Need help with a flat earth

[Alphabet]

In the story I'm writing, the earth is a large flat mass. There is no edge to earth, so it is infinite in size. Above the earth is of course our normal atmosphere the same distance up and then space, which works vastly different in my world, which is where I come upon some problems.

I know that all of this is completely impossible scientifically. I'm not too concerned with being scientifically correct, however I do want to be able to give an explanation for how some things work in my universe.

The things I need help with are the following:

• The Sun/Moon System - How does the sun and moon work in this universe?
• Seasons - How do seasons work in this universe?
• Different Climate Systems - The story is set in the modern day USA where they discover other civilizations living beyond the current known world. How do I work with climate systems?

I'm really having trouble thinking up explanations to give for these problems that aren't just hand waving. Can anyone help me out?

[Neurosis]

Someones been reading Terry Pratchet.

You can solve all these problems by saying 'wizards made it so'.

You could also solve them as follows:
Invert our model of how the universe works.

The Sun/Moon System - How does the sun and moon work in this universe?
The Sun and Moon rotate around the fixed flat Earth, just as the ancients believed in the Bronze age.

Seasons - How do seasons work in this universe?
The Sun follows a gradually changing elliptical orbit and is closer during parts of the year, and further away during others.

Different Climate Systems - The story is set in the modern day USA where they discover other civilizations living beyond the current known world. How do I work with climate systems?
Climate systems have as much to do with the location of bodies of water, altitude and surrounding mountains as with the spherical nature of the Earth,

[robertbevan]

if you don't mind sacrificing some of your intelligence, you can take a look at these:

The Flat Earth Society

The Flat Earth Society -- Home

[ThinkerX]

A flat earth of *infinite* extent? That creates some serious problems.

Still, maybe if you were to borrow a page from the oldest mythologies - Egyptian and Sumerian, specifically, something might be feasible. They too, held with a flat earth, with the sun rotating around / through it, passing through a sort of 'underworld' each night.

So, your sun would do much the same, it would 'rise' through a gap in the earth, pass overhead, and 'set' through another. Same with the moon. The locations of these gaps would be seen as 'sacred' or 'taboo'. (not to mention lethal to enter). In this scheme, the sun would have to be a *lot* smaller than the earth to work on anything resembling a 24 hour cycle - probably no more than a hundred miles across. Hmm...this would give a portion of the world, with a total surface area a few times larger than the real earth an acceptable climate.

You might want to rethink the 'infinite' part though.

Also, is the underside habitable or not?

[Zero Angel]

There was something like this in the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Pryan, the World of Fire was a large (LARGE) hollow planet where the "surface" was the inside crust of the planet and the suns were hovering in the center of the empty space of the planet.

If you wanted to do something like this, then your flat surface would seem to be infinite, but it would actually just be closed.

Incidentally, this isn't entirely unsupported by science. In fact, up until recently, physicists believed that space may be infinite and even operate like Pac Man games! Or it might just be infinite and go on forever.

Putting your sun on an orbit where it passes behind a large moon of some sort would create nightfall and having the whole system wobble in its orbit (I mean both the sun and hypothetical moon move farther away) would create seasons. In fact, this would enable you to have seasons and latitudinal changes in climate/weather as well.

[Lorna]

This is your chance to be creative.

Our ancient myths are full of stories about the movement of the sun- pulled by a chariot, chased by a wolf. William Blake saw the sun as full of angels. What kind of beings could govern the motion of your sun? Is it simply a ball of fire or is it composed of something more magical?

The classic example of a story explaining the seasons is the Greek myth of Persephone, daughter of Demeter (goddess of harvest / corn) being snatched by Hades (god of the underworld) in Autumn and returning in spring as a maiden with the first flowers. You could create your own seasonal myth.

Climate changes could also be attributed to mythical beings. According to the local myths and place names where I live, boggarts are the guardians of boggy areas and faeries the woodland.

[JohnKPatterson]

Though I like the questions you're asking, I am not sure about the "modern day USA" being a part of your world (if I'm understanding you right, that is). Readers are going to assume that today's USA is a part of the round, finite Earth. But if you present an alternate history version of America, that might work better for integrating it into a flat, infinite landscape.

Hope that helps.

[psychotick]

Hi,

An infinite flat Earth? I don't see that as a winner within sci fi. You'd have no gravity and no days / nights. Nothing could orbit the world beause it extends forever in any two dimensional direction, and it couldn't roatate. However some of these problems could be resolved by making the world either a Dysan Sphere or a ringworld (a la Larry Niven). That gives you gravity by spinning it and a boundless world that is not actually infinite. As for days and nights, because these structures are essentially heat traps, you could have the world a fair bit further out from the sun so that it doesn't cook, and have a number of minor planets in orbit around the sun further in. As they go about their thing, you could get parts of the Earth in shadow. The ringworld is the better of the two options to explain these, and also gravity since the sphere even if it was rotation would still have poles where there was no gravity.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Greg.

[Steerpike]

Maybe you could have a tremendous mass underneath the flat earth that pulls things downward, toward the plane of the flat earth. And you could have a sun in the sky that has a spherical planet rotating around it in such a manner as to blot out the sun on a regular basis, giving the semblance of night.

You'd still have a pretty small habitable zone, though, so there wouldn't be much use for most of the infinite world. Unless you had a string of multiple such suns that also stretch into infinity.

All of the above seems to me to be a stretch, but its all I've got.

[T.Allen.Smith]

The question I'd have to ask is why do you need the infinite flatness? Why do you need your world to fit these criteria you list?

If there's not a good reason that is integral to the story then there's really no point in my opinion.