[audio version of introduction, including The nature of proof]
In 1885, prominent flat-Earth theorist William Carpenter published a pamphlet titled One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe. In it, he elucidated 100 separate proofs that the Earth is a flat plane, and not a globe as so many people of the time thought.
Many of Carpenter’s “proofs” look ridiculously flawed to modern eyes. But… how do we know that he wasn’t right? Everyone tells us the world is round, but have you ever proved it for yourself? Is the Earth really a globe, or have we been told a lie? What do we mean by “proof” anyway? (See: The nature of proof.)
Can I come up with rigorous, scientific evidence that demonstrates that the Earth is in fact a globe? Can I come up with one hundred different lines of evidence?
Let’s see.
What? Who are you and why are you doing this?
I’m David Morgan-Mar, author of the comics Darths & Droids, Irregular Webcomic!, and a bunch of other stuff. I’m also a research scientist in digital photography and image processing, with a background in astrophysics.
The goal of this site is not to convince doubters that the world is round.
It began with Carpenter’s pamphlet, and the idea of seeing just how many different observations or experiments you can do that give results that make a whole lot more sense if the world is round than if it’s flat. When I got up to over 100, I decided this would make a good series of science essays, united by an interesting theme.
So the goal is really just to show off some cool—and sometimes rather surprising—science. That’s always a goal worth pursuing.
Copyright
Original text and images on this site are Copyright David Morgan-Mar 2019-2022. Feel free to link and share, but do not copy/republish without permission. Other images are either public domain, reproductions in part from cited research papers, or used with permission and credited.