• xlash123@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Low IQ: it’s not a straight line

    Medium IQ: it’s a geodesic on a sphere, so it is a straight line

    High IQ: it’s not a straight line

          • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            In actual reality there would be wind and water currents diverting any ship sailing that route from the depicted “line” anyway so the whole argument is pointless

            The only straight line paths in the universe are followed by electrostatically uncharged non-accelerating objects in free fall in a vacuum. Or massless particles.

            • DogWater@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Whole Universe eh? That exists and is bounded on a curved space time.

              I’m just joking, but you can really take this to the extreme lol

    • kazaika@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Space-time itself is curved, therefore everything is moving in a straight line, it only appears to be curved to the outside observer

    • HereIAm@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Please correct my layman understanding if I’m wring here. But isn’t everything traveling in a straight line until an external force is applied. For example the earth orbiting the sun is traveling in a straight line in a curved apacetime. Also if you jump, the moment you leave the ground until you touch it again coming back down you were traveling in a straight line.

      • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 months ago

        In my understanding, since gravity is acting on us, an external force is applied when we jump. That’s why a jump is a parabola. “Gravity’s Rainbow”

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          7 months ago

          What they are getting at is that gravity is not a force so much as your mass trying to travel in a straight line through curved spacetime. The weight you feel is because the surface of the earth is in your way.

          Get into low earth orbit and that straight path has you going in apparent circles around the planet. You are very much within the earth’s gravity but you don’t feel “weight” because the surface of the earth is no longer blocking your path. You still have mass and inertia and all that, of course.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    There was a conversation I read a while ago that showed how a sailboat could travel a straight line over water from Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, travel southeast and end up on the west coast of British Columbia.

    Basically sailing from the east coast of Canada to the west coast of Canada in a straight line.

  • Noble Shift@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    THAT would be one god damn brutal sail. Both horns, Southern Atlantic crossing followed up by the Indian Ocean.

    The range of foulies you would need to bring would be 3/4 of your pack. Foulies underwear and A sock (you’re going to lose one anyways)

  • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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    7 months ago

    Globists will argue that on a globe this is a straight line. Seen these arguments before, don’t work on me

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Would clarifying words have helped? “If you only sailed with forward force…” or “Following along the surface of the earth…” or… what?

    Obviously they mean that you don’t need to make any turns and that straight means an arc around the earth and not through the Earth, unless someone has a very different idea what sailing means…