Water Surface: Is it Flat or Rounded?

[tommyn79]

hi guys.. i don't know much about physics. and if my questions sound stupid .. please excuse me.
According to what I've known, the water surface is flat, and we use it for some sort of measurement like a water level, but if we go to outer space, we would see the water surface not flat , it's actually rounded along the Earth's crust. So imagine the bottom of the ocean is a big bow which contains all the water, and the water fills up the bow, and it makes up the rounded shape because of gravity, then if we narrow down the ocean to a very small angle as a small bow..we would still have it rounded somehow at a very small degree.

here are my questions

If I have a bow of water in my hand and i lift it up 1 meter above the ground, is the water surface in that bow 100% flat or a little bit rounded?

Is there any difference to the the water surface if i put the bow of water on the ground or even bury it for direct gravity?

Thanks for reading ...

 

[member 553083]

The water surface in the bow would be nearly flat when it is lifted up one meter above the ground. The curvature of the surface due to gravity would be very small and would not be noticeable. When the bow is placed on the ground or buried, gravity will cause the water surface to curve slightly, but this curvature will likely go unnoticed as well.