theanointedsinner said:
then explain to me how an airplane can fly from any state of America and keep flying toward one direction, and still be able to come back to that state of America, even though the airplane only move in one direction and never turn back
Dino246 said:
This is possible on a flat earth, but only if the plane follows a single line of latitude. On the globe, the plane can go off in any direction and eventually return to its origin.
Refer to my post #673 in this thread for the diagram. It cannot be done on a flat Earth. Going in a straight line would take you to the edge and beyond. In order to go "around" the world you would have to keep altering your course to keep going in a circle, ie the same "line" of latitude would be a circle, not a straight line. A check of old navigational charts shows no such course alterations. All the course calculations support a globe Earth, and defy a flat Earth.
The original question used the phrase, "toward one direction". I interpreted that phrase differently than others. "Toward one direction" can mean "toward due east" which is a circular path on either a globe or a flat plane.
As I thought about it more, I realized that this isn't the only possibility. Given that you can inscribe a circle of any size on a plane, flying "toward one direction" can also be "flying at a constant bank rate"; ie. toward a certain self-referenced direction. The original question did not use the phrase, "in a straight line".
Semantics.