Does the Sun Speed Up in Winter?
« on: June 15, 2020, 10:50:02 PM »
Hi everyone!
I've not been here in a long time, but I had a thought recently, and I'd never heard it discussed before, and a quick search didn't bring it up either. I wondered whether anybody here has anything to input.

I'll state up front that I believe the Earth to be a globe. But I'm here in good faith, in the spirit of robust discussion that lots of people here value.

So let's start with the premise that the Earth is flat. The sun, a few thousand miles above the surface, moves in good approximations of circles centred around the north pole. They aren't perfect circles but more like a spiral, with the sun moving closer to the north pole in summer and closer to the outer edge in winter (I live in the northern hemisphere so I when I say summer and winter I mean northern hemisphere summer and winter. I also don't know what other terminology to use than "hemisphere".)

Now, whether it's summer or winter, a full day and night cycle still lasts for 24 hours. But because the sun during winter travels over a much longer distance in the same period of time than it does during summer, it must be travelling much faster. But we don't see this happening, down here on the surface.
If, from a given northern latitude, you observe the sun move across the sky during northern solstice, and then observe it again from the equal southern latitude during southern solstice, the sun will appear to be moving across the sky at the same speed, though on a flat Earth we would expect it to be moving 1.7 times faster*, which would be quite noticeable with even casual observations.

So, what gives? Does anyone know of any FE models that can account for this? Has this topic been covered before? Apologies if so.

Thanks, all!
Best wishes
Don

*at least, given the measurements I got off Google Earth: 7400km straight down a meridian from the north pole to the Tropic of Cancer, giving a circumference for the Tropic of Cancer of 46,500km (all measurements rounded to the nearest hundred), then another 12,600km straight down a meridian from tropic to tropic, giving a circumference of 79,200 for the Tropic of Capricorn, roughly 1.7 times as long.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2020, 10:55:42 PM by Don Lengthy »

Offline GoldCashew

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Re: Does the Sun Speed Up in Winter?
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2020, 12:22:43 AM »
Hi everyone!
I've not been here in a long time, but I had a thought recently, and I'd never heard it discussed before, and a quick search didn't bring it up either. I wondered whether anybody here has anything to input.

I'll state up front that I believe the Earth to be a globe. But I'm here in good faith, in the spirit of robust discussion that lots of people here value.

So let's start with the premise that the Earth is flat. The sun, a few thousand miles above the surface, moves in good approximations of circles centred around the north pole. They aren't perfect circles but more like a spiral, with the sun moving closer to the north pole in summer and closer to the outer edge in winter (I live in the northern hemisphere so I when I say summer and winter I mean northern hemisphere summer and winter. I also don't know what other terminology to use than "hemisphere".)

Now, whether it's summer or winter, a full day and night cycle still lasts for 24 hours. But because the sun during winter travels over a much longer distance in the same period of time than it does during summer, it must be travelling much faster. But we don't see this happening, down here on the surface.
If, from a given northern latitude, you observe the sun move across the sky during northern solstice, and then observe it again from the equal southern latitude during southern solstice, the sun will appear to be moving across the sky at the same speed, though on a flat Earth we would expect it to be moving 1.7 times faster*, which would be quite noticeable with even casual observations.

So, what gives? Does anyone know of any FE models that can account for this? Has this topic been covered before? Apologies if so.

Thanks, all!
Best wishes
Don

*at least, given the measurements I got off Google Earth: 7400km straight down a meridian from the north pole to the Tropic of Cancer, giving a circumference for the Tropic of Cancer of 46,500km (all measurements rounded to the nearest hundred), then another 12,600km straight down a meridian from tropic to tropic, giving a circumference of 79,200 for the Tropic of Capricorn, roughly 1.7 times as long.


There is a gentleman on youtube that goes by "Professor Dave Explains" whom often has videos to debunk the flat Earth belief.

He kind of comes across as snarky and so it can be annoying, but if you strip that away, his questions and challenges to FE community are solid.

He did also point out that the Sun would have to speed up (or slow down) at different seasons in the flat Earth model, to maintain the 24 hours per day.

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Online AATW

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Re: Does the Sun Speed Up in Winter?
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2020, 07:35:45 AM »
In the FE model presented in the Wiki the sun would have to be constantly accelerating.
It is claimed to be moving in a circle which would require a constant force. And yes, the diameter of that circle keeps changing which would mean the speed would have to keep changing so the time of each orbit would stay constant through the year.
And whatever force makes that happen would have to change direction twice a year for some reason so the diameter shrinks and grows and the speed decreases and increases accordingly.
I don't think any of that is straw manning, that is the consequence of the model laid out here:

https://wiki.tfes.org/Flat_Earth_-_Frequently_Asked_Questions#How_do_you_explain_day.2Fnight_cycles_and_seasons.3F

I don't believe there is any FE explanation for any of that. There's this about an Aetheric Whirlpool

https://wiki.tfes.org/Aetheric_Whirlpool

But it's a bit vague and I'm not convinced it's a complete explanation for all of the above.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"