Proof Is In: Kansas Is Flatter Than A Pancake

plotdot writes "When motorists drive across Kansas with its expansive, fertile fields of grain, they most often observe that the state is flat as a pancake. Now, three scientists have proved that observation wrong. The May/June issue of Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) carries a story by Mark Fonstad, William Pugatch, and Brandon Vogt proving that Kansas is actually flatter than a pancake."

Comments

Re:what the hell?

[violent.ed]

the Annals of Improbable Research group do. Quite interesting if your extremly bored i might say.

Re:Wrong measure for flatness.

[Goldsmith]

What you're referring to is mathmatically called roughness. Obviously, the expression is not "rougher than a pancake". If we're going to do this scientifically, we have to use the proper scientific definitions.

Not surprising...

[floydigus]

...when you consider that the globe would be smoother than a squash (or racket) ball if it were shrunk to the same size.

Re:Wrong measure for flatness.

[gi-tux]

Actually what this means is that Kansas lays on the globe at a point where the Semi-Major Axis and the Semi-Minor Axis are almost equal, thus Kansas is a near perfect spheriod. A perfect spheriod at the diameter of the earth would seem flat (in human terms) and is thus called flat.

While I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion in this experiment. I do believe that it meets the definition of improbable research. I give these guys credit on innovative thinking and wonder what they could do on a real research project with a real definition.