21

Flat Earth Theory / Another careful proof project.

« on: August 11, 2017, 05:47:48 PM »

Following the clear success of the airline route map project - which clearly demonstrates that there can be no possible flat earth map that can explain how long it takes people to fly between cities in commercial airliners - I have another idea for a proof of RET.

Here is a VERY interesting project:

http://confluence.org

The idea is to have people to travel the world and use their GPS units to take them to "confluence points"  (defined as: "locations that are at exact whole-degree latitude/longitude coordinates"...like  13N, 45E...but not 13.234N 44.9876E).

When those people get there, they take photos of the area, a photo of their GPS unit - and they typically write up the story of how they got there - who went with them to verify it, the exact time and date, etc.

Predictably, not many people are interested in travelling to weird places in the middle of the ocean - or into vast areas of Siberia, the Arctic and Antarctic - just to get a photo for this website...but there is amazingly good coverage for most parts of the world.

Even so, there are lots of photos of from many of the confluence points in those areas.   Notably NOT from people who had tremendous problems with scaling the Ice Wall, fighting off UN gunships, running out of air or being chilled to absolute zero - because you'd think they'd mention that in their visit reports!

So right there - we can probably discount the FE map on the Wiki. (*WHY* is that still there?)

Of the 6,839 confluence points on Earth that are either on land, or within sight of land - they have photographs and visit reports for 6,459 of them.  Places like Europe, North America and Australia have near 100% coverage.   Each report lists the people who were present to witness the event, the time, the date, etc.  Many of them leave email addresses and are interested to talk about their findings.

I'm fairly sure we can use this database of pictures as additional proof of the round earth...but I'm still working through the "chain of proof" part - so some patience will be needed here.   We want to be very careful to get it right.

But if anyone else has any thoughts on the usefulness of this enormous body of evidence, it would be interesting to hear it.

Obviously, the locations were found by map and verified by GPS - so our Flat Earth friends here will want to start off by proving that these people were not standing where they claimed to be when they took the photos.

This should be a simple matter to demonstrate.   Find a confluence point that's in a town or village - or at some road intersection.   Find a map that provides the lat-long of this place from an era before GPS existed (circa 1972) - go to confluence.org and we'll see whether their GPS got them to the correct location.

Seem like a plan?

Do this for enough places and our FE community will be forced to concede that GPS is indeed reasonably accurate....or maybe not...maybe the Earth is flat and GPS's are horribly inaccurate.   We'll see!

22

Flat Earth Theory / Using airline flight data.

« on: August 01, 2017, 10:18:22 PM »

OK folks - I'm going to jump through a few steps on the way to a proof - it's going to take many days and lots of posts, so just follow along as we go.

I'll include multiple sources for each claim so we know there is no funny business going on.

STEP 1: To keep things easy - I want to use a service called: http://www.worldatlas.com/travelaids/flight_distance.htm - it provides a simple way to type in the names of two cities and it tells you the flight distance between them.

I do understand that our flat earth brethren are not going to believe what it says without evidence.   So STEP 2 will be to test whether it works or not.

STEP 2: Since FET differs from RET to the greatest extent in the southern hemisphere - it makes sense to use Qantas airline's non-stop flights as a way to compare the distance the Qantas claims they are flying against the worldatlas site.   So - here's where we go:

    https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/route-maps/global/en

This tells us the distance and flight time in hours and minutes between various destinations.  These are the PUBLISHED travel times.   We may need to use other data later to confirm that the times are right...and because we know that Qantas only flies 747-400 aircraft over these long haul routes - we can compare the known cruising speeds of the aircraft to their estimated travel time to be sure that there are no HUGE errors in their data.   If necessary I can find the specifications of these aircraft - range and speeds.   Also, we'll need to look at the flights both to and from each destination to confirm that the jet stream isn't giving them a massive speed boost in one direction versus the other.

Don't worry - we'll be backing up this data very soon.

But to start with, let's look at some basic flight data:

Qantas say that Sydney to Johannesburg (South Africa) is 11,044 km and takes 11 hours 45 minutes to get there and 11 hours and 55 minutes to get back...so the Jet stream adds 5 minutes one way and subtracts 5 the other way.   Not a big deal.  If you check other routes, the outgoing and return flights times are always within 15 minutes.   Incidentally - this blows away the FE claim that jetstreams account for the 220% increase in speed needed to do Sydney-Santiago in the claimed time on EITHER the FE map shown on the Wiki OR Tom's new map that includes antarctica.  Neither map can be explained away in light of this data.

Worldmap say that this flight is 11,119 km...which is 115 more than Qantas - but we're within about 1% here - so that's pretty close.

Taking some more routes:

Sydney-Dubai is 12,039 according to Qantas and 12,008 km according to Worldmap...better than 1%.
Sydney-Singapore is 6,289 according to Qantas and 6235 km according to Worldmap...again, better than 1%
Sydney-Dallas is 13,816 according to Qantas and 13,756 km according to Worldmap...same deal.

So we can certainly get the idea that:

 a) Qantas and Worldmap seem to agree on these distances to within about 1% - so it's not that one is "great circle" and the other is "fixed compass heading".
 b) They didn't come up with EXACTLY the same numbers - which suggest that they aren't both using the same equations or the same source data.

Clearly we have independent sources here - and they agree quite well.

You can sit there all day and find different Qantas routes (although you need to be sure they are DIRECT flights) - and the Worldmap numbers agree.

We don't have to just use flights into Australia and back.

Anchorage to Honolulu - Qantas says 4,471 km - Worldmap says 4,490 km.
Calgary to Halifax - Qantas says 3,745 km - Worldmap says 3,794km.

Now - what about flight times and airplane ranges?

Qantas fly the Boeing 747-400 exclusively on long distance routes.  Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-400#747-400 for the exact variant of the aircraft they fly.  The straight 747-400 is by far the most popular of the 747 series.  Further down the Wikipedia article, you can see the Cruise speed of the aircraft is 933 kph and the range is 13,490km...but wait?  That can't be right - the Sydney-Dallas flight is 13,816km.   This is actually a subtle point.  That range if for the PW4000 engines - but if you look further up the page, it says that Qantas once flew non-stop from London to Sydney - which is 18,000 km.   And the reason for that is that it was a "delivery flight" - no passengers, no luggage, no freight.   So how are Qantas flying full loads to Dallas?   Turns out they are using the 747-400ER (Extended range) version.  They bought just six of them and they use them for their Australia/USA routes...and it adds another 800km of additional range to the basic airplane.

Incidentally - at the altitude theses airplanes fly, 933 kph is Mach 0.85 - well below the speed of sound.  At full speed (which guzzles fuel!) they can make 1000kph which is mach 0.92.   That's important...no matter what, a subsonic airplane can't go past mach 1 without some serious problems!

If you doubt the veracity of Wikipedia - note the little blue numbers in square brackets next to most of these facts...those link to other documents that will confirm what they say.

OK - so all is explained - this plane can fly those distances - but there isn't a whole lot of fuel to spare.

Let's look at flight times to confirm what we're seeing:

Sydney-Dubai is 12,039km - and the posted flight time is 13hrs 40mins - giving us a theoretical speed of 880 kph - which is well within the airplane's ability.
Sydney-Johannesburg is 11,044 km - and 11 hours 45 mins (with the jet-stream) which is 940 kph...but 11 hours 55mins (against the jetstream) 926 kph.  That's fast - and it may be they are pushing the plane above cruising speed to do that...definitely possible.

...again, we pick flights can do this all night - the answer is the same - the aircraft are flying within their published limits - but not by a massive degree.

Even if Qantas and WorldAtlas are somehow collaborating to fake their distance data - the flight times can't be off by much.

Another data point:

   https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/aviation/otp_annual.aspx

This is a summary of the performance of Qantas (and other) airlines that fly from Australia.   It says that 86% of Qantas flights take off on time and 88% of them arrive on time.  Qantas are one of the best airlines in the world for timeliness - so we can largely discount Tom's assertion that they are late 25% of the time...it's 12%.  What this means is that the times they quote are the actual times it take to make the trip at least 88% of the time.   Since they are arrive on time more often than they leave on time - they have the limited ability to catch up a bit if they take off later than they should.

Right - I'm out of time to do more on this "research" today...more will be coming soon.

So - conclusions from this post that (I hope) everyone is OK with:

* Qantas and Worldmap agree pretty well on every distance we can check.  You can keep doing this all day...they always agree quite well.
* Qantas and Worldmap aren't using the same software or the same data - these are clearly independent sources.
* The Qantas aircraft can fly no more than about 14,000km - and at a max speed of 1000kph and a long-range speed of around 933 kph.
* Assuming we believe the speeds and ranges for these aircraft - the distances and travel times given by Qantas and WorldAtlas have got to be very close to the truth.
* The official statistics say that Qantas really do fly these routes at the times they claim.

Next we'll try to use these data sources to confirm or deny the flat earth hypotheses and try to imagine a flat earth map that could work.

FE'ers - if you have disputes with these data items - please let me know here - and I'll find more evidence for you.

23

Flat Earth Theory / Moon inversion.

« on: July 06, 2017, 03:58:33 PM »

Aha!  I found the pictures I've been looking for so I can ask my question about the appearance of the moon at different places on the earth.

Here are two time-lapse images of the moon - both shot through the month of October 2007.  The top image was shot in France, the bottom was taken in Argentina:





As you can see, the moon phases are crossing the moon in opposite directions and the moon itself is the opposite way up in the two hemispheres.

This matches observations that I've personally made - so I know they aren't "faked" - and there are tens of thousands of online images of the moon that were taken in the southern hemisphere that show the effect clearly - they can't all be fakes!

So how does FET explain these phenomena?

24

Flat Earth Theory / Seeing France from the UK.

« on: July 05, 2017, 06:25:41 PM »

In a flat earth, far distant objects would only disappear due to mist and other atmospheric effects - and because perspective would eventually hide distant mountains behind relatively small bumps in the ground that were closer to you.

On a calm day at sea - if the world (and therefore, the ocean) is flat - you should be able to see as far as the atmospheric clarity allows…which is usually at least 25 to 30 miles on a clear day.

So on a flat earth, the distance at which objects would become impossible to see would only be limited by atmospheric clarity - and the distance you could see wouldn’t vary with how high you are above the ground.

Let’s take a concrete example:

As a kid, I lived near the town of Dover, on the south east coast of England - at a point on the English Channel that is closest to France.

Dover is the site of the famous “White Cliffs of Dover” - and equally famously, from the top of the cliffs, on a clear day, you can see all the way across the English Channel to the coast of France - which is 20.7 miles away. This is well known to be the only place in mainland UK from which you can see “Foreign Soil” - and the White Cliffs are famous for that exact reason.

However, if you stand at the base of the cliffs - you can’t see France, no matter how clear the air is - and no matter whether you employ binoculars or even a telescope.  If you could, then you'd be able to see France from St.Margret's bay - which is a little closer to France and has a broad sandy beach.  But you can't.

If the world was flat, then on a clear day, it wouldn’t matter whether you were standing at the base of the cliffs or on top of them - you’d be able to see just as far either way. So this is a good demonstration that the Earth is indeed curved.

We can even crunch the math (or cheat and use the online: Distance to the Horizon Calculator) to verify the plausibility of this claim.

If you’re standing at sea level (on a beach, at the bottom of a cliff, for example) - then with your eyes being about 5 to 6 feet above sea level - the horizon is a mere 2.7 to 3.0 miles away. The white cliffs are around 350 feet tall. If you stand on top of a 350 foot cliff (and assuming you’re 5 to 6′ tall), then the horizon calculates out to be is 23.1 miles away…which explains why you can see the 20.7 miles across the channel to France…when the air is clear enough…but ONLY from the tops of the cliffs.

QED.

25

Flat Earth Theory / Lunar eclipses and the "shadow object"

« on: May 26, 2017, 12:47:54 PM »

The standard FE explanation for eclipses (both solar and lunar) is that a mysterious "shadow object" - which is evidently round and opaque (maybe a disk, maybe a sphere) - gets between the observer and the sun or moon respectively.   This is intended to explain why there is a curved shadow on the moon during a partial lunar eclipse.

In RE terms, the shadow of the curved Earth cast onto the moon explains the curved shadow.

My new problem is how FE'ers can explain why this "Shadow object" or "antimoon" doesn't block out the stars - during a partial lunar eclipse or when moving across the sky between eclipses...that's not explained at all.

In RE theory - the stars are luminous and are clearly visible - even when we see them right next to the semi-eclipsed moon...which we clearly do.

In FE theory, during a partial lunar eclipse, the part of the Shadow object that does not overlay the moon should block starlight from stars in that small region of the sky...but it doesn't.  Furthermore, just before and after the eclipse, we ought to see a circular region of blocked-out stars moving towards and then away from the moon.  No such observations have ever been made...I've watched countless lunar eclipses - and I have not seen a blotting out of the stars close to the moon in the time leading up to, and following the eclipse.

I think FE proponents have to rethink their eclipse ideas...what's there right now doesn't fit with simple naked-eye observations.

26

Flat Earth Theory / Question about perspective.

« on: May 18, 2017, 12:52:05 PM »

So I was reading in the Wiki about the FE "perspective effect" - as shown in this diagram:

It's an interesting concept.

It says (in effect) that perspective isn't a "symmetrical" effect - it forces things downwards toward the horizon with increasing distance - right?   I say not "symmetrical" because it evidently doesn't push things that are below the horizon upwards.

Then we're told that this is a defect of human vision - but that can't be the cause because cameras produce the same effects...so perhaps cameras have the same effect built into them so they take "natural" looking photos?

Trouble with that is that if I turn my camera upside down and take a photo - the same effect happens - the depression happens downwards.

For that to be the case, then this has to be caused by the Earth/Atmosphere - and not by the camera/eye.

So I think the Wiki could use some correction here.

27

Flat Earth Theory / Tides.

« on: May 17, 2017, 04:09:20 AM »

According to the Wiki, tides in the FE theory are due to gravity from the sun and moon.

How does this explain that there are TWO lunar tides in each 24 hour period?  In the RE model, the Earth/Moon system orbit around a point a little off-center from the center of the (round) Earth. The tide that happens when the moon is overhead is just gravity, same in FE and RE physics.  But the second daily tide (which happens in RE theory because centrifugal force produces that second tide due to the off-center rotation of the Earth.

What is the FE explanation for that second daily tide?