Could You See the Curvature of the Earth in This Airport?

TL;DR - use a theodolite with measurement poles at each end and in the middle. No iphones, laser pens or bowling balls needed. Sometimes it comes down to having the right tools for the job.

Re: Could You See the Curvature of the Earth in This Airport?

#7

Post by Someone » Mon, Aug 25, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

One could also use the bowling ball to answer the level vs straight question. Ignoring such nuisances as friction, on a straight floor, a ball let loose would roll towards the center of the hall, and oscillate around it.

In practice, it may be possible to somewhat reliably measure a difference in deceleration rolling the ball towards an end of the hall vs towards its center.

And of course, if one also has a scale, the weight of the ball can be used to see whether the floor is level.

Re: Could You See the Curvature of the Earth in This Airport?

#8

Post by stansmith » Mon, Aug 25, 2014, 4:58 PM UTC

"The top of the Golden Gate Bridge is almost two inches wider at the top than the base because of the curvature of the Earth"

http://datagenetics.com/blog/june32012/index.html

Re: Could You See the Curvature of the Earth in This Airport?

#9

Post by lutusp » Mon, Aug 25, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

stansmith wrote: post #8

"The top of the Golden Gate Bridge is almost two inches wider at the top than the base because of the curvature of the Earth" http://datagenetics.com/blog/june32012/index.html

This is a fact "borrowed" from my Web site without attribution.

Here's the original: http://arachnoid.com/carnival/index.html#Vertical

In the linked article, we also find this graphic used to make another point -- horizon distance: http://datagenetics.com/blog/june32012/globe.png

Here's the original, from my Web site: http://arachnoid.com/carnival/resources/horizon_distance.png

Look familiar?

Re: Could You See the Curvature of the Earth in This Airport?

#10

Post by damon_c » Mon, Aug 25, 2014, 5:23 PM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #6

Getting on for a century ago this 'problem' was solved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment TL;DR - use a theodolite with measurement poles at each end and in the middle. No iphones, laser pens or bowling balls needed. Sometimes it comes down to having the right tools for the job.

Ha, that's awesome.

I was going to suggest something similar... just put the bowling ball at one end and if you can see the whole thing at floor level at the other end, it's straight, else it's curved.