• don@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    So you’re saying the earth is a very smooth ball bearing. This despite being classified as an oblate spheroid.

    • Deuces@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m guessing smoothness doesn’t consider the non-spherical shape of the planet, just the bumpiness of it. But I’m also some random on the Internet, so who knows

      • don@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I think I’m missing what the smoothness of the planet has to do with it being basically an iron-nickel ball covered by a bit of rock, but being a meat popsicle, I tend to miss a lot of things.

    • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      The difference in diameter between the pole and the equator is only about 26 miles.

      7926 miles vs 7900 miles

      So a difference of about 0.03%

      Yeah I’d say that’s pretty spherical

      Edit: Rereading this it comes of a bit rougher than I intended. Basically what I’m saying is something can be spherical without being a perfect sphere, infact if to be a sphere (in common usage of the word) only applied to perfect examples of a sphere than nothing would be a sphere. Definitions are pretty wishy-washy a lot of the times, especially when it comes to describing the world as it is.

      Earth is an oblique spheroid, technically. But calling it a sphere is true enough to observers that I’d say it still counts.