If the Earth were a cube

[Ring]

I know, I know the Earth couldn't maintain a cubic shape. But if it could would it be possible for civilization to evolve? Would there be six totally separate evolutionary paths. How high would the face oceans be, would it be possible to sail them?

[Scruloose]

I know, I know the Earth couldn't maintain a cubic shape. But if it could would it be possible for civilization to evolve?

Perhaps Earth can't. But time can!

Muhahahahaaaa.......!

[Ethilrist]

Insert obligatory Bizarro world joke here.

Given that the edges would probably extend out of the atmosphere, unless people got really crazed about tunneling I don't think they'd get to the other faces without space travel.

[Sparrow]

Originally posted by Ring
I know, I know the Earth couldn't maintain a cubic shape. But if it could would it be possible for civilization to evolve? Would there be six totally separate evolutionary paths. How high would the face oceans be, would it be possible to sail them?

Ring, what made you think of this? Long long ago I seem to reemember seeing a Superman comic where there was an AU with a square earth. Anyone else remember that?

[Mangetout]

We had a thread about this a while ago; gravitational forces would cause the oceans to form into lens-shaped blobs on each face, the surfaces of all of them together would still describe pretty much a sphere; is the cube big enough that the edges are not immersed? if not, then it would be (to the inhabitants) as if it were waterworld with eight evenly-spaced pyramidal mountains.

I assume that we're talking about a cubical earth of the same solid volume as our own and with oceans made of the same volume of water; what would that look like; how high above sea level would the corners and edges be?

[CalMeacham]

We discussed the idea and implications of a cubical Earth quite a while back here on the SDMB. The problem is that it's phenomenallu unstable -- those edges alone would dwarf earthly mountains and instantly collapse under their own weight, not to mention the corners. You'd need some ultra-strong science-fictional materiual, like the scrith Larry niven built his Ringworld out of, in order to realize your dream.

The gravity would be weird -- except at the centers of the faces, edges, and corners, "down" would not be towards the geometrical center. Everything not nailed down would still tend to fall toward the center of each face, so I assume you'd need some sort of terrace system to keep everything from ending up at the Ocean of each face.

The mountains that are the edges and corners would be incredibly steep and tall and would protrude above the atmosphere. (God known what your weather patterns would look like.) Unless you had strategic tunnels from one face to another, you'd have six independent "worlds" on your cube -- one for each face.

[bup]

Columbus would've sailed off the edge.

[RiverRunner]

Somebody smack Chandeleur. He's bringing up things best left undisturbed.

Gee, it sounds kinda spooky when I put it that way.


RR

[Ring]

Would the edge mountains look high? Earth's gravity wouldn't curve space much, so I would think they'd look flat. Just think of the great perfectly flat ski runs on the polar faces.

Could the Vikings launch a boat on the oceans? What would a tidal wave look like?

[Padeye]

I'm packing to move but oneof Escher's illustrations IIRC is of a cube or pyramid shaped asteroid with terracing so it's possible to stand on a gravitationally horizontal surface aside from the middle of each face.

[NurseCarmen]

[size=1][hijack]I was educated stupid I guess, cause I can't grasp the time cube. Chandeleur has proven that psych wards have internet access now, and thery are actively teaching HTML. My brain hurts now. That is truly one of the strangest things I have seen on the web.[/hijack]

[NurseCarmen]

[hijack]I was educated stupid I guess, cause I can't grasp the time cube. Chandeleur has proven that psych wards have internet access now, and thery are actively teaching HTML. My brain hurts now. That is truly one of the strangest things I have seen on the web.[/hijack]

[NurseCarmen]

not fast enough.

[photopat]

What if the oceans were "flat" on each side? If somebody sailed over the edge they might and up tipping over onto another side, or maybe they'd fall, and to the inhabitants on the next surface they'd appear to be flying past.

[femtosecond]

If the Earth were a cube Ring, did you already forget you posted it, or why didn't you bump that instead?

[Ring]

Originally posted by femtosecond
If the Earth were a cube Ring, did you already forget you posted it, or why didn't you bump that instead?

Damn, that’s incredible. I swear I do not remember making that post. I even used the exact same subject title….absolutely amazing and scary. I wonder if it’s mad cow disease or Al’s himeres.

[White Lightning]

Aren't we actually truly not supposed to link to the timecube site for some reason? I seem to recall a period where those links were being closed, like the site there was logging where they were getting their clickthroughs and there was some consequence to the SDMB that we didn't like... am I totally making this up?

[davidm]

Originally posted by White Lightning
Aren't we actually truly not supposed to link to the timecube site for some reason? I seem to recall a period where those links were being closed, like the site there was logging where they were getting their clickthroughs and there was some consequence to the SDMB that we didn't like... am I totally making this up?

You're thinking of Alex Chiu, the marketer of an "eternal life device". Apparently, if his server logs sufficient hits from a site, his prosyletizing minions will descend on that site. I only know this because I, not knowing of the problem, posted a link which was promptly removed by a moderator. If you want to check out the site just search Yahoo for "alex chiu" (with the quotes). It's the first site that comes up. It's every bit as goofy as timecube.

[White Lightning]

Ah yes, I remember Alex Chiu. And you're right, that is what I was thinking of. Thanks for clearing that up, davidm.

[femtosecond]

Originally posted by Ring
Damn, that’s incredible. I swear I do not remember making that post. I even used the exact same subject title….absolutely amazing and scary. I wonder if it’s mad cow disease or Al’s himeres.

Don't worry, I sometimes forget what I had for lunch sooner than it takes it to leave me again.

So you're going to send me the money like you promised in another thread?

[chuckster]

The stresses on a cube-shaped planet would certainly make it very unstable (earthquakes etc.). It would be miraculus if higher life could evolve on this world, let alone civilization.

[Incubus]

Okay, but what if we could pretend that the gravity on the entire surface was constant, so that the atmosphere was similarly cube-shaped. How would the shape affect navigation? and how about the horizon? Wouldn't the corners be considerably hotter than the sides, because of their proximity to the sun? Would the amount of daylight on any given side be relatively constant because of no curvature? (in other words, wouldn't sunrise occur pretty much simultaneously to all inhabitants of one side?)

[robert_columbia]

Overall, I think the best way to approach this as a gedankenexperiment is, instead of coming up with an imaginary cube in space and trying to get your mind around that, is to imagine building six pyramidal mountains on the existing earth, such that a cube is formed with the sides tangental to the Earth's crust. After doing that, one can plainly see that the mountain peaks/corners are beyond the limits of the current atmosphere, and one can easily imagine standing on the mountain as one would stand on a ramp, mountainside, or hillside today and feel the fact that the surface is not perpendicular to the gravity they feel.

So, at the center of a face, assuming that you cleared all the water away, would feel normal. As you walked, you would feel the slope rising.

Now, barring weather and atmosphere, you could probably see all the way to the local corners/edges since there will be no horizon. That might mess you up mentally if you are from sphere earth.

I agree that the water would form into blobs on the faces. Anywhere you sailed on this blob, you would feel normal, as if you were sailing on earth. All around you would appear to be mountains, as if you were sailing in an enclosed sea. To wrap your head around this, imagine the existing earth. Take your Acme DeathStar and slice off a section, leaving a flat face. Replicate enough water to fill in the land you cut out and pump it onto that face. Eventually you will get an earth that looks fairly normal from space, but that has a very deep sea somewhere.

[beowulff]

Can Zombies live on a cube Earth?

[Colibri]

Originally Posted by robert_andrews

Overall, I think the best way to approach this as a gedankenexperiment is, instead of coming up with an imaginary cube in space and trying to get your mind around that, is to imagine building six pyramidal mountains on the existing earth, such that a cube is formed with the sides tangental to the Earth's crust. After doing that, one can plainly see that the mountain peaks/corners are beyond the limits of the current atmosphere, and one can easily imagine standing on the mountain as one would stand on a ramp, mountainside, or hillside today and feel the fact that the surface is not perpendicular to the gravity they feel.

So, at the center of a face, assuming that you cleared all the water away, would feel normal. As you walked, you would feel the slope rising.

Now, barring weather and atmosphere, you could probably see all the way to the local corners/edges since there will be no horizon. That might mess you up mentally if you are from sphere earth.

I agree that the water would form into blobs on the faces. Anywhere you sailed on this blob, you would feel normal, as if you were sailing on earth. All around you would appear to be mountains, as if you were sailing in an enclosed sea. To wrap your head around this, imagine the existing earth. Take your Acme DeathStar and slice off a section, leaving a flat face. Replicate enough water to fill in the land you cut out and pump it onto that face. Eventually you will get an earth that looks fairly normal from space, but that has a very deep sea somewhere.

I think you probably meant to post this in the current thread on cube earth, rather than in this one, which is eight years old.

Feel free to repost your answer in the current thread. To prevent further confusion, I am closing this one.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator