Does Earth Really Rotate and Review of Earth Shape

Author(s): Abhaysagar
Publisher: Jambudvi Vignyan Research Centre

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(12) BACK TO THE SAME PLACE:
Those who believe the earth to be round argue that if one travels straight way in the same direction on the earth, at last one returns to the same place from where one had started. The earth, therefore, is round.
But this argument is not valid, since sea-farers have to depend on the stars and the mariner's compass to locate the direction. And yet they are many times misdirected, because they travel on a circular route and still believe it to be on a straight one.
Let us take an illustration of an ant on a saucer. Let us put a saucer upside down on a table and then put an ant on the slopey part of the saucer. The ant will move around the saucer and going straight in one and the same direction it will come back to the very point from where it had started. We see that in fact the ant did not move in the straight direcion.
According to the ant it may be said to be the straight path. The globe trotters start from the East or the West and go around the middle higher region of the earth and come back to the original place just as the ant did by going- around the bulging portion of the saucer. (13) IN A MERRY-GO-ROUND :
To make the point more clear let us take an illusration of a merry go round which spins like a top. Any person riding such a wheel comes back to the same place from where he starts, in spite of so many turns taken by the merrygoround.
In this way, the journey around the earth is made either from east to west or from west to east. (as shown in the figure on right) Why only this one circular route is taken around the earth? Why not the other one from the North to the South or from the South to the North? As for example starting the journey in an aeroplane from Australia and flying to the North over China, Russia, the North Pole Region and other territories one can reach Canada; and back from there through the South America and over the South Pole one can again reach Australia. But this new route is never taken.
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