How Many Continents Are There?

[exchemist]

Scientifically, as in according to the scientific method.

For example I constructed a hypothesis "things made of snow are not continents even if they are really big".

I then made an experiment to test this hypothesis. I built a 7 foot tall snowman and asked several people if said snowman was:

A) a snowman
B) a continent
C) both

All people answered that it was A) a snowman

This scientifically proved that things made of snow are not continents, even if they are quite large indeed.

Deductively, this means Antarctica, like snowmen, igloos or icebergs, is not a continent, because it is made of snow as opposed to being made of a continental shelf.

Oh dear, I had thought you were joking.

Antarctica, unlike the Arctic, is not just made of snow and ice. It is a land mass, of continental crust, covered with snow and ice. Geology of Antarctica - Wikipedia

 

[Redwing]

Scientifically, as in according to the scientific method.

For example I constructed a hypothesis "things made of snow are not continents even if they are really big".

I then made an experiment to test this hypothesis. I built a 7 foot tall snowman and asked several people if said snowman was:

A) a snowman
B) a continent
C) both

All people answered that it was A) a snowman

This scientifically proved that things made of snow are not continents, even if they are quite large indeed.

Deductively, this means Antarctica, like snowmen, igloos or icebergs, is not a continent, because it is made of snow as opposed to being made of a continental shelf.

Your hypothesis leaves out land mass.

 

[Augustus]

Your hypothesis leaves out land mass.

So did the person who built Antarctica.

Hence you see sad penguins forlornly looking out from melting snow.

If Antarctica really was made of a continental land mass the penguins would be smug and saying "joke's on you hippy environmentalists, we've got a whole continent under this snow so you can cause global warming till the cows come home and we'll just sit on beaches instead."

But they know it's only made of snow, so they are sad.

 

[Augustus]

Oh dear, I had thought you were joking.

Antarctica, unlike the Arctic, is not just made of snow and ice.

That's why you are an ex-chemist, not an ex-continentaliologismist.

It is a land mass, of continental crust,

Baked goods no more qualify as a continent than large snow structures do

Science education must have really gone down hill in recent years...

 

[exchemist]

That's why you are an ex-chemist, not an ex-continentaliologismist.



Baked goods no more qualify as a continent than large snow structures do

Science education must have really gone down hill in recent years...

I don't know what's got into you. Antarctica is a continental land mass. There is no question about this. It appears as a continental block in all discussions of plate tectonics, including analyses of the the break-up of Pangaea.

 

[Augustus]

I don't know what's got into you. Antarctica is a continental land mass. There is no question about this. It appears as a continental block in all discussions of plate tectonics, including analyses of the the break-up of Pangaea.

That's hardly accurate. Antarctica is just below India on that so called "map".

Any schoolboy worth his salt knows that's where Sri Lanka is, and also that it is jolly hot there and Antarctica would just melt.

That's why they built it at the South Pole, rather than somewhere like Benidorm or Tenerife even though it would be more convenient for the tourists as Easy Jet and Ryanair fly there...

 

[exchemist]

That's hardly accurate. Antarctica is just below India on that so called "map".

Any schoolboy worth his salt knows that's where Sri Lanka is, and also that it is jolly hot there and Antarctica would just melt.

That's why they built it at the South Pole, rather than somewhere like Benidorm or Tenerife even though it would be more convenient for the tourists as Easy Jet and Ryanair fly there...

OK, that's enough of this tomfoolery.

 

[Koldo]

And what is a continent?

 

[Yerda]

There's the AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC, and UEFA. So 6.