1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Photo from Plane Proves the Earth Is Round

« on: November 29, 2024, 06:18:44 PM »

You're answering as though it's possible to determine if the earth is round based on the OP. It isn't. The 'curvature' is simply the arc that is described around a center point. Put a compass (not the type that points north, but the geometry tool used to draw circles) on a globe and use it to draw a circle. That circle represents the distance to the horizon from the center of the circle. The higher you are above the center point, the farther away the horizon is, but it will always have the same feature, which is that it's an arc - and that is what you see when you see 'curvature'.

I will agree it would be quite difficult (if not impossible) for you to determine the earth's shape based upon some simple pictures from an aircraft's window.  There are too many variables and not enough controls.  If you take a compass and draw a circle on a sphere you are correct the higher you are above the center point, the farther away the horizon will be.  However, there will be an altitude above the center point where the horizon will be larger than the diameter of the sphere and at that point you won't always have the same features as at a lower altitude.  For the most part you just won't get high enough for this to happen.  What you would see above a sphere could be different than what you would see above a flat disk.  Imagine if you took an airplane ride above a flat disk near the edge.  The circle you would draw outlining the horizon would go off the edge at a much lower altitude than above a sphere, where it wouldn't matter where you were.  Near the edge of a disk the visible horizon would look radically different where part would be off the edge and part would above the earth.  This could be a perfect opportunity for the flat earth crowd to verify their FE thesis by simply chartering an aircraft flight to the South Pole and getting them to go to maybe 30,000 feet and it would be very possible that they could easily see the edge of the earth disk, if it does exist.  Of course, when the edge wasn't spotted the infinite earth argument would be trotted out.

Someone that probably has some interesting pictures (videos) would be 'dude perfect' who, went on a rocket ride up to at least 175,000 feet.  I believe he said that he didn't think that the earth was flat, but what would he know?

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Photo from Plane Proves the Earth Is Round

« on: November 28, 2024, 04:44:42 PM »

There surely is some Round Earth forum you can go to post your nonsense, correct?

Most likely not correct.  I did some searching but didn't come up a site where the subject of a round earth was the main discussion objective.  Perhaps I didn't search in the correct location.  Some of my search efforts directed me back to the flat earth societies' Wiki.  There are some discussions on Reddit but nothing that was very meaningful. 


Perhaps you know of a site where the major forum theme is 'The earth is round' ?


As for the pictures out of the window of an airplane...The solution is to take a series of pictures.  Start at something like 10,000 feet and then 20,000 and so on up to the max cruising altitude.  Then you can compare all the pictures when you get home.  If there's a little more curvature in the max altitude picture than the one at 10,000 feet you can use that for your proof and the aircraft window factor would be compensated for.  It would be difficult to conclusively show much curvature below 40 or 50 thousand feet.  Most airliners don't usually get that high very often.  There are pictures out there from military aircraft that do show curvature, but they don't usually show the series of pictures and that gives the flat earthers a little wiggle room and they shout, 'aircraft window distortion every time'. 

3

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Circumnavigation World Record Sailing Discrepancies

« on: October 06, 2024, 02:38:55 AM »

The most pertinent thing here is what was the estimated sailing distance for the trips around Antartica?  In order to qualify for a record, the trips must be above the 60th Southern parallel.  This opens the door for some serious discrepancies between the flat earth model and the round earth one.  On the (verified) round earth model the distance between all longitude lines decreases the further you go either to the North or to the South of the equator.  The flat earth model appears to have increasing distances between the longitude lines South of the equator.  This would result in a big, estimated distance discrepancy for the trip around Antartica.  A trip around Antartica on the flat earth model would have to be a whole lot longer than on the round earth model.  To make a trip in a specific time would require a lot higher speed on the flat earth model than on the round earth one.  That's the basic discrepancy on this thread. 


Keep in mind that the trip by Lisa Blair was a single handed one.  That makes a big difference.  There has to be time for her to sleep so her sailboat would have to have the sails hauled in and a sea anchor put out to allow for some hours of sleep.  There were plenty of ice bergs to navigate around and lots of ice forming on the mast and sails to make things more difficult. Some of the other sail boats that made the same trip had multiple crew members allowing some to safely sleep while others were on watch.  This means they could be traveling ahead 24 hours a day for the whole trip.     

4

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Circumnavigation World Record Sailing Discrepancies

« on: October 02, 2024, 07:53:05 PM »

One would think that higher wind speeds would help, rather than impede, Antarctic world record racers.

When you are sailing, the wind can help you or hurt you.  It all depends on the wind's direction and your desired course.  You can't sail directly into the wind on a sailboat.  Tacking back & forth is necessary to go against the wind.  That takes longer because you can't take the shortest distance between two points.  If the wind becomes too strong you have to haul in your sails to keep them from being ripped off the mast.  Then a sea anchor is your only option.  Icebergs could be another issue.  You don't want to end up like the Titanic, so you have to stay away from them.  Icebergs can also mess up the wind flow and make going around them while sailing a real challenge.   

5

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Firmament /Dome

« on: September 18, 2024, 03:14:09 PM »

The real flying altitude of commercial airplanes is some 6-7 km:

Your quote is incorrect.  I know that from personal experiences.  For many years I was an active licensed commercial pilot.  There have been some occasions when the Sun was directly overhead, and we were at an altitude of over 12km.  Your measurements are obviously wrong for that practical reason. 

6

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What is the true map of the earth?

« on: May 15, 2024, 10:46:19 PM »

So, you have one sole instance to offer as a counter and it happens to be in a place you would have been able to visually detect a referenced landmark perhaps matching the flight map.

How in the world would this translate to a transoceanic flight having little if any similarity to the flight you cite?

If you need many more descriptions of long-haul airline flight experiences, I have plenty for you.


While I was working, I took lots of long-haul transoceanic flights.  Some were up to 15 hours long.  On those flights I sat in business class or first-class seats.  There was always a map with the aircraft’s position and ground speed displayed on the screen in front of me.  Sometimes there was even a forward-facing camera allowing me to have the same outside view as the aircraft’s captain on my display.  If I wanted to double check I could pull out my GPS receiver and have a 2^nd source of speed & position data. This worked OK especially when I was in a window seat.  I am an experienced commercial pilot/ship’s officer/ and navigator myself and was never surprised when I could confirm the aircraft’s position with landmarks below.  We would always start flying a great circle route to save fuel and sometime would go way up into the Artic on flights from the USA to Asia.  Sometimes that route would be altered to avoid unfavorable weather conditions. You can be sure that high altitude jet streams were taken into account when the pre-flight planning was done. There were times when we did divert for a refueling stop before reaching our destination but that didn’t happen very often.  When it did happen, there was always bad weather along the way and the pilot would make some diversions to avoid thunderstorms, typhoons, or hurricanes.  We did once land in Beijing, China to refuel on the way to Hong Kong but there were frequent storms along the way, plenty of adverse head winds and the weather was foggy in Hong Kong. It made sense to be safe and have plenty of reserve fuel in case a diversion or a holding pattern was necessary near the end of the flight due to the unpredictable visibility at our final stop. 
 
The bottom line is that I have the experience of many hundreds of trans-oceanic voyages by air and sea during my working years.   You always knew your position and speed over the ground very accurately.  If someone tells you the contrary, they might very well not be able to determine their position correctly, but experienced navigators certainly can, very accurately, determine both their position and speed over the ground.  If they can't then there is a serious problem with their equipment.  I don't believe that I ever had that happen to me in over 40 years of traveling.  I always had a backup or two to fall back on if a single piece of equipment failed.  Sure, in my early years, I had some navigational difficulties, but that was due to inexperience.  I got better & better at using the navigational equipment and reading navigational charts as my training & experience progressed. 

7

Flat Earth Theory / Re: An honest assessment of the evidence and the Flat Earth model...

« on: January 18, 2024, 06:33:20 PM »

When someone new comes onto this forum and asks ‘what does the flat earth theory say about ‘this’ the usual reply is a link to the Wiki.  Hopefully that person would thoroughly read the Wiki and then would certainly come across ENAG and the Bedford Canal experiment.  I am glad that you agree that upholding ENAG as religious dogma is silly and perhaps it’s only in the Wiki as an example of the silly things people believed in long ago. 


I certainly have no obsession with that book myself but only used it as a contrast to EA. That was part of my assessment of the evidence of the flat earth model. 


Perhaps you don’t wish to take any responsibility for much of the contents of ENAG yourself.  I wouldn't blame you.  It would be a difficult job to explain every single wrong thing that was published in it. 

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: An honest assessment of the evidence and the Flat Earth model...

« on: January 18, 2024, 04:04:27 AM »

The thing that Rowbotham asserts in ENAG is that the level of a body of water was parallel to a specified line of sight over 6 miles.  The assumption was then made that the line of sight was flat because light travels in straight lines.  Since the level of the water was parallel to the line of sight over the specified 6 miles the whole earth had to be flat.

Later Parsifal came up with an equation that asserts that light is bendy and can’t define a straight line.  This assertion was used to explain other observable phenomenon like the fact that it’s dark at night.  Of course, the equation is incomplete so must stay undefined until a value of the Bishop Constant is found. 

If Parsifal’s equation is valid then Rowbotham proved with his Bedford Canal experiment that the earth really isn’t flat but must be curved the same way light is. 
If Rowbotham was correct, then there’s some serious problems in FET like why it gets dark at night.

9

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 13, 2023, 12:48:45 AM »

It still looks like there is a problem with your contention that a rocket is a closed system.  I suppose that you can define your own systems anyway you want, but you can see where it could cause some confusion when you deviate from the scientific norms at use by most scientists and engineers.  When I consult my university thermodynamics textbook, I do find that there can be NO matter transfer in or out of a CLOSED system.  Obviously, a rocket has a very massive exhaust as the majority of a large rocket’s mass is fuel and when the fuel is mostly burned the majority of the initial rocket’s mass has left the system.  Of course, you could include the rocket’s plumb as part of the system boundaries but then those boundaries would have to be continuously expanding over time. 
 
It's also interesting that you consider a human to be an OPEN system.  That definition would be agreeable to most.  Obviously, a human takes in mass in the form of food and water and ejects the waste mass that the body doesn’t use into a toilet somewhere.  That's pretty simular to a rocket that must be fueled before departure (something that is also contrary to a closed system) and then ejects most of the fuel's mass to generate thrust. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system


The information in the link agrees with my text books so you can count on it being accurate.  Please be more specific, if you can, regarding your unique definition of a CLOSED system and specify its boundaries. 

10

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 11, 2023, 08:00:58 PM »

I ‘cheated’ again and fetched my thermodynamics book I used in college and looked at the 2^nd chapter where the author did discuss the differences between open and closed systems.  One important matter is the determination of the system boundaries.  If you define your system boundaries as X and there is any mass crossing that boundary then it’s considered to be an OPEN system.  This means that Action’s defined system could be a closed system only if the defined boundaries were the entire universe.  No telling where the substances of the rocket’s plume will end up billions of years from now.  Even if you did assume that the entire universe was the system’s boundaries, you still have the problem of the conservation of momentum.  Fuel inside a rocket is observed to exit at an accelerated rate so to produce that acceleration requires a force.  The burned rocket fuel is observed to be exiting out the back of the rocket so the force cannot be from the outside.  Remember, force and acceleration are both vector quantities.  The accelerated fuel must have had something inside the rocket to push against, and that would be the combustion chamber.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see the rocket move in the direction opposite of the plume assuming that the rocket is free to move and isn’t tied down to something. 

11

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 11, 2023, 05:11:22 PM »

I consulted my physics book that I used while pursuing my engineering degree years ago.  It seems that many people back in the 1920s also insisted that a rocket wouldn’t work in a vacuum.  It took a person like Robert Goddard to prove that supposition wrong.  There were many in the popular press of the day that had lots of fun and called him “Moon man”.  He finally put a gun inside an evacuated jar that fired a blank and proved without a doubt that a rocket would work in space.  He also earned lots and lots of US Patents for his ideas.  Eventually the press printed some retractions and apologies when the advancing space program proved repeatedly that rockets can and do work in a vacuum. 
 
The bottom line is that either there are countless physics PhDs who are correct about their knowledge of the conservation of momentum, or rockets do not work in space as claimed and the whole think is a big farce perpetrated on the public worldwide. 

12

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 10, 2023, 03:15:18 AM »

If you wish to define the boundaries of a rocket’s system as the entire universe then that rocket could be considered a closed system.  That would be the only way that rocket could be classified as a closed system because the burning fuel exits the rocket’s chassis and travels off to some unknown place after exiting the nozzle. 
 
The conventional way of classifying systems would be to say that mass never enters or leaves a closed system.  Since a conventional rocket has the mass of its fuel leaving out the nozzle on a continuous basis while the rocket is starting its travels, you would conventionally classify it as an open system. 
 
It would be better for you to define your system boundaries to avoid further confusion about whether a rocket is an open or closed system.   

13

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 09, 2023, 01:54:58 AM »

Imagine some fuel inside a rocket. That fuel has some mass.  The fuel and the rocket have about the same relative velocity.  Now some fuel is inducted into the combustion chamber and combustion starts and the fuel’s energy is released.  The combustion chamber is closed at one end and open at the exhaust end.  Pressure inside the combustion chamber builds up due to the energy released by burning the fuel.   The combusted fuel’s mass is ejected at an accelerated rate out the exhaust end.  Newton’s law would say the accelerated fuel mass would produce an equal and opposite reaction.  That opposite force vector would be in the general direction of the nose of the rocket.


Here is your ‘force pair’.  The mass of the combusted rocket fuel being accelerated toward the exhaust port at the rear of the rocket and the forward part of the combustion chamber attached to the rocket itself.  The rocket’s mass is being accelerated in one direction and the mass of the accelerated fuel in the opposite direction.  The dividing line is the forward part of the combustion chamber as it divides the accelerating mass of the rocket itself in one direction with the accelerating mass of the combusted fuel in the opposite direction.


Any external air pressure at the exhaust end acts like a small back pressure that will slow down the acceleration rate of the exiting combusted fuel a little and reduce the forward acceleration rate of the rocket.  If the rocket is in a vacuum that back pressure will be close to zero and the burned fuel mass will be accelerated at a greater rate.  Everything takes place inside the rocket and the lack of external air has nothing to do with the fuel being accelerated in one direction and the rocket being accelerated in the opposite direction. 

14

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 08, 2023, 07:48:23 PM »

Yes, the gas would freely expand once it was outside of the rocket engine.   At that point the exhaust gas mass would have already been accelerated and an equal and opposite force would be applied to the forward end of the combustion chamber.  The fuel is not being burned in a vacuum but inside the combustion chamber enclosure.  A rocket would be more efficient if the gas was dispersed immediately once it exited the rocket.  The action – reaction part would already be completed. 

15

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 08, 2023, 07:27:15 PM »

Inside a rocket's combustion chamber there is the introduction of a mass of fuel at a low relative velocity.  The fuel mass is set on fire.  That releases energy.  One end of the combustion chamber is closed to the product of the combusted fuel.  The other end is open to the outside of the engine.  Since the pressure is lower on the outside, the combusted fuel accelerates out in that direction.  The accelerated fuel mass produces a force equal and opposite to its acceleration vector. 
 
Any pressure on the outside of the rocket engine will inhibit the exhausts acceleration.  Since the force is proportional to the mass acceleration the less external force outside the rocket engine the more force will be produced.  This means that a rocket will be more efficient in a vacuum than in an atmosphere.   

16

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 08, 2023, 06:09:57 PM »

General Electric gas turbine engines work on all the normal principles of physics you are taught in college engineering school.  I don’t need to consult with a relative of any kind as I am, personally, a federally certified gas turbine engineer.  There are some gas turbine powered, government owned, military ships in service that I have personally worked aboard many times.   A gas will always flow from a higher pressure towards a lower pressure.  Figure 1-2 on page 2 would be a more relevant diagram illustrating how a gas turbine works.  The compressor blades are spinning, and this accelerates the air.  This air mass acceleration is a source of the turbine engine’s forward thrust.  Where does the compressor get its power to accelerate the air?  You can see it’s via the shaft connecting the compressor with the turbine.  The turbine is powered by the released energy of the burning fuel inside the combustion chamber that is then routed past the turbine blades to provide power to the turbine/compressor shaft.  The exhaust from this operation is then expelled through the propelling nozzle.  The nozzle will provide a little more forward force because the exhaust gases are accelerated when passing through the nozzle.  The net force will be in a direction opposite the incoming air flow.   


These gas turbine engines will require atmospheric oxygen for fuel combustion where rocket engines do not.  The rockets carry their own oxygen with them inside.  Both rockets and turbines provide forward thrust in the same manner, however.  Both rely on accelerating mass to provide an equal and opposite force.  Newton’s law never specifies what the mass must be.  In a turbine engine, it’s outside air and combustion products.  On a rocket its all combustion products.  On a ship or a boat water is accelerated by the propellor to provide forward thrust. 

17

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 07, 2023, 08:23:02 PM »

You put some rocket fuel inside a rocket and ignite the fuel to release a quantity of energy.  The fuel is transformed from a solid (or liquid) to a very hot expanding gas.  The gas is confined inside the rocket ignition chamber with only one way out.  Pressure builds up and the very hot gas exits thru the engine’s nozzle that helps to accelerate the gas.  The hot exiting gas’s mass will be equal to the mass of the fuel that was burned.  Now you have the mass(M) in the equation.  The hot gas exiting the rocket engine is traveling at a high speed so, since it was almost zero velocity at the start, has accelerated greatly while traveling through the nozzle.  Now you have the (A) acceleration part.  Since the force is equal to the mass times the acceleration, you have a force opposite the direction of the rockets exiting gas.  There’s no air mentioned in the equation anywhere. All that is needed is an accelerating mass.   


If anything, the surrounding air will only slow the rocket’s acceleration.  Any force produced by the air pushing the rocket up will be balanced out by the force of the air pushing back on the nose of the rocket.  If the surface of the earth was a vacuum the acceleration of the rocket would be greater, all things being equal. 

18

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Do rockets push off the air?

« on: December 07, 2023, 05:35:51 PM »

The ‘plumb’ in space doesn’t have anything to do with the production of a force by the rocket engine.  A rocket contains fuel that has a mass, and an amount of dormant energy.  When combustion occurs, the dormant energy is released, and that energy effectively accelerates the mass of the fuel.  The combusted fuel is accelerating out the back of the rocket.  When you apply Newton’s law you have an equal and opposite amount of force (F = MA) applied on the rocket in the direction opposite to the direction of the exiting combusted fuel.  It doesn’t matter if the rocket’s environment is in air or a vacuum.  Newton’s law applies equally in either environment. 

19

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Died Suddenly

« on: October 08, 2023, 05:14:08 PM »

No, more like human history really.
You should probably go find some old people.  Ask them about polio.

Yes, at one time polio was a problem, at least in the USA.  My parents had some religious reasons against the vaccine, but I and my siblings all ended up getting it anyway.  There were lots of pressure put on everyone to get vaccinated.  When in high school I can remember at least one student that had polio and his leg was all messed up. He hopped around as best he could and got by.  There was at least one other acquaintance that had it as well, but the effects were minor. The vaccine must have worked because I haven’t run across anyone with polio in over 50 years.   

20

Science & Alternative Science / Re: NASA’s Latest Moon Actors

« on: September 08, 2023, 04:54:21 PM »

The earth’s horizon is the dividing line between the land and the sky.  On a totally flat plain, that line (physically) must be below your eye level because there’s some distance between your feet and your eyes.  This is the dip angle.  One problem on earth is the atmosphere. This is the source of some refraction.  This means that the perceived angle at which the light enters your eye may not be the same as the actual dip angle.  It’s very important for a celestial navigator to know his local weather conditions as well as his ‘height of eye’.  On most large ships the navigator can easily be 125 to 150 feet above sea level, and this would be a significant error if this distance is ignored.  The local temperature and humidity will produce some light refraction that can also cause a measurement error if not corrected for.   It’s important to realize that the physical horizon will always be below your eye level, but that angle may not be perceivable due to atmospheric refraction and/or your inability to decern the differences in very small dip angles.