If a person was standing on a ball

with a million mile radius, would it look flat to him? Yes, or

If he was standing on a ball with 10 foot radius, would it look flat? No, or

If the person is put on progressively smaller balls, at what radius will that person see that the surface underthem is not flat?

with a million mile radius, would it look flat to him? Yes, or

If he was standing on a ball with 10 foot radius, would it look flat? No, or

If the person is put on progressively smaller balls, at what radius will that person see that the surface underthem is not flat?

(1) Yes
(2) No
(3) Hmmmmm.........Good question. I don't have an answer.  :-(:  I would have to do some research on that one ?

I would say the smaller the balls the flatter they would be.

I would say the smaller the balls the flatter they would be.

what?!!! oh yeah i forgot for a second that a tennis balls curvature is smaller than a basketballs!

I would say the smaller the balls the flatter they would be.

Einstein you ain't!

Let's extend this and see if we can "Einsteinify" you a tiny bit:

Quote Curvature, Curvature of plane curves Given any curve C and a point P on it, there is a unique circle or line which most closely approximates the curve near P, the osculating circle[1] at P. The curvature of C at P is then defined to be the curvature of that circle or line. The radius of curvature is defined as the reciprocal of the curvature. So And strangely this is closely related to the old 8 inches/(mile squared) formula.

[1] Osculating Circle = Kissing Circle - no, no not the spin the bottle kind!

I would say the smaller the balls the flatter they would be.

Yes.
If he stood on a small ball he would most likely flatten it.
Otherwise, the larger the ball the flatter it would appear to anyone standing on top of it.

Quote from: Bullwinkle on March 07, 2019, 07:29:39 PM

I would say the smaller the balls the flatter they would be.

Yes.
If he stood on a small ball he would most likely flatten it.
Otherwise, the larger the ball the flatter it would appear to anyone standing on top of it.