yes, before the downfall of Númenor the world was flat. after Ar-Pharazôn, the last king of Númemor, was deceived by Sauron and sailed west to Aman with an army to force the Valar to grant Men immortality (which they do not have the power to do), the Valar ensured this would not happen again by making the world round, so that Aman and Tol Eressëa were “removed from the circles of the world,” and Númenor was sunk in the upheaval, ending the Second Age. now when Men try to sail west, they are turned around by the curvature of the world, but Elves can “sail the straight road” and reach the undying lands. some theorize that this means the world is round for Men, but still flat for Elves, allowing them to see beyond the horizon.

however there’s not really much evidence in the text for that that I’m aware of, no explicit moment where an Elf sees something that would be beyond the horizon for a Man. there’s also a moment where Tom Bombadil refers to a time “before the seas were bent,” indicating that the world is round for him, who is neither a Man nor an Elf. and even if this theory were correct, it would not fully explain Legolas’s vision; there are multiple instances where he can see something that Aragorn also sees, but in greater detail.

for example, in “The Great River,” the second-to-last chapter of Fellowship:

Later as the sun was setting, and the Company was stirring and getting ready to start again, [Aragorn] descried a dark spot against the fading light: a great bird high and far off, now wheeling, now flying on slowly southwards. “What is that, Legolas?” he asked, pointing to the northern sky. “Is it, as I think, an eagle?” “Yes,” said Legolas. “It is an eagle, a hunting eagle. I wonder what that forebodes. It is far from the mountains.” “We will not start until it is fully dark,” said Aragorn.

then in “The Riders of Rohan,” the second chapter of The Two Towers:

“Look!” cried Legolas, pointing up into the pale sky above them. “There is the eagle again! He is very high. He seems to be flying now away, from this land back to the North. He is going with great speed. Look!” “No, not even my eyes can see him, my good Legolas,” said Aragorn. “He must be far aloft indeed. I wonder what is his errand, if he is the same bird that I have seen before. But look! I can see something nearer at hand and more urgent; there is something moving over the plain!” “Many things,” said Legolas. “It is a great company on foot; but I cannot say more, nor see what kind of folk they may be. They are many leagues away: twelve, I guess; but the flatness of the plain is hard to measure.”

now obviously the horizon isn’t interfering with Aragorn’s ability to see a bird in the sky, yet he can’t see it while Legolas can. also, for 12 leagues, or 36 miles, to be within the horizon, which it must be for Aragorn to be able to see, they would have to be at least 865 feet above the plain. they are described as standing on a ridge twenty fathoms (120 feet) above a cliff, which falls an unspecified distance to the plain, so that must be at least another 745 feet

then later in the same chapter:

Following with his keen eyes the trail to the river, and then the river back towards the forest, Aragorn saw a shadow on the distant green, a dark swift-moving blur. He cast himself upon the ground and listened again intently. But Legolas stood beside him, shading his bright elven-eyes with his long slender hand, and he saw not a shadow, nor a blur, but the small figures of horsemen, many horsemen, and the glint of morning on the tips of their spears was like the twinkle of minute stars beyond the edge of mortal sight. Far behind them a dark smoke rose in thin curling threads. There was a silence in the empty fields and Gimli could hear the air moving in the grass. “Riders!” cried Aragorn, springing to his feet. “Many riders on swift steeds are coming towards us!” “Yes,” said Legolas, “there are one hundred and five. Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall.” Aragorn smiled. “Keen are the eyes of the Elves,” he said. “Nay! The riders are little more than five leagues distant,” said Legolas.

again, both Aragorn and Legolas can see something, but Legolas sees it in much greater detail. they are described standing on top of a hill, with the edge of Fangorn forest visible at a distance of ten leagues, so the hill must be at least 600 feet tall

for a decade before they elected him, they did nothing but complain about “coastal elites” controlling everything. for the decade since, it’s “we love our coastal elite who controls everything”

the simple forms of conservation you probably learned in school are not entirely accurate. you probably learned that neither energy not matter can be created or destroyed; whatever you do, the mass you begin with will be the same as the mass you end with, and the same is true, separately, for energy. that’s not actually true; mass can be converted into energy, and vice versa. the correct form of conservation is that the combined mass-energy is constant. mass can be destroyed, but only if a proportional amount of energy is created. the coefficient of that proportionality is the square of the speed of light. that’s what E=mc² means. that’s how nuclear weapons work, and why they’re so powerful. c² is obviously a pretty big value, so when a small amount of matter is destroyed, it creates a large amount of energy

similarly, energy can be converted into mass, but doing so makes it much “smaller.” c² units of energy will become 1 unit of mass. and mass, of course, interacts with space-time

blow dart enters and exits cleanly through the skull. dude’s got one hell of a diaphragm

jam is made from mashed fruit, jelly is made from fruit juice. basically the same process except the solids are strained out

Seattle suburbs

how to say 87

most Americans: 80+7

Abraham Lincoln: 4×20+7

supposedly the same Edward VII is the reason why the bottom button on a suit jacket is supposed to be left undone. he got too fat to fasten it, and the other men imitated that style

I’ve often imagined a little comic strip where a dentist goes to the doctor. the doctor draws blood for tests, or gives an injection, or just pokes/cuts the dentist for no reason. the doctor then says “you’re bleeding because you don’t shower enough”

that was a myth. the people in charge of maintaining Notre Dame actually limited how accurate the developers were allowed to make the model in the game, because the exact image of the building is protected by copyright

the surname Homan is sometimes derived from old German “hoh mann” which is literally “tall man” (hoh is related to high)

E1, about 41.2Hz

hope they have simultaneous heart attacks on stage

so basically it’s a language problem, not a biology problem? people are incorrectly assuming that any group of species with a word to describe it must be monophyletic, and therefore include all unrelated species which would make it monophyletic?

are they gonna fix the bug where it didn’t turn everyone gay?

I suppose that makes sense if your interpretation of “bros before hoes” is simply “men are to be preferred above women in any circumstance.” but if you consider that “bros before hoes” is actually supposed to mean “loyalty to your friends is more important than the arbitrary pursuit of fleeting sexual pleasure,” that’s actually a condemnation of the friend for doing the exact opposite as efficiently as possible

maybe, but also consider Tolkien’s intent while writing the scene. the characters, and also therefore the reader, are explicitly questioning how this happened, and how long it’s been going on. Tolkien then gives an explicit date. that date would have been before anyone had noticed it happening, and he has multiple characters independently theorize that it may have been happening before anyone realized. do you think those are attempts by Tolkien to mislead the reader or raise unanswered questions about the subtleties of the pipeweed production and delivery timeline, or is it more likely that he’s trying to tell the reader that this has been going on for a while, when the only means he has of communicating with the reader is through characters who are not aware of the information he’s trying to convey? is it more thematically appropriate for Tolkien to make a point about the similarities between pipeweed and wine, or to make a point about how the type of evil he’s portraying is insidious, and can begin to take hold without anybody noticing?

you don’t have to do this much guesswork, it’s directly in the text, just a few sentences after the part you quoted.

[Aragorn] “Neither goods nor folk have passed that way for many a long year, not openly. Saruman had secret dealings with someone in the Shire, I guess. Wormtongues may be found in other houses than King Théoden’s. Was there a date on the barrels?” “Yes,” said Pippin. “It was the 1417 crop, that is last year’s; no, the year before, of course, now: a good year.”

Gandalf doesn’t arrive at Orthanc until mid-1418, the leaf was already there, unless it takes several months to transport

I actually don’t want the public to have a financial interest in making these companies succeed