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https://www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/news/2023/earths-curvature.htmlMethod confirms Earth’s curvature
“The really amazing thing about this method, however, is that it can be used not only to prove that the Earth isn’t a disc (i.e. that there is a curvature), but also to determine the value of the curvature,” explains Michael Wolf. According to the orthodox Spherical Earth model, the curvature is π/20,000 km; this value is based on complicated physical measurements and must simply be “believed” by laypeople. With the statistical method, however, an estimated value for the curvature can be calculated in an easily comprehensible way, but also a confidence interval that contains the true value with approximate certainty.
The idea here is that different values of curvature imply different distances between city pairs on the east-west axis. Based on flight durations between pairs of cities, the value that best aligns with reality can then be determined with the help of a non-linear regression model. This estimated value is practically identical with the orthodox value π/20,000 km, which is also included in the confidence interval for the true curvature. This confirms the orthodox model in a statistical way.
“It was important for us not to favor a model a priori, but to find a relatively simple method to prove whether the Earth is a disc or not,” says Michael Wolf. “Moreover, it is the first time that the value of the Earth’s curvature could be determined using a method that makes do with high school mathematics knowledge, classical statistical tools and publicly available data.”
