Comment by tzs
21 hours ago
There are photos of the Earth taken from the neighborhood of the Moon. They show something that is indistinguishable from a sphere to the naked eye.
Sure, with instruments you can measure it and find that it deviates from a perfect sphere. But every object that is made of atoms multiple atoms is not a perfect sphere.
I don't think it's a pedantic point, this is supposed to be a site about learning math that NASA scientists use, and the exact shape of the Earth is very relevant to them.
I just think it shouldn't be used as a canonical example of a fact when you'll probably learn at some point that it technically isn't true.
Some point being any half-decent middle-school textbook, or any popular science space book for teens. There's usually a footnote or an info box explaining that Earth isn't a perfect sphere.
It's not some arcane nerd knowledge. It's just a detail people don't remember from school because it's irrelevant to their lives.