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To: BikerNYC
Ok, what if I was living on the surface of a balloon?

Would it not be like living on the Earth? There is a horizon where the surface of the Earth curves away. There is also an up and down (sky and ground) that is very different from anything else.

Even living on the surface of a balloon, I would never be able to view the sky as equal in every direction.

50 posted on 09/24/2004 10:30:40 AM PDT by Hunble
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To: Hunble

It's only the surface that counts. There is no up or down. The Earth is embedded in a three-dimensional space which gives the up-down distinction. The surface is intrinsically two dimensional. All this was shown by Gauss about 200 years ago. One need not go to more than two dimensions to describe the surface of a sphere.


74 posted on 09/24/2004 11:21:33 AM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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