# Cube-shaped Planet and Central ... Waterdrops? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 26, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129 "2011-08-26T02:53:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/1 "2011-08-26T02:53:37Z")
[What would it be like walking around on a cube-shaped planet?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3011/what-would-it-be-like-walking-around-on-a-cube-shaped-planet) If I’m not mistaken, we kicked this around some years ago in General Questions. One fuzzy notion that pokes through the detrious of my brain is that we concluded that the central oceans for each face wouldn’t be flat. Rather, they would form spherical bulges whose surface would be equally far from the center of our mythical cubenet. That would look quite familiar, in a way, since it would seem to the viewer standing at the edge of such a sea that the oceans worked just like they do here… :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/2 "2011-08-26T04:42:01Z")
We’ve had at least three such threads, the longest being from [2006](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=401042) (there was also one in [2002](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=133211) and one in [2010](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12195875)). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/3 "2011-08-26T04:43:02Z")
Oh, and the central oceans wouldn’t be quite spherical, since the gravitational field they’re in isn’t spherical. But they would bulge out. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/4 "2011-08-27T20:34:00Z")
Cecil, a Charlie Sheen joke? Really? (checking my calendar) Nope, didn’t think it was still April. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/5 "2011-08-27T21:03:01Z")
It would not rotate very fast. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/6 "2011-08-28T00:03:46Z")
Would the eight vertices be experienced as right-pyramidal mountains, and the edges between them like great saddleback ridges? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2011, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cube-shaped-planet-and-central-waterdrops/594129/7 "2011-08-28T09:45:46Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Would the eight vertices be experienced as right-pyramidal mountains, and the edges between them like great saddleback ridges? The ridges would _act_ like saddlebacks, in that they would feel steeper at the ends and horizontal in the middle, but they would look perfectly straight. On Earth we’re used to gravity acting perpendicular to the ground (local topography notwithstanding) but on Cube Earth that wouldn’t be the case. If you were just standing on the edge, you’d think you were on a straight, sharp ridge that was either horizontal (if you were in the midpoint) or sloping upwards towards the nearest corner. You could work out how far along the ridge you were by measuring the angle of “slope” using an [inclinometer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclinometer).