The effect would be similar to spinning a bit of Silly Putty, though Earth's plasticity is much, much less than that of the silicone plastic clay so familiar to children.' Instead of Earth being like a spinning top made of steel, explains geologist Vic Baker at the University of Arizona in Tucson it has 'a bit of plasticity that allows the shape to deform very slightly. He was correct and, because of this bulge, the distance from Earth's center to sea level is roughly 21 kilometers (13 miles) greater at the equator than at the poles. Instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid-a sphere that is squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator. Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. This was based on a number of observations, such as the fact that departing ships not only appeared smaller as they sailed away but also seemed to sink into the horizon, as one might expect if sailing across a ball says geographer Bill Carstensen of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

Well before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Aristotle and other ancient Greek scholars proposed that Earth was round. Planet Earth is not, in fact, perfectly round. As countless photos from space can attest, Earth is round-the 'Blue Marble,' as astronauts have affectionately dubbed it.

Is the earth flat or round in the bible