Ok this is a question more for those FEers who believe the earth is a flat plane, but not an infinite flat plane.
Alright bear with me, my question deals with biomolecular principles of entropy’s relationship to surface area and surrounding environment that governs protein folding, the shape of the earth, and water droplets. This has been observed in labs, as well as any of us when we cook eggs and the whites turn milky.
The most stable form of spontaneously forming natural things is that which minimizes the surface area. This may seem wrong, as it seems like this increase in order of the forming entity goes against the favorable laws of entropy and good old Gibb’s free energy, but the decrease in enthalpy of the forming entity coupled with the increase in entropy of the surroundings leads to a low energy formation= stability.
This and the hydrophobic effect is exactly what leads to proper protein folding, as well as high temperature denaturing and globular plaque formation upon this denaturation (clear egg whites —-> opaque egg whites). This principle can also be visualized in droplets of oil/water.
If we think about the formation of the earth, a flat earth would not follow this principle. “Well it is flat because some form of energy is being applied, as that is how we are also constantly accelerating upwards,” some may say. Has anyone seen a flat raindrop? (Crystallization, like snowflakes, is a whole different concept, and the earth may not, in any universe, be compared to a crystal) And sure the “dome” may be rounded, but the laws of entropy demand hat the land would still become encircled by such a dome, allowing everything to come to a sphere and disrupting as little gas/environment as possible. Think of a small drop of oil in a drop of water. The oil remains a sphere in the center of water, and if forced to the edge of the water droplet, separates completely and reforms into its own sphere.