What is the biggest feature of a flat design? The fact that it will have edges, no matter how big the dimensions are, an outside limit of that object, area, or surface is bound to be present and where there are edges, there are risks of falling off. This was the single biggest fear that prevented seafarers from venturing deep into the oceans, as they feared that their ships might slide off the edge and fall straight into the fathomless space. And hence the idea that Earth is not flat but spherical was truly revolutionary.
The first recorded evidence of the idea of a spherical Earth appeared in Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, however cultures and religious text across the world advocated the flat earth model. Leaving a few exceptions like the fifth stanza of the Bhagavata Purana, that describes the earth as a sphere, and explains the phenomenon of sunrise, sunset, the rise and setting of moon and planets from the point of view of spherical shapes and the non-stationary traits of astronomical bodies, most religious and ancient text talk about a flat earth. Ancient Chinese text stated about a flat and square Earth and round heavens. There have been raging debates about the flat earth in early church era too. And the Quran mentions that the world was “laid out“.
But of course, we have advanced as a species now. We have photographic evidences to prove that the earth is neither flat nor stationary. But that doesn’t deter the spirits of young ‘researchers’. Now here’s the story:
An Arab student backed by her professor has claimed that the earth is flat and stationary. She went on to reject Newtonian Laws and Einstein’s equations, she challenged the astronomy of Copernicus and Kepler, the cosmology of the Big Bang and the main models of atmospheric and geological activity.
As per this Gulfnews report, The research scholar submitted her thesis after five years of work; it was then sent to two assessors, and it passed the first stage of approvals. A copy of this seminal thesis was “leaked” to a former president of the Tunisian Astronomical Association, who after finding no sarcasm and satire disclaimers, sounded the alarm by posting the general conclusions of the thesis, verbatim on Facebook.
The report is purported to be available online and is supposed to be having “countless grammatical errors, mediocre references, puny scientific arguments”. Some of the major arguments made in the thesis are that the Earth is flat, it stands immobile at the centre of the universe, which is made of a single galaxy. The sun’s diameter is calculated as 1,135km (While the world considers it 1.4 million km). There are 11 planets; stars are “limited” in number and have a diameter of 292 km (not millions of km).
From time to time to we keep hearing about concepts like 72 Virgins, Superhuman virility for people who die for the ‘holy cause’. We keep hearing about Jannats and Jahannums and elixir from mythical falls. But those outrageous statements are generally made and propagated by clerics. Flat Earth is another recurring ghost wherein the religious ‘scholar’ try proving that the world is indeed laid out and not spherical as the photographs or the phenomenon of Sunrise and sunset would suggest. But then again, a cleric’s word is either a bad understanding or recital of an out-of-date literature, but when men and women of science invest their time and talent in proving ideas as ridiculous as flat earth, their entire intention comes under scanner.
There can be only one explanation for this horseplay. The mad drive to prove what is stated in religious scriptures. It is like populating the right-hand side with pre-determined solutions and fiddling with the left-hand side equations, changing them, ignoring basic mathematical rules to somehow prove that RHS is indeed equal to LHS. The adherence to religious scriptural literalism has no place in science. And there is no flat earth.