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Reply	Anonymous says: I live in blackpool and every one i knows can see the curvature from there its slight but you can definatly see it. Your friend need glasses  (no votes) Tags: animals, planet earth, plants.
	posted on 2007-09-08 21:36:00 | Report abuse

Reply	young scientist smith says: you are right but you dont have to be on top of a tower you can see it from the ground like anonymous said your friend needs glassers  (no votes) Tags: animals, planet earth, plants.
	posted on 2007-11-23 23:11:00 | Report abuse

Reply	Michael Marshall says: The following answer has been selected and edited by New Scientist staffWhile camped at 6000 metres altitude in Peru in 1962, I and some colleagues asked ourselves this question about the Pacific horizon. We actually only saw the curvature by comparing the horizon (about 277 kilometres away) with a nylon thread stretched tight and level between two ice axes.While standing atop Blackpool Tower, if you sight the seaward horizon over a level, 1-metre straight edge, which is held 1 metre in front of you, trigonometry shows that the ideal horizon would appear to be almost a millimetre higher at the centre of the straight edge than at the ends. This is a much smaller effect than typical atmospheric distortion which, in effect, means there is no visible curvature.From our camp in Peru, the difference was almost 6 millimetres - easily visible when compared with a straight edge. Even so, the curvature was not apparent when simply looking at the horizon.Charles Sawyer, Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia  (no votes) Tags: animals, planet earth, plants.
	posted on 2008-09-17 16:49:00 | Report abuse

Reply	Michael Marshall says: The following answer has been selected and edited by New Scientist staffAs the radius of the Earth is 6373 kilometres, a little trigonometry tells us that if you are at the top of a tower of height h metres, the horizon will be at a distance of approximately √(2 × 6373 × h) kilometres.For a tower 150 metres high, the horizon will be 44 kilometres away and displaced downwards from a true horizontal line by about 0.39 degrees. If you hold a 1-metre stick horizontally 1 metre in front of you, seemingly touching the horizon at the midpoint of the stick, the ends will appear to be 0.8 millimetres above the horizon. That's pretty hard to see with the naked eye.Eric Kvaalen, La Courneuve, France  (no votes) Tags: animals, planet earth, plants.
	posted on 2008-09-17 16:52:00 | Report abuse

Reply	Michael Marshall says: The following answer has been selected and edited by New Scientist staffWhen out in the mid-ocean, up at the top of the main mast, the horizon is a horizontal line right round the field of view. The higher the mast, the lower the horizon appears to be, but it is still a horizontal line.John Eagle, Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK  (no votes) Tags: animals, planet earth, plants.
	posted on 2008-09-17 16:53:00 | Report abuse

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