h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is the Earth a sphererical shape? And what use are eyebrows?

Why, eyebrows are used to keep our eyeballs warm. How else do you think they would? As for the earth being a spherical shape, I never quite understood why. I always thought it would be cool if it was in a dogbone shape.

The earth is spherical because otherwise it wouldn't be. A spinning object which is anything other than spherical - or a flattened oblate sphere in our case - would lose chunks of itself thanks to the rotation so that it would very soon not be. And pretty quickly at that.

As for eyebrows, well, they are a vestigial bit of fur which allows us to express emotion at a distance to our fellow ape descendants.


Which make one wonder about the existence of God, rather...

Eyebrows: They stop water (and associated bit's of crap floating around in it) pouring off your head (when it's raining, or you are sweating etc) and going straight into your eyes, via the devious method of diverting it down the side of your face instead. Those with particularly large eyebrows (usually the elderly, or my aunty) may often try to express the opinion that this is due to a particularly large quota of intelligence/virility/attractiveness, but they lie.

The Earth is flat as everyone knows. Only heretics believe otherwise.

Chris

If it wasn't for the fact that so many furry animals (k-9s come immediately to mind) have eyebrows, I'd kind of agree with some comments here... The rain thing.. hrm.. that's still doable.

Some would argue that they're to test your endurance to silly, unnecessary pain as you pull them all out and apply eyebrow pencil to make you look like you haven't.

Perhaps they're here so people too far away to see the lines form on top of your nose can tell when you squint or frown...

Maybe they're still evolving, and will eventually be the hair naturally used for a comb-over for bald men (or women, I suppose)?

The earth is sort-of-spherical-pear-shaped so we can hide it in a very large fruit basket when danger comes.

Why is the earth spherical? Because if it wasn't then it would be a cube, now wouldn't it?. Have you ever tried to circumnavigate a cube? Trust me, it's much harder than it sounds.

As for the eyebrow question: Eyebrows are actually devices that keep our eyes from clouding over. When you use a camera, sometime because of a shift in temperature, the lense gets foggy. The same thing would happen to our eyes if we didn't have eyebrows to regulate temperature.

Why would that make you question God?

Has anyone ever noticed that eyebrows are just there? They don't have a pupose? No, they don't.
And in fear of becoming a heretic, I now believe the world is flat and has biiigggg waterfalls coming off the edge, where many pirates have surcumed to their expected death.

is that so...

Which of these was supposed to be the silly question? They both sound eminently sensible to me.

(some of the answers, though... )

Why do humans have hair at all? Let alone wondering just about eyebrows. Perhaps the eyebrow mystery would make more sense in a larger context.

az

Okay, I agree with the eyebrows diverting water down your face thing, but if you want a Why????! question, how about men's nipples: Why????!

Because your genitalia (not just yours, personally, Funkypurple, but everyone's) is pretty much the last thing to develop in the womb. Hence, when your nipples grow (beforehand) your body has not yet worked out what gender it's going to be.

B

Actually, a foetus's sex is determined much earlier than that - some time in the first 2-3 months of development. But nipples have developed within the first 6 weeks (I think). So nipples have formed before gender is determined.

why then do we have har under our armpits? it shouldn't be there to keep us warm because armpits are always warm anyway. you can't plait it coz its not long enough, but even if it was long enough, what would be the point as no-one would see it apart from when you lifted your arms...so why?!

maybe a vestigal thing, left over but not contributing or stopping to our survival for the past 100000 years. Where it is advantagous not to have it, people do not grow it. Amazonian Indians have no body hair. Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

they have no hair at all? do you mena they remove it? or they're just born without it?

*goes back to old questions*
The earth is a sorta squished ball shape that bulges in the middle but it also has at least 4 corners.

One of these corners, if not two of them, are located in Ireland. I think another is in Mexico.

I have no clue why or how this is determined, but it says so in my Marks and Spencers 'Would You Believe It!' book from the mid 80s so it must be true.

Footbacon,

Happy Birthday to your cat!

az

ps
not only is human body hair superfluous but some keeps growing and some stops at a certain length - why?