• Question: If the earth was a cube could you walk off the sides and become sideways?

    Asked by Alex William Urmson to Adam, Deborah, Matt on 22 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Adam Hargreaves

      Adam Hargreaves answered on 22 Jun 2017:


      Afraid not! Most massive objects are usually spherical (planets, stars etc.) because the bigger something is the higher gravitational pull it will have, which combined with the huge mass, forces the object into a sphere. If the Earth was a cube, the gravitational pull would actually be the greatest at the centre of each of the squares forming the sides, so all our oceans and atmosphere would be drawn to the middle, whilst around the edges there would be a barren, uninhabitable wasteland with no atmosphere.

    • Photo: Matthew Lee

      Matthew Lee answered on 22 Jun 2017:


      Yeah Adam answered this one really well! This is a really cool video that explains how gravity would be different on a flat earth – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs

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