As you got increasingly far from the center, gravity would tug more and more horizontally. That means it would only pull straight down at one point on the center of the disk. What we know about gravity suggests it would pull toward the center of the disk. People who believe in a flat Earth assume that gravity would pull straight down, but there’s no evidence to suggest it would work that way. The same measurable force that causes an apple to fall from a tree also causes the moon to orbit the Earth and all the planets to orbit the sun.

That’s a pretty big deal, since gravity explains a wide range of Earthly and cosmic observations. It’s unclear how gravity would work, or be created, in such a world, says James Davis, a geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Gravity Failsįirst of all, a pancaked planet might not have any gravity. Let’s examine, then, how the well-known principles of physics and science would work (or not) on a flat Earth.

Members of the Flat Earth Society and several celebrities, including Atlanta rapper B.o.B and NBA player Kyrie Irving, claim to hold such beliefs. Humans have known for thousands of years that the planet is round, yet the belief in a flat Earth refuses to die. If you subscribe to the idea of a flat Earth, then you’d believe that no such thing happened, because the sun rotates in a circle around the sky. The Earth has yet again made a revolution about the sun. If Earth were flat, you’d know it, because a lot of things would work differently.

Is the earth flat?