why does it matter if the earth is flat or round

Now that humanity knows quite positively that the moon is not a piece of cheese or a playful god, the phenomena that accompany it (from its monthly cycles to lunar eclipses) are well-explained. On we go, to the top 10 ways to unequivocally, absolutely, positively prove the Earth isn’t flat. You don’t need to denounce all science and knowledge and believe in a conspiracy theory to enjoy some historical factoids about humanity’s quest for space. But the history of our species’ intellectual pursuit is important and interesting. He claims it’s ridiculous to even bother rebutting the Flat Earth Society-and I tend to agree. I’ve had a few ideas on how to do that, but got an interesting incentive when Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, wrote about the the Flat Earth Society. Humanity has known the world is not flat for a few millennia, and I’ve been meaning to show more methods on how to prove the Earth is round.

This article was originally posted on her Smarter Than That blog in 2008 and has been lightly edited for Popular Science.

Moriel Schottlender is a software engineer at Wikimedia Foundation.

Why does it matter if the earth is flat or round