Flat?

Bare Footin’

Hey little gal with the red dress on
I bet you can barefoot all night long
Take off your shoes and throw them away
Come back and get them another day
We're barefootin', we're barefootin'
We're barefootin', we're barefootin'

 What about Flat- footin’?

To an individual human on the earth, the surface looks flat.  However, this is only because the distances that the individual enounters are probably much smaller than the radius of the Earth.  To an ant on the surface of a beach ball, its surface may also appear flat. But just like the beach ball, the surface of the Earth is actually spherical.  If it WERE flat, then a stick perpendicular to the ground at the equator would cast no shadow at noon, and that same stick at a higher latitude, say London, should also cast no shadow. ( The shadow in London would be shortest at noon, but there would still be a shadow.)  If the Earth were flat, then the highest points (e.g. the mast) of a ship on the horizon would NOT ALWAYS be visible before the rest of the ship.  These, and other apparent paradoxes, can be explained if the Earth is round but can not be explained if the Earth is flat.  Thus the perceptions of an individual are NOT the truth.

It is assumed that space is flat. This, however, is also just an assumption. If the surface of space is hyperbolic, curved, then any conflict betwwen the age and distance of the universe, the Planck Length, the rotation of galaxies, the inflation of the early universe, etc. may all be explainable.  But that requires giving up the perception that the space is flat.  Space may be bare, but that does not mean that it is flat.