving distance relationships.

Refutation: Space is expanding in ways difficult to comprehend for
beings accustomed to Euclidean 3-space. Remember it's not expanding
into another spatial dimension; the actual shape of 3D space is deformed.

Note that this implies complementary tessellations. We've also disposed
of the pesky notion of free will, since motion is now coupled to an
infinite series of conjugate bodies, all constrained to move in the
same direction, alternately separated by distance D and (complement D).
Sort of the Tomes Harmonic Theory with bells on. Stand between two
parallel mirrors, you'll get the idea.

Objection 2: Pictures from space seem to show a round Earth.

Refutation: Light paths curve, converging upwards. The light horizon
is one tile, and the shape of the curve is like an inverse gravity
well with odd skirts. The higher you go, the smaller the Earth appears.

Planets, even the Moon, are all infinite, parallel, non-intersecting
planes in Escher space.

-- 

Philip R. Young        |             young@bunyip.ap.dg.com

                       |       Philip_Young@dgap.ceo.dg.com



 "It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the

  illuminating blaze of the infernal regions."



  - Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter"