Flat Earth or Round Earth?

For a flat ( disc-shaped ) planet to be stable, you will need your planet to rotate at very high speed, so the centripetal force can balance the outer gravity force.

This would however torn the planet apart unless said planet is made from very strong materials, as there would be high acceleration difference in some part of a disc-shaped planet.

A disc-shaped celestial body that doesn't have high rotation speed will crumble tectonically if it was not made from strong enough material, and thus evolve to become spherical in shape.

If you want to study this effect in detail, just use Newtonian gravity model, and make 3D-lattice of point-mass connected with "wires" that assumed capable of withstanding certain pressure difference. For higher rotation speed, you will need to use Post-Parameterized Newtonian gravity model, but unless you have a big computer in your disposal, I doubt you could go that far.

It is a fair response, as the bible was supposedly the 'word of god' and thus infallible. The bible stated, if you accept the translations, that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it. Galileo Galileo contradicted these 'facts' and was harrassed and punished by the Roman Catholic Church, his works were confiscated and hidden away as being blasphemous ... The Roman Catholic Church relented some time later. Hey - the earth is round, ya know! AND it is somewhat older than 6'000 years! Many other such facts send the bible spinning downwards to crash and burn as being exactly what it is - an uninformed saga written by ancient man, who knew very little of the facts of physics, geography and really ancient history, for ancient mankind. It's now 2007. Have you realised?

Since the earth is supported in the air by turtles, it is logical to think that the planet is flat. It would be more easily balanced.

God holds the earth in the palm of His hand. So I would suppose That would mean that it is round more like a ball or sphere.

funny. we were talking about this argument in my argument based research class today.

i cannot even fathom HOW someone could honestly think the earth is flat. how would it be possible to start on one side, fly on a plane for hours in one direction, and end up in the same place you started. or, they could just look at a picture of earth. c'mon now.

First of all, the Holy Bible tells us that the earth is round, that is the best reason that I can think of.

Also, if the earth was flat, with out Jets, trains, etc, we would have already fallen off the edge. : )

It is flat. Google Earth is a lie! The Bible said it was flat, so it must be so! [/sarcasm]

Those who disagree with this, how do you explain all of those people in the Middle Ages saying that the Bible proved such things?

Flat earth no longer exists.

It is round but today it kind of feels like it is flat. Frankly I am glad it is round as falling of the edge would really suck.

round or sphereical as there is numerous evidence... Such as satelite imagery, eclipses, and the lacking the ability to fall of the side of the earth.