Went with the flat Earth theory over the moon landing hoax for my debate class last month

Had to pick one conspiracy to argue for in my community college class, so I chose flat Earth over the moon landing being faked. I spent about 12 hours looking into the flat Earth stuff, mostly the water level experiments and the Bedford level thing. My argument was that if the Earth was round, water should curve, but it doesn't visibly do that in canals or lakes. The professor and other students shot back with refraction and gravity bending light though. It actually went okay, I got a B on it, but man the responses were brutal. Has anyone else had to pick between two conspiracies for a debate or class project? How'd you pick?

2 comments

2 Comments

park.iris1mo ago

Wait, did your professor actually say gravity bends light? That's not really how gravity works with water though, it's more about refraction and the curve just being too small to see.

the_kim1mo ago

My 8th grade science teacher actually had us do this whole experiment with a laser pointer and a fish tank. We had to measure the angle the light bent when it hit the water at different spots. I remember one kid accidentally pointed the laser at the ceiling and we all got yelled at. Anyway, that whole thing about gravity bending light sounds like something from a sci-fi movie, not a physics textbook. I mean, maybe your professor was talking about something else entirely.