Question

What is the shape of Earth?
A. Circle
B. Square
C. Sphere
D. Triangle

Answer 1

Hint: Plato gave his views about the right shape of earth but the then world did not accept his view. Later on, his student proved his teacher right by performing an experiment. Later on, Isaac Newton proposed his theory about the shape of the earth.

Complete Answer:
History: In early centuries of before common era (BCE) many ancient cultures considered that the shape of the earth is flat like a disk until in the 4th century BCE Plato wrote about the spherical shape of Earth and after him, his student Aristotle in 330 BCE provided the evidence of spherical shape of the earth in empirical grounds. Thus for a very long time, there was no unanimity regarding the shape of the earth. But after accumulating deep knowledge, performing various experiments and studying their observations it was proved that the shape of the earth is spherical.

Following are few of such proofs:
1. Circum-navigation of the earth - no traveller who is travelling around the earth, either by land or by water, has ever experienced a sudden edge.
2. The circular horizon - The distant horizon visible from a ship's deck at sea or a cliff on land is always circular. It widens with rising height and can only be seen on a spherical body.
3. Visibility of the ship - When a ship emerges above the far horizon, the tip of the mast is first seen before the hull. In the same manner, when it leaves the harbour, it gradually disappears over the curved surface.
The spherical form of the planet is thus a known fact, confirmed and agreed by all.

Hence the correct answer is option C.

Note: - The shape of Earth is a non-perfect spherical or spheroid because the Earth is little bulged at the equator and flattened on the poles.
- The distant point at which earth is farthest to the sun is known as Aphelion and the earth is on this point in the first week of July and the point at which the earth is nearest to the sun is known as Perihelion.