NBA champion Kyrie Irving shocked a lot of people when he revealed that he believes the Earth is flaton theRoad Trippin podcastthat released on Friday morning.Then, on Friday night at NBA All-Star weekend, Irving doubled down on his comments.

For The Winwas able to get in touch with Mark Kruse, who is a physics professor at Duke University, which is Irvings alma mater (he only played 11 games for the Blue Devils, but it counts). We asked him what he thinks about the Cavs point guards beliefs in a phone call on Saturday morning.

Kruse is the perfect person to talk to about this.He has taught at Duke since 2001 and is currently teaching an introduction to astronomy undergraduate course. Additionally, hes doing research in elementary particle physicsat The Large Hadron Collider (a facility in Switzerland), where he spends a great deal of time. He said that hes thinking about the fundamental nature of the universe all the time.

Kruses responses have been shortened for length.

Irving said the following to ESPNabout his the Earth is flat comments:

I think people should do their own research, man. Then, hopefully, theyll either back my belief or throw it in the water, but I think its interesting for people to find out on their own. Ive seen a lot of things that my educational system said was real and turned out to be completely fake. I dont mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe.

To that, Kruse said that he actually thinks its good that Irving is questioning things, but that questioning if the Earth is flat isnt exactly productive.

Theres a lot of misinformation out there. In some things, its good that hes questioning established theories but this is one that is somewhat undeniable, so he probably shouldnt go there Things like the nature of time, the nature of space, the nature of fundamental particles, and theres a lot of information more recently that even questions the possible relation of these things to our consciousness, so I think there are deeper things he could question rather than the shape of the Earth

If its really just a metaphor for questioning established models, then thats great. People should question established models. Of course, if you come up with an alternative theory, its got to be able to explain a lot of the observations that weve made that have established the theories we have.

On the Road Trippin podcast, Irving said this:

For what Ive known for as many years and what Ive been taught is that the Earth is round, but I mean, if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move and the fact that can you really think of us rotating around the sun and all planets aligned, rotating in specific dates being perpendicular with whats going on with these planets and stuff like this It doesnt come back. There is no concrete information except for the information that theyre giving us.

I read that quote to Kruse word-for-word, and after a slight pause and a chuckle, he replied:

Yeah, theres a lot in that. It is true that we send space projects to space and they dont come back, but theyre sending signals back. They send signals back and information about what theyre observing while they are in space. But also our theory of gravity very beautifully explains how planetary systems are formed, how they orbit stars, for example, our own solar system, how our own planets in our solar system orbit our sun, and that theory is well established. There are no observations that contradict that, so maybe he needs to learn a little bit more about basic physics.

But hes saying if you just observe the landscape, well, if you go back a couple thousand years ago, people did think the Earth was flat because they looked at their landscape and they saw it was flat. But, of course, since then theres a lot of evidence now, as scientific knowledge improves over several hundred years, you cant just dismiss all that other evidence You cant dismiss all the experiments that have happened and all the knowledge that has been accrued over the last several hundred years that all point to the fact that the Earth is spherical.

Here Id like to note that toward the beginning of the interview, Kruse said that hed like to give Irving the benefit of the doubt, saying, Perhaps he was using it (the Earth is flat) as a metaphor for just generally questioning established models of the universe, which in a sense is great.

So when Kruse said that hed like to welcome Irving to his class, he wasnt saying it in a way to mock the point guard. He wasgenuine. The professor would actually love to welcomethe NBA star to sit in on one of his classes.Kruse said of Irving:

He should go and really try to understand the theories behind what we really do understand about gravity and the orbits of the planets, and the things like that. Hes obviously asking questions and is curious about these things, and so he should do his own research and come up with his own conclusions.

If you come up with an alternative model, of course its got to be able to explain all the things that we do observe, and a flat Earth theory is not going to be able to do that, so he has to think about it. He should read some astronomy books or take an astronomy course, even online, or come back to Duke, sit in on my class.

Another option is to have Kruse phone in as a guest on the Road Trippin podcast, and he and the NBA champ could simply have a conversation, which I think would be fascinating.

As for us here at FTW, I guess well go call up a Michigan State professor next.

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We asked a Duke astronomy professor about Duke alum Kyrie Irving saying the Earth is flat - For The Win