My buddy from geology class dropped a line about gravity that shook my flat earth assumptions

We were grabbing coffee after class and he said 'if the earth were flat, gravity would pull everything toward the center of the disk, not straight down like we always feel.' Now I'm trying to wrap my head around whether that math actually works out or if he's just messing with me. Has anyone here looked into how gravity would behave on a flat plane?

2 comments

2 Comments

ray_williams19d ago

That flat earth gravity thing is actually a solid point... if the disk is spinning, you'd feel pulled toward the edges instead of straight down. The math gets real messy when you try to figure out why stuff falls at the same speed everywhere on a plane. Your buddy's got a good argument there.

the_olivia19d ago

Wait, are you SERIOUSLY saying the math works out for a spinning disk? Because I've tried to crunch those numbers myself and it falls apart REAL quick. How do you explain the Coriolis effect bending everything left or right depending on hemisphere then? That only makes sense on a sphere where different latitudes move at different speeds. On a flat disk, that gradient doesn't exist. You'd get the SAME force everywhere, not different ones. Your buddy might want to double check his calculations before posting them as "solid points.