Why is the Earth Round?

[Stripe]

Easy one to start with.

 

[Inferno]

Easy one to start with.

:shock:
Please tell me you're a troll? It would make you a hundred times more sympathico.

Ok, you ready for the answer? Really?

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{TEXT}

OK next question.

 

[Laurens]

Easy :roll: ... The earth is round because God made it round.

 

[Prolescum]

After Simba retreated from public view, he asked the king of Wakanda what he thought the world should look like. On a whim, T'Challa said, "Round." before walking into a storm and vanishing for the next three years. Simba's roar made it so, like a feline Patrick Stewart.

Why do you think it's round?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Easy one to start with.

​

 

[Stripe]

Gravity.

Correct!

Told you it was easy.

Next question - and this should be a simple answer also. If the Earth were rendered significantly non-spherical, what would happen?

 

[Inferno]

Next question - and this should be a simple answer also. If the Earth were rendered significantly non-spherical, what would happen?

God actually WOULD play dice?

 

[Dustnite]

God actually WOULD play dice?

I think the dice are loaded...

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Gravity.

Correct!

Told you it was easy.

Next question - and this should be a simple answer also. If the Earth were rendered significantly non-spherical, what would happen?

Sounds like a movie directed by Roland Emmerich.

In moderate seriousness, I imagine we would all die.

 

[nasher168]

Next question - and this should be a simple answer also. If the Earth were rendered significantly non-spherical, what would happen?

It is slightly non-spherical.
It's an oblate spheroid, like this, only not quite as pronounced:

 

[Inferno]

Next question - and this should be a simple answer also. If the Earth were rendered significantly non-spherical, what would happen?

It is slightly non-spherical.
It's an oblate spheroid, like this, only not quite as pronounced:

We geographers use a slightly different and slightly more correct word: Geoid.

 

[nasher168]

Geoid.

"Earth-shape."

Quiet, you!

 

[nasher168]

Ah, just noticed that Stripe said "significantly non-spherical", not "slightly non-spherical"


What would happen, you ask?

Well it depends what has caused it to become significantly non-spherical. Maybe it has started spinning much, much faster for some reason. Or maybe it has been blown to pieces by a colossal explosion.

Something would have to cause it to become significantly non-spherical.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Next question - and this should be a simple answer also. If the Earth were rendered significantly non-spherical, what would happen?

It would eventually become more or less spherical again.

 

[australopithecus]

I'm pretty sure we'd all become Bizarros.

 

[Stripe]

Ah, just noticed that Stripe said "significantly non-spherical", not "slightly non-spherical"


What would happen, you ask?

Well it depends what has caused it to become significantly non-spherical. Maybe it has started spinning much, much faster for some reason. Or maybe it has been blown to pieces by a colossal explosion.

Something would have to cause it to become significantly non-spherical.

Good point. Let's say a 1/4 Moon size chunk was teleported from continental USA to somewhere close to our second nearest sun.

Now you've got a round Earth with a great big hole in it. What happens?

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Ah, just noticed that Stripe said "significantly non-spherical", not "slightly non-spherical"


What would happen, you ask?

Well it depends what has caused it to become significantly non-spherical. Maybe it has started spinning much, much faster for some reason. Or maybe it has been blown to pieces by a colossal explosion.

Something would have to cause it to become significantly non-spherical.

Good point. Let's say a 1/4 Moon size chunk was teleported from continental USA to somewhere close to our second nearest sun.

Now you've got a round Earth with a great big hole in it. What happens?

Well first of all everyone dies.

Then what Improbable said.

 

[nasher168]

Well, the vacuum left by the sudden, enormous gap would probably suck in atmosphere from around the remainder of the planet to equalise the pressure. So highly-destructive winds across the planet might be the immediate effect, followed very shortly afterwards by the Earth's mantle filling the gap. Catastrophic seismic activity across the globe, rearrangement of the tectonic plates, tsunamis...
Okay, all of that was just speculation. But whatever the case, we'd be fucked.

Eventually, though, as Joe said, the planet would form the most stable shape again under gravity, as a slightly smaller spheroid with a slightly less-dense atmosphere due to the reduced gravity.

 

[Stripe]

It would eventually become more or less spherical again.

Right! Gravity would make it spherical once more. We can see this on a small scale in open cast mining when the floor of the mine buckles upward because of the mass removed above it. Or in the center of a complex crater on the Moon.

What two obvious consequences will result from such a reformation of the Earth's mass?

 

[Anachronous Rex]

It would eventually become more or less spherical again.

Right! Gravity would make it spherical once more. We can see this on a small scale in open cast mining when the floor of the mine buckles upward because of the mass removed above it. Or in the center of a complex crater on the Moon.

What two obvious consequences will result from such a reformation of the Earth's mass?

I have this feeling that you want to take this somewhere very specific. If so, you may as well lay it all out because we've already pointed out several immediately obvious consequences and apparently they're not what you're looking for.

It's like asking, "what one thing springs to mind when I mention Arthurian Legends?"

Sword in the stone?
Merlin?
Camelot?
Round table?
Affair with Lancelot?
That whole Incest thing?