FE Meme
Pointing Up on Flat vs Globe
#204: Flat Earthers point up consistently; globe Earthers point "up" in conflicting directions around a sphere.
The Meme
Two-panel cartoon: one figure points up labeled for flat Earthers; multiple tilted figures point different ups for globe Earthers.
Why It Spreads
The two-panel cartoon makes up look universal on a flat plane and chaotic on a ball, with stick figures pointing in conflicting directions around a sphere. Simple figures communicate the gripe without equations, so the image feels like common sense at a glance.
What It Gets Wrong
The two-panel cartoon showing one flat Earther pointing straight up while globe figures tilt at different angles treats diverging local verticals as confusion rather than prediction. On a sphere of radius ~6371 km, two observers separated by 90° of arc have gravity vectors roughly 90° apart because down converges on Earth's center, so local up legitimately changes as you travel. Aircraft maintain local level, not one planet-wide arrow, and that changing vertical is what gravity surveys and opposite-hemisphere pole stars require. TestTheGlobe's Down Is The Same Everywhere and TestTheGlobe's Gravity Direction walk through the observations and predictions this image skips.
The Debunk
The two-panel cartoon shows one flat Earther pointing up while globe figures tilt at different angles, treating diverging local verticals as a contradiction. On a sphere of radius ~6371 km, two observers separated by 90° of arc have gravity vectors ~90° apart because down converges on Earth's center.
- Local up is opposite local down toward the center; at antipodes, two "up" arrows point in opposite directions, exactly what a sphere predicts; TestTheGlobe's Down Is The Same Everywhere explains the convergence.
- TestTheGlobe's Gravity Direction visualizes surface gravity vectors across latitudes, matching the cartoon's tilted figures rather than refuting them.
- Equatorial centrifugal effect reduces apparent gravity by roughly 0.3% (~0.034 m/s²); TestTheGlobe's Effective Gravity includes that rotation signature a single flat up-arrow cannot reproduce.
- Denying central mass removes any definition of up; TestTheGlobe's Gravity Is Not Real addresses why surveys and orbits require the mass the meme's cartoon ignores.