Happy April Fools! To commemorate the day, here’s a special post featuring an excerpt from my upcoming novel, Ship of Fools. This chapter imagines how life would be on a flat Earth. It even has its own conspiracy theorists trying to prove the Earth is actually a globe. Enjoy!
Jareth Leeman, Secretary of the US Department of Science and Technology, suppressed a groan as Samuel Rowbotham, the Roundhead, withdrew his model of the Earth from its traveling case.
“Ah, I see you’ve brought your model of a round Earth,” he said, trying not to sneer.
The object was absurd, a ball mounted vertically on its axis so it could spin — or rotate, as Rowbotham called it — with the known continents and oceans spread out across its surface. The land masses were all familiar, except for the one in the sphere’s southern region, a snowy area labeled Antarctica. But the addition of a new continent wasn’t even the most unbelievable thing about the sphere, of which there were too many to count. Chief among them: how could the oceans stick to a spinning ball?
“Oblate spheroid,” Rowbotham said, setting the model on the coffee table between them, “but close enough. And I call it the globe.” He gave it a spin, the ends of his ginger mustache bending upwards into a grin. He wore a tweed suit, and his hair in a style popular a couple of decades back, before the war. An odd duck, even for a Brit. At least he was an affable fellow, and shouldn’t be too hard to put off.
“Yes, you mentioned that in your letter. It’s a very, erm…interesting…idea. But how can I help you?”
“With funding for an exploratory expedition in the first place, and with the UN troops guarding Antarctica, in the second.”
He’d expected the question about funding — wasn’t that what everyone wanted? But the second caught him completely unawares. “I assume you mean the Ice Wall? Why would anyone need to guard it? It’s just the end of, well, everything.”
“So what happens when we get to the supposed edge, assuming I get funding for this expedition?”
Jareth thought of the fools who’d attempted to fly over the Ice Wall to discover what lay beyond. Apparently, simply being told that this was the point at which the Dome of the Firmament met the edge of Earth wasn’t good enough for them. None had returned completely whole. Some managed to turn away at the last minute, shaken by what they’d seen, while others simply went splat like bugs hitting a windshield — or perhaps zfftht like bugs hitting an electric zapper, the current leading theory being that the dome was an electromagnetic field. He resisted the hope that Rowbotham would meet such a fate.
“You’re quite welcome to find out.”
“And we won’t be shot?”
“Of course not. The Ice Wall itself is something like eighty thousand miles in circumference. It would be the longest guarded border in the world by orders of magnitude. The idea is absurd.”
“Except it’s not.”
“Not what?”
“Eighty thousand miles in circumference. Here, look at the globe.” The poor sap leaned forward to point at the southern portion of the ball. “As you can see, the parallels of latitude grow smaller in circumference as they approach the South Pole.”
“The South Pole, is that what you’re calling it?”
“Yes. And the circumference of the Antarctic continent is more on the order of fifteen thousand miles. But its precise shape is of course unknown, because no one is allowed to explore it.”
“No one is allowed to explore it. What nonsense! It’s just that an expedition tracing the entire circumference is impossible. Pack ice means you can’t keep in sight of the wall while trying to circumnavigate it, as Shackleton discovered, and any sort of expedition over the ice itself is just too far, as Amundsen’s and Scott’s failed expeditions proved, God rest their souls.”
“As dangerous or impractical as it may be, I still need to try.”
So much for easily putting Rowbotham off with the dangers of the expedition.
He didn’t have time for this nonsense. How anyone could believe the claptrap this Roundhead spouted, especially in this age of enlightenment, was beyond him. Science had brought the world the telephone, radio, TV, advances in medicine and agriculture. And, in the last decade, jet travel. Now, anyone who could afford it could circumnavigate the Earth and prove to themselves what scientists since Copernicus and Galileo knew — indeed, what any school-aged child should know — that Earth is a circular, flat disk.
The shape of the Earth had been proved over and over, beginning long ago with Magellan’s voyage of 80,000 some-odd miles (the distance lengthened by the necessity of avoiding the large continents) right up to the modern flights circumnavigating the disk at various latitudes. Yet doubters like Rowbotham persisted, claiming that Magellan’s voyage was much shorter over a spherical globe, and that the modern flights were all faked. It strained credulity that such a conspiracy, if it existed, could have remained uncovered for so long.
But no, despite these mountains of evidence, Jareth must entertain this smiling fool and his notions. He’d tried ignoring the skeptic, but that had only led to claims of cover-ups and conspiracies. The President had given him strict orders that he wanted a completely transparent cabinet, and the quickest way to dispel a conspiracy theory was to shine light on it. So he must humor the Roundhead. Never mind the impending threat of global warming, caused by an unfortunate buildup of CO² inside the Dome of the Firmament, or that the Soviets seemed likely to win the race to the moon, as improbable as that had once seemed. But now these more pressing issues must be put aside to deal with this nincompoop.
Then Jareth had a thought. “Come now, Sam — may I call you Sam? — we’re both men of sound reason and half-decent intellects. Using your globe, I’ll wager I can convince you of your errors in five minutes, if you keep an open mind. Here, let me just get my model of the actual… er, I mean the flat Earth, and we’ll put our heads together.”
“Very well, if you insist. But you must keep an open mind as well.”
Jareth went over to the display case along one wall. Outside the east-facing window, the sun, having made its morning appearance a couple of hours before, steadily grew larger on its approach to the zenith. Just as one would expect as it traveled in its circular path above the flat disk. To believe anything else was preposterous.
He removed the Earth model, a flat, ceramic disk showing the continents, the oceans, and the Ice Wall at the perimeter. Radiating out from the disk’s Center Point, spokes of longitude and concentric circles of latitude (the latter growing consistently larger, never smaller, as they approached the edge) created a grid system useful for geolocation. Over it all was a transparent bowl to represent the Dome of the Firmament, pricked with holes in the familiar patterns of the constellations and planets, with the sun and the moon dangling on invisible wires above the flat surface.
Similar models had pride of place in elementary classrooms all across the disk. More expensive ones had the sun and moon traveling in their circular paths, the sun’s track moving northward or southward depending on the season. The best even had the sun speeding up or slowing down as the circle it traveled grew larger or smaller, allowing the model’s diurnal period to match reality.
He returned to the coffee table and set the model next to Rowbotham’s globe. Taking his seat, he pondered for a moment, contemplating his best line of attack. “Let’s start with an observable fact on which we both agree, shall we?”
Rowbotham nodded.
“Very well. We agree that the North Star maintains its position in alignment with the Center Point, while all the other stars spin around it, am I right?”
“We do, though perhaps not on its distance above the globe.”
“Leave that aside for the moment. And if one were to stand at the Center Point…”
“You mean the North Pole.”
“Yes, well, if one were standing there, then the North Star would be directly overhead.”
“Indeed, which is why I’ve renamed it Polaris. It’s directly over the pole.”
Jareth suppressed a groan. All this new nomenclature was tedious. “Very well. Let’s assume this match stick is that man at the Center… that is, your North Pole.” He placed the match stick at the top of Rowbotham’s globe. “Now let’s observe what happens as he travels southward from that location.” He slid the stick down the curving side, keeping it perpendicular to the surface. “When he reaches forty-five degrees latitude, what must happen to the angle at which he observes the North Star?”
“He’s viewing it at an angle of forty-five degrees from the vertical. I can see where this is going.”
“I think you can. Now, let’s have him travel to the Equator.” He slid the match stick faster and faster down the globe. “Oh no, what’s happening, gravity is making him slide off the globe!” He let go of the matchstick, which of course fell onto the table. “‘Poor bugger,’ I think you Brits would call him.”
Rowbotham shook his head. “Gravity doesn’t work the way you think it works.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No, it’s a force created by the mass of objects, which always pulls inwards towards the center.”
“A force. As in ‘May the force be with you’? It all sounds pretty mysterious.”
“Not at all. The more massive an object, the greater its gravitational force. We’re all being pulled toward the center of the globe.”
“And yet we don’t feel like we’re hanging upside down, or sideways?”
“No, ‘up’ is always the direction opposite to the gravitational force, wherever one is on the globe.”
“But how do you know this mysterious force exists?”
“Because otherwise, we’d fall off the globe, as you just showed.”
“But only if it’s a globe!”
“Which is what I’m trying to prove!”
Jareth took a deep breath. “Everyone knows that gravity is caused by acceleration. In your letters, you’ve always insisted that science should rely on our senses, not abstractions. You experience acceleration for yourself every time you’re in an accelerating car, or even more in an airplane on takeoff. Gravity operates much the same way. The disk of the Earth is accelerating upwards at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared, as Newton deduced.”
“Over millions or billions of years, that’s a lot of acceleration. How fast are we going now, and where are we? And what causes this acceleration? Sounds a bit mysterious to me.”
Jareth sighed. This wasn’t working. “I see we’ve gotten into the weeds. I apologize for my little joke about gravity, so let’s leave it aside.” He picked up the match stick and placed it back on the globe. “Let’s assume our little stick man is standing on the Equator and looking at the North Star. Is he still looking up?”
“No, he’s looking toward his horizon, ninety degrees to the perpendicular. Or roughly, depending on how far we think Polaris is from Earth.”
“Excellent! Now, what do we actually observe?” He moved to the flat Earth model. “As we move south from the Center, the angle to the North Star changes, yes, but not nearly so much as would happen on your globe. Because we’re moving across a flat plane, and not tilting around a curved surface. And these angles have been observed in all parts of the disk, have they not?”
“If you say so, but I haven’t observed it.”
“Which is why you should go to the southern latitudes and see for yourself! Even in Australia, people view the North Star at an angle of less than ninety degrees. And using trigonometry, we have deduced that Polaris is 4,000 miles above the Center Point.”
“As you say, I believe science must be based on one’s own senses, not on abstractions like maths.”
Jareth gritted his teeth, but went on. “Very well, back to observable reality, since you don’t like ‘maths,’ as you call them. Now, what happens to this fellow on your globe as he continues south from the Equator? What ho, he can no longer see the North Star at all! The curvature of your globe has blocked his view. If your model is accurate, as you maintain it is, then this is the only logical conclusion, is it not?”
“It could be mountains, or trees, that are blocking his view.”
“Oh, come now, you’re not getting away with that. Do I really need to use the phrase, ‘all things being equal?’ In fact, from your model I can only deduce that a person standing in the southern latitudes…”
“Hemisphere.”
“What?”
“Hemisphere. I call it the Southern Hemisphere.”
“Yes, well. Hemi sphere. I see how you sneaked that in. But be that as it may, a person standing in Australia must necessarily see a different set of stars than one standing in North America.”
“But we can only know that if we travel beyond the edge of the Earth to see if the stars are indeed different down there.”
“So mount an expedition! Go down and see for yourself! I’m sure your Queen or the Royal Academy of Sciences will fund such an important endeavor.”
“I was rather hoping your government would fund us, as it is a question of the utmost importance to the entire world.”
Jareth looked at him for a long moment. “You want the Department of Science and Technology to fund a venture investigating a thoroughly proven fact? I don’t see how that’s possible, but I wish you the best of luck.”
“But it could be a joint US-British expedition,” Rowbotham said in a rush. “And the glory of our discoveries would be a spot in the eye of the Soviets, don’t you think? What if I’m right, and there’s an entire continent down there just waiting to be claimed?”
Jareth hadn’t considered the geopolitical angle. But the race for the moon was already taking his focus away from actual science; he didn’t want another exploration race to add to the distraction.
“I’m afraid our competition with the Soviets is in an entirely different direction. You’ll have to rely on your own government.”
With that he rose and showed the dejected Brit to the door, hoping it was the last he’d see of the fool.
Unfortunately, fools are like weeds, if you don’t pull them out by the root on first appearance, ten more crop up. A fact Jareth would rue in coming months.
If you enjoyed this sample chapter, I hope you’ll give it a like, a share, or a comment. And if you sign up as a free subscriber right now, you won’t miss it when I begin posting the whole novel with no paywall in June. As I gear up for that publication, and as Ada’s Children reaches its conclusion, this blog is going to start focusing more on conspiracy theories, hoaxers and truthers, and anti-science beliefs. Please join me!