The Earth is round

It is a well known fact that earth is round-oval, to be precise. Yet, for a long time it was believed, by one and all, that earth is flat and anyone who said anything to the contrary was burnt at the stake as a heretic. So, the question that we should ask ourselves is are things actually the way we think they are.

For example, just the other day, a friend of mine said, “Now, you will say that the earth is the centre of the universe.” Obviously he was trying to be funny and referring to something I had said. But it got me thinking: What if Earth was actually the centre of the universe in the larger picture?
We really don’t know a lot about the universe except for a few theories that cant be verified and are based on assumptions that seem to hold for now but might be found as invalid some years down the line.

Today, it is easy for us to laugh at the man who thought that the earth was flat, who thought that if he would sail to the edge of the world he would fall off. But aren’t most of us today like that very man. How many of us have actually thought about what we have read or have been taught at schools and colleges? Most of us are like that man, our ancestor, and we find it hard to think on our own. We are too comfortable with the way our lives are and it is scary to know or feel that what we have believed in all our lives might have been a fallacy.

Be it as it may be, there is no guarantee that if we think on our own and arrive at a conclusion, we arrive at the right one for every success is preceded by many failures. But, at least one can have the satisfaction of knowing that he tried and if he lived a mistake, it was his and no one else’s and, as they say, in the least he showed a way that leads to a dead end and others after him can avoid it.