Hasta La Ideas

“What is sea level? In theory, it is the average height of the sea around the Earth. But there are some problems with that. Problem 1: the Earth isn’t a sphere. I mean, it’s vaguely a sphere, don’t get too excited, Flat-Earthers. It’s a bit squashed. The force of its own spin makes it bulge by a few kilometres around the equator. And when you’re defining height above sea level in metres, that’s a lot. So geographers solved that by defining the Earth as an oblate spheroid. Basically a smooth squashed sphere, just in fairly precise mathematical terms.”..(Read…)