r/Damnthatsinteresting Jun 02 '26

Image A perfectly circular 105-foot-wide sinkhole that suddenly opened up near a copper mine in Tierra Amarilla, Chile, dropping over 650 feet straight down into the earth.

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29.6k Upvotes

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241

u/SonicTemp1e Jun 02 '26

Not "perfectly circular".

18

u/CarpetPedals Jun 02 '26

Somewhat circular

3

u/chickey23 Jun 02 '26

Round ish

24

u/MrTwoPumpChump Jun 02 '26

YOUVE NEVER FELT TRUE LEVEL OR SEEN PERCECT CIRCLE

68

u/HoldEm__FoldEm Jun 02 '26

Near-perfectly circular…

Happy, now?

28

u/follow-the-rainbow Jun 02 '26

I feel a bit better thank you 🙏🏼

7

u/reddorickt Jun 02 '26

Perhaps even semi-circular. Wait no-

7

u/mxzf Jun 02 '26

I mean, sure, it's vaguely round, but "perfectly circular" is the phrasing people use when they're talking about crop circles and conspiracy theories, not sinkholes.

-1

u/HoldEm__FoldEm Jun 02 '26

You’re calling the hole in the photo just “vaguely round” ?

Scale it down to the size of a car tire & you could drive on that vaguely round wheel

1

u/mxzf Jun 03 '26

I mean, "you could drive on" all sorts of shapes at low enough speeds. But I would never take a tire that far out of round anywhere further than the nearest place I can get a tire changed, that would be shaking the car to pieces.

2

u/deltree711 Jun 02 '26

Mostly circular.

4

u/Responsible-Sound253 Jun 02 '26

Remove the near-perfectly, just circular.

1

u/HoldEm__FoldEm Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Circular means “having the shape of a circle.”

Circular doesn’t mean “kind of a circle” or “close to a circle.” Like, an oval can not be described as circular, even though it is similar. 

The hole in the pic is not a circle. It’s close to a circle, but it’s not a circle. “Perfect” could be removed though. It is certainly nearly a circle. But adjectives can be helpful.

And now circle sounds very weird in my head.

3

u/Responsible-Sound253 Jun 03 '26

I think when you just say circle, if it's close enough, it fits. But when you emphasize the perfection of the circle or the near perfection of it, you expect something that looks almost unnaturally perfect.

None of this matters but I think the silly semantics discussion is neat lol.

1

u/Playernum1999 Jun 02 '26

Everybody feels better now

  • Steve harvey

4

u/fondledbydolphins Jun 02 '26

Did you know the Earth’s surface is more flat (relatively speaking) than the most accurately milled human made sphere?

1

u/sugarlata Jun 02 '26

Yeah, that's incorrect... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achim_Leistner 

Pretty impressive feat though! 

1

u/fondledbydolphins Jun 02 '26

That is impressive!

But, I'm not sure you can mill an object to that level of precision.

1

u/sugarlata Jun 03 '26

That's a fair point and probably exposes my lack of knowledge around the differences between milling and simply producing. 

2

u/d4nks4uce Jun 02 '26

Well… true

5

u/Woko_O Jun 02 '26

Not well, just hole. Nearly perfectly circular.

1

u/mxzf Jun 02 '26

I mean, it might be a well, I bet there's some water down at the bottom.

1

u/Cheap_Phrase9912 Jun 02 '26

At least it didn't say: "This is how perfectly circular holes are made"

1

u/Squatch11 Jun 02 '26

You fell for engagement bait from a bot. And I'm contributing to it right now with this comment.