961

Flat Earth Theory / Re: If Antarctica is an ice rim...

« on: May 26, 2017, 12:52:15 PM »

If Antarctica is an ice rim then why can you see solid rock sometimes below and around the ice. Also can you explain the mapping of what's under the ice and what's in the ice?

Do you have a photo of this in mind?   I can't think of ever seeing rock in photos of the coast of Antarctica.

I'm not sure it makes a difference to FE vs RE though.

Good point, but would they answer if you ask them questions about it or if you try to get permission to study it?

"I'm sorry, the continent of Antarctica is closed today - we value your business, please fill out our customer satisfaction survey as you leave the antarctic."

962

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.

963

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How big is the conspiracy?

« on: May 26, 2017, 12:29:12 PM »

ballers they claim gravity can do all these things just before they say we don't understand gravity!
ball-deniers understand gravity!

We probably don't know the ultimate cause of gravitation,
but would you please explain the ultimate cause of electromagnetic forces.
Opposite electric charges, q₁ and q₂, attract each other over a distance d with exactly the same form of expression as the gravitational force.

When it is said that "don't know the ultimate cause of gravitation",
what is meant is that we have never identified a "gravitational charge", nor the gravitation equivalent of a "photon"
and quite possibly never will because the energy involved is probably below any limit (Planck limit) of detection.

But, so what does the fact that you cannot explain "the ultimate cause of electromagnetic forces" mke them less real?
We do understand the way gravitation works, it has been directly measured dozens of time and it has been verified uncountable times.

We are making progress in gravitation - recall that we now have the ability to detect gravity waves coming from distant black hole collisions and other (very large!) changes in gravity.  We have now confirmed that gravitational changes are transmitted by waves that move at the speed of light.   Wave/particle duality must apply here too - so it's not unreasonable to presume the existence of the graviton as the force-carrier particle that's analogous to the photon and gluon.

Direct detection of the graviton is unlikely though because the equipment needed would have to be larger than the diameter of the Earth (flat or round!).

But (as you said) the fact that the same relationships apply as for electromagnetic forces - and the confirmation that we detect both as waves moving at the speed of light - STRONGLY hints that the graviton exists.

Science in general (flat earth or round earth) is not good at finding the most fundamental causes of things - we can observe how the universe functions - but the "why" behind things like the laws of physics and the values of the fundamental constants are things where we sometimes have to shrug our shoulders and say "Well, we've measured it - and that's how the universe is"...and then we're into weak arguments from the anthropic principle.

FE's problems with explaining how things fall to the ground when you drop them are rather severe though - it's not just that they can't explain (at the lowest level) how gravity works - it's that in an FE setup, no single, coherent, law of gravity (like F=m1 x m2 / r-squared) can explain all of the most basic observations we can make about the effect of gravity on falling objects.

My repeated requests for an explanation of why there are TWO high tides and TWO low tides every day seem to be completely ignored...the only response I got to my request was an explanation for why there would be only ONE of each in an FE world.

This does not speak well for FET.

964

Announcements / Re: Dr Shaquille O' Neal joins the Flat Earth movement!

« on: May 26, 2017, 12:04:45 PM »

"I do not go up and down a 360 degree angle"

...um - are you quite sure you want this on your front page?   It does rather convey a tone of complete nonsensicality that you might want to avoid.

(His doctorate is in Human Resources Development...not a strong math/physics requirement on that course, I suspect!)

965

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Your maps size things wrong

« on: May 26, 2017, 03:09:31 AM »

If your Flat Earth map is correct then why is North America smaller then South America? The difference is quite a bit too. Same with Australia. In reality North America is bigger then South America and Australia is smaller then you show it on a map. And before you start saying Round Earth maps on a flat surface are wrong, just consider that it is almost impossible to put a sphere's surface on a flat map.

It's not "almost" impossible to put a sphere onto a flat map without distortion...it's is actually, mathematically, totally impossible.

The FE maps *must* disagree with RE globes in one or both of the following ways:

• The compass headings between places in the world must disagree between RE and FE.
• Distances in RE and FE must disagree.

So the distortions in the FE map in the Wiki are not there in *all* FE maps - some work harder to keep the size discrepancies down to a minimum on land - at the price of making compass headings worse (so the shapes of familiar continents seem more distorted) - others try to eliminate angular errors, at the cost of increasing size discrepancies.   Most do a compromise - and by pushing the biggest size discrepancies into the ocean areas, try to make it harder for people to criticise their maps.

But no matter what they do - there WILL be situations where a well-documented real-world distance or heading will be different in the FE map - and then there are grounds for criticism.

The usual RE question is:  How come the Australian state airline "Qantas" can offer their non-stop Sydney to Santiago, Chile route, (Quantas flight 27)?   On an RE map that is a 7000 miles. 12 hour flight.   This is within the capabilities of the 747-400 flight.

However,  on the FE map - the shortest route is more than twice as long - far *FAR* beyond the range of the 747-400 - and requiring it to fly faster than Concorde to make the trip in 12 hours.

That's not a fluke - Quantas also fly the Johannesberg, South Africa, to Perth, Australia route - taking 9 hours - which also would require Mach 2 flight speeds and a fuel supply hugely larger than a 747-400 can possibly carry.

The only semi-plausible answers I've heard from the FE world say that the Jet Stream carries the plane along much faster and with far less fuel consumption...but handily fails to explain how the aircraft manages the return trip - same distance - fighting the Jet Stream every inch of the way.

Usually the debate collapses under a wealth of misunderstandings about "great circle routes" and how Quantas flight 27 would have to overfly China and a bunch of other places when passengers do not see anything but water beneath them for the entire journey...this of course is debated ferociously...carefully side-stepping the time and fuel matters.

966

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Looking at different planets...

« on: May 26, 2017, 02:50:44 AM »

I guess you haven't read that bit in the Wiki.  FE proponents (mostly) claim that the moon is NOT illuminated by the sun (which casts it's light like a flashlight beam down onto the surface of the Earth).   Hence the moon is self-illuminated and a shadow could not be cast upon it.

The claim is that there is a THIRD body up there - along with the sun and moon - which some call "The Shadow Object" and others call "The Antimoon".   This small, dark disk sometimes gets between the viewer and either the sun or the moon and blocks out the light from it.

Since the antimoon is circular (unsure whether it's a disk or a sphere) - it blocks a circular chunk of light out of the sun or moon.

Because the sun and moon are both ABOVE the Earth plane at all times, there is no possibility of the Earth casting "flat" shadows on either of them.

Yeah - this doesn't make a whole lot of sense - but the amount of math you need to disprove it is hard to follow and makes a terrible debate point.   The motion of the antimoon would be an interesting thing to analyse - but details of the motion of sun, moon and antimoon are hard to nail down because the FE proponents don't get into that kind of detail.  (Wisely, if they don't want to be instantly debunked!)

The idea that planets, stars, sun and moon can be round - yet the earth be flat - doesn't really convince FE'ers because they don't exactly (necessarily, universally) agree that gravity even exists at all.   Those objects can be round without needing gravity - they are claimed to be pretty small (sun and moon are ~30 miles across) - so gravity wouldn't have any effect on their shape anyway.   They might be round just because God liked them that way.

Absent a god - the way that the Earth/firmament/etc would have formed is not investigated at all in FE theory...so "It was always there" or "God did it" are the only explanations you're gonna get.

967

Flat Earth Theory / Re: If Antarctica is an ice rim...

« on: May 26, 2017, 02:40:28 AM »

I'm not an FE proponent - but if I were, I'd probably say:

Obviously there are some normal pieces of land that lie against the ice wall (indeed these are clearly shown on the FE map on the Wiki) - so one would expect that if you landed there and marched inland, you'd eventually run into the ice wall...unless a UN patrol caught you trying...and then...

You know that's an interesting question!

I don't know what the FE folks claim would happen to you if the UN patrol catches you trying to get to the ice wall...we're told there are a patrols - but not what they do when you're caught.  Do they politely say "Nothing to see here!  Head back the way you came please!"...or do they "disappear" people into jail...maybe brainwash them into thinking that they spent three months at the South Polar Research Station - then let them go?

Does anyone here know?

968

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Physical Proof...

« on: May 26, 2017, 02:33:01 AM »

The "sinking ship" phenomenon seems to be such a "hot button" item for both FE and RE believers - I'm inclined to just drop that debate and call it a draw.

Shadows cast by the sun is a tricky one too - in RE you'd expect a row of identical sticks stuck in the ground along a meridian line to cast equal length shadows - but the tilt of the Earth's axis complicates that simple idea to the point where you need some fancy (and therefore unconvincing) math to unravel what happens.   Similarly in FE, the position of the tiny sun and it's motions are not well described by the available sources (the Wiki, for example) - and the arguments about how sunrises and sunsets can happen are also somewhat flakey.

So that too is an area of debate that's hard to nail down.

I think the proof here lies in things like travel times and ranges of aircraft in the Southern regions - which are all subject to easy examination and super-simple measurements on available maps.

The motion of the stars close to and south of the equator is similarly easy to examine - and produces serious problems for FE theory.   There are PLENTY of time-lapse videos made by private individuals - along with a wealth of personal experience which are hard to deny as evidence.

My personal favorite is the phenomenon of there being two high tides and two low tides per day in the oceans of the world - which FE theory simply cannot explain.

The phases of the moon - and the simple observation of shadows cast within lunar craters makes for VERY tough problems for FE.

These seem to be the places where "proof" is to be found.

Of course, the FE proponents are reluctant to discuss these things - and simply vanish from threads when they don't have a good answer - rather than admitting that their theory needs work in order to remain credible.   Some intellectual honesty about such matters would be refreshing.

Additional problematic things - such as how FE theory can explain how objects fall to Earth when you drop them, are tricky to address because there are MULTIPLE FE theories attempting to explain them...and until you figure out which of these theories each FE proponent follows, debate can be quite tricky.   Here, their common mantra of "READ THE WIKI" fails because that tends to present just one (or very rarely, two) theories to explain a particular phenomenon - and in reality, their members here and elsewhere do not seem to follow those theories unanimously.

That's fine - people will clearly have differing views - but it can make debate difficult.

Still - I'd very much welcome some simple, informed debate - with both sides being respectful of the other's views - and with both sides remaining engaged in the discussion until either one side or the other is demonstrated to be correct...and clearly difficult topics for one side or the other can be explored - and perhaps either FE theory or RE theory may be found wanting and demand further thought.

But good debate seems hard to find around here - which is unfortunate.

969

Flat Earth Theory / Re: If Antarctica is an ice rim...

« on: May 25, 2017, 10:53:26 PM »

If Antarctica is an ice rim then why can you see solid rock sometimes below and around the ice. Also can you explain the mapping of what's under the ice and what's in the ice?

Do you have a photo of this in mind?   I can't think of ever seeing rock in photos of the coast of Antarctica.

I'm not sure it makes a difference to FE vs RE though.

970

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Tides.

« on: May 24, 2017, 07:42:49 PM »

So - at time of writing, 85 people have viewed this thread - and the only response so far can only explain ONE tide per day and not TWO.

Have FE'ers given up on this?

971

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Question about perspective.

« on: May 24, 2017, 07:35:47 PM »

Yes, I know.   I'm hoping someone in the FE world will explain why their diagram is wrong.

972

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Southern midnight sun

« on: May 24, 2017, 07:34:24 PM »

I know Tom has said that star systems are like gears,  rubbing up against each other, causing the other to move in the path of least resistance.

Using google earth, it is obvious that given the time of night,  south facing viewers in South America and Australia could see many of the same stars at the same time in the globe model.  Looking at the FE maps in the WIKI the same viewers would be looking almost 180 degrees apart.   I have asked this question several times and gotten no response but I'll try again.  How is this possible?

This is one of several very fundamental issues that FET simply cannot adequately answer.   If you watch the stars continuously on a long boat trip from (say) UK to Australia (as many unfortunate criminals were forced to do from 1787 until 1868) - you'd see a continuous change from stars rotating around Polaris - to stars travelling from east to west overhead - to stars rotating around an empty space in the sky to the south.  Those ships used celestial navigation - so what they saw and how they used the motion of the stars is extremely well recorded...and cannot be explained away with "conspiracy theories".  Whaling ships, pirate ships, commercial ships of all kinds - repeated this "experiment" and arrived at the same answers.

There is simply no way whatever to explain this other than with an Earth that is at least topologically spherical.

In mathematics, the "Hairy Ball Theorem" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem) says that only things that are topologically similar to spheres can have this property.   You can argue with physics - and demand experimental evidence that's hard to obtain - but you can't argue with mathematics.

So failing to describe how the stars do what they VERY evidently do in the Southern Hemisphere - is the nail in the coffin for FET.

This is why proponents of FET either duck your question (if you probe carefully enough) - or come up with a bullshit solution (if they think the can get away with it).

They simply cannot answer why the stars rotate around different points in the sky in the two hemispheres without producing a zone where some stars are moving the opposite way to others - which NOBODY has ever seen happen.

973

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Questions about the Flat Earth Theory and the Eclipses

« on: May 23, 2017, 02:14:50 AM »

While the man in needlessly insulting, he does make many valid points using geometry in his videos, none of which are discussed in the FAQ.  I would bet he has read it, it only takes a few minutes since it is so lacking in information.  Why is it not updated with questions that are frequently asked?  Who updates it?

I don't see anything new in there though - these are all objections to FE theory that people here have seen many times before...and as others have pointed out, they aren't all valid criticisms anyway.

974

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Southern midnight sun

« on: May 23, 2017, 02:09:37 AM »

I have heard that there are three separate rotation axes on the southern sky: one directly south of Australia, one directly south of Africa and one directly south of South America. This way, people in each of these can see rotations in a somewhat logical way. (And they all have the same stars.)

Between these, there are apparently areas where these rotations overlap, but they are in the middle of the ocean so no one sees them anyway.

I have no idea whether this idea is popular here, though.

That would be a real mess - you'd be able to see some stars going one way and some the other - nowhere on the Earth does anyone report seeing that - and (again) because sailors in the 1700's and 1800's travelled the Southern Hemisphere oceans using celestial navigation - we'd know about it for sure.

That's not a solution.

975

Flat Earth Theory / Re: New here

« on: May 22, 2017, 05:18:37 PM »

If a question isn't covered in the wiki it has a much better chance of being answered. That's why we so strongly encourage checking the wiki before asking the question. Often the proper approach leads to an interesting discussion which is what most of us are really interested in.

I read the wiki and it did not answer the question of "why would anyone cover up the fact that the earth is flat and who gains".   If it other than Nasa, I missed it.  Please be so kind as to provide a quote.

For me, it's not so much "who" as "when".

People were using celestial navigation in the southern hemisphere at least 300 years ago - they'd have seen the huge differences between RE and FE and the result of that would be in every navigation handbook from the time - and it's not...they all talk in terms of RE.

So it takes a cooperation between at least the British, Spanish and Dutch navies - plus all of the whaling fleets, all of the commercial shipping - and all of the pirates of the time.  With all of those people having to know the difference, the idea of an airtight conspiracy tracking down to the present day seems incredibly unlikely.   This knowledge of how to navigate using the stars would have been passed down both verbally and in books...and probably would have to be built in to the mechanics of some of the mechanical contrivances used at the time.

If you ever get the chance, read the book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel - he describes the tremendous public effort to figure out how to calculate a ship's longitude at sea - and the idea that all of that was conspiracy - right down to actual pieces of equipment that you can see in museums today...it's one hell of a stretch to say that all of that was faked.

976

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The distance between the sun and the earth

« on: May 22, 2017, 05:00:21 PM »

a simple study one day over 100 years ago in London and at the beach 50 miles away revealed two angles to the sun; 61 and 64 degrees which calculates to a distance to the sun of 1000 miles.  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605064173/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

duplicate the studies and share your math supporting ballers or flatters.  use math, leave emotions out.  i have not yet verified this myself, but will when i get someone else to measure at the same time, perhaps farther away than 50 miles.

prove it using in empirical evidence that you, personally create.

I plan to duplicate the michigan to chicago pictures in another location.  this really is quite simple!

analyzing a triangle and a circle does not take a Ph.D.  joshua nowicki's pictures of chicago should not be possible!  simple math:
(h squared = a squared + b squared, h being the distance from the center of the earth to chicago):
1.  the reported radius of the earth (a) is 4000 miles and the distance to chicago (b) is 60 miles
2.  square both, add and take the square root to get 4000.450 (h) miles
3.  therefore, chicago on the ball earth would be .450 miles below the line of sight which is greater than the tallest buildings in chicago!

anyone with any math skill can prove this.
anyone with a telephoto lens can easily take pictures of things a few miles away.  even 4 miles would show a drop of over 10 feet, so find yourself a lake, canal or river and shoot.  prove it to yourself and the ballers!

The distance between Michigan and Chicago (according to Google) is 199 miles...but that's to the geographical center of Michigan to the official center of Chicago.  Gary Michigan is only 24.5 miles from the center of Chicago - and that building appears to be right on the edge of the lake - so it's probably a lot closer.

I'm not saying this math is wrong - just that it cannot be reproduced without additional information.

The problem with all of these experiments (both pro- and anti-FE) is that temperature inversions and other atmospheric phenomena close to the surface of the water really screw up ALL of the measurements and conclusions.

So good data needs to come from higher altitudes.

Personally - I think the whole argument about ships vanishing (or not) over the horizon is too embroiled in refractions and mirages and such to allow anyone to draw any conclusions whatever from the results.

IMHO, the fact that in the age of sail - it was always the guy who climbed to that precarious location at the top of the tallest mast who always yells "LAND HO!" before anyone else...that suggests that you can indeed see further from higher up...which suggests RE is true.

But I don't rely on that tricky evidence.

* Tell me why the stars rotate in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere.
* Tell me why the mountains of the moon clearly cast shadows onto the lunar surface.
* Tell me why there are two high tides and two low tides every day.
* Explain to me how a subsonic airplane can fly from Australia to South America at 2.5 times the speed of sound - and over twice it's regular range without refuelling...and if you're going to say "Jet Stream!" - stop and think that there are also aircraft flying from South America TO Australia over the same route.

There are lots more besides.

977

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Questions about the Flat Earth Theory and the Eclipses

« on: May 22, 2017, 04:37:28 PM »

no.  i won't watch something that starts with flattards.

I truly don't blame you - it's unnecessarily insulting.

i understand gravity and you don't.
it is simple.

So could you enlighten us?   I've seen at least three different descriptions of how this phenomena works in FE here - and so far I don't see one that explains the phenomena that are present in the real world.

(Maybe this is the wrong thread for that).

978

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How big is the conspiracy?

« on: May 22, 2017, 04:31:56 PM »

this is what, for some stupid reason, prevents people from even investigating massive deceptions.
just like 9/11, focus on the facts and physics.  don't let your ego interfere with your logic.  use your own powers of observation and calculation instead of relying on folks you don't know.
1.  pictures taken of things farther away than would be possible on a ball
2.  sun rays coming through clouds at an angle and making angled shadows from parallel objects
3.  triangulation calculations for the distance to the sun.
4.  the water doesn't go to the equator and then fly off
5.  the air magically sticks to a spinning ball so well that it appears as if we aren't moving! 

ballers they claim gravity can do all these things just before they say we don't understand gravity!
ball-deniers understand gravity!

this is simple, but unfortunately, so are sheeple, led by the government schools and media.  WAKE UP

I like your suggestion to look into things myself without relying on outside sources - that's what I'm trying to do.

So let's think about your 5 numbered points:

1.  pictures taken of things farther away than would be possible on a ball
So we're expected to believe that these photos that you have found are NOT photoshopped or otherwise misrepresented.  But you're allowed to disclaim any photo I have (taken from a satellite or a man standing on the moon) as being faked?   This is not acceptable within your own standard of evidence!  How can you respond if I say that this is a secret conspiracy to take fake photos that support FE ?

If you're not allowing outside evidence - this isn't evidence.

2.  sun rays coming through clouds at an angle and making angled shadows from parallel objects

So here is what you're talking about - right?   Clearly the light source is not a few million miles away!



We can certainly see that those rays are emerging from the cloud with about a 90 degree angle from the leftmost ray to the rightmost...agreed?  This cannot possibly be the case if the light source is millions of miles away...for sure.

But in FE theory, the sun is claimed to be about 3,000 miles away - so how, even in FE theory can you explain these rays?

The truth is that the sun (be it 3,000 or 3,000,000 miles away) is illuminating a large thunderhead cloud that's right above the cloud deck.  It's light REFLECTED from that bright, white cloud that produces those rays.

Now I get that this is not the most satisfying explanation (although it happens to be true in this case) - but the FE community needs the same explanation to explain that the sun isn't sitting at around 1000 feet above the Earth!   So this argument is (at best) a tie...sunrays through clouds neither proves nor disproves FE or RE.

3.  triangulation calculations for the distance to the sun.

I have not seen these calculations that you have - and in any case, you're saying that I have to do these things for myself.

OK - on the day of the spring Equinox, I look up sunrise and sunset times (in GMT) from places in the Northern and Southern hemispheres (www.sunrisesunset.com - or any of a bazillion other websites and almanacs) - and using both the FE map and my RE globe - I plot an "X" at every place that's has sunrise around 6:00 GMT.   I notice that these X's lie on an almost perfectly straight line on the FE map - and at points that lie on a semicircle on my RE globe.   I do the same thing for the sunset times around 6:00 GMT...and on the FE map, all of these points also lie on the same straight line - but on the opposite side of the central north pole.   On the globe, I now have all of my X's laying on a circle that bisects the Earth.   This says that EXACTLY half of the RE globe and EXACTLY half of the FE disk are illuminated at the same exact moment.   I can repeat this experiment for any GMT time - and the result is exactly the same.   Plug this into some math - and the sun has to be a very long distance away - so far that the parallax is too small to be measurable at the precision of a normal clock.   That doesn't work if the sun is much closer than the diameter of the earth disk...the segm
ent of the world that can see a simultaneous sunrise has to be much MUCH smaller than it clearly is.

4.  the water doesn't go to the equator and then fly off

Indeed it does not.  This is because gravity acts towards the center of the Earth - which keeps everything pulled together into shape that's very close to a sphere.  Any object that has forces pulling or pushing inwards will tend to pull into the shape of a sphere - which is why water droplets and soap bubbles prefer that shape.

5.  the air magically sticks to a spinning ball so well that it appears as if we aren't moving! 

Again - yes it does.  Gravity keeps it pulled down towards the ground - and as gravity weakens further from the center, the air gets less and less dense...which is why it's hard to breathe at the top of a tall mountain.

The air feels the force of friction and turbulence with the surface of the planet - so it spins around with us.  HOWEVER, if a wind blows North-South - it does EXACTLY what you guessed it might to - it blows at an angle, due to the rotation of the Earth.   This is called "The Coriolis Effect" - which is very well known to people who fire guns over long distances - and it's an effect that anyone can experience for themselves.  Coriolis also explains why hurricanes in the Nothern Hemisphere rotate in the opposite direction to hurricanes in the Southern Hemisphere - and why hurricanes never form close to the equator.  Flat Earth theory doesn't seem to account for Coriolis and can't explain why storms always rotate the same way...which is a problem.

ballers they claim gravity can do all these things just before they say we don't understand gravity!
ball-deniers understand gravity!


We know how gravity acts - we can measure it, we can establish the mathematics behind it.   We know that every mass in the entire universe pulls on every other mass with a force that's proportional to the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance between them.   This rule works for everything we can measure in the entire universe - and it works.  It perfectly explains the motions of the Earth, Moon, Comets, Asteroids, Planets and even entire Galaxies.

But you're right...we don't know WHY the force acts the way it does - only the way that it acts.

So...how does the experience that RE'ers call "gravity" operate in FET?

* Some people claim that the earth is accelerating upwards very rapidly.  That doesn't explain why gravity is greater at the north pole and less at the equator - and less at the tops of tall mountains.   So that doesn't fit reality.
* Some people claim that the flat earth really does have gravity (which works if the FE world is infinite) - but that gets you back to the same problem that RE proponents have trouble explaining.  So if you decry RE's "gravity" then this version of FET is not for you because it also doesn't have a "WHY?" answer!
* Some people claim that air pressure from the atmosphere presses down on things.  This is so busted, it's ridiculous.  But one experiment that disproves it is simply that if you put an object in to an airtight chamber and pump out all of the air - the object doesn't float away.   So this one is busted too.

There is another problem here too...tides.

According to the Wiki, the FE moon does exert a force of gravity on the water to make tides.  So no matter which FE explanation you have - you still need to invoke a mysterious force that pulls things together in order to get tides to work.   (And in any case this FE explanation for tides fails to explain why there are TWO high tides and TWO low tides each day...so it's STILL busted).

So before you decry the lack of a "WHY?" answer for gravity in RE - maybe you should come up with an FE explanation for "weight" and things falling when you drop them and those double-tides on the FE...I don't see a viable explanation here.

I think your triumphant presentation here has quite a few holes in it...and I'd be delighted to hear the solutions.

979

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Southern midnight sun

« on: May 22, 2017, 03:37:32 PM »

Ushuaia is not south enough to experience midnight sun, not even on the day of the southern summer solstice, which means that the sun actually sets. However, it is possible to observe the sun as it sets. It doesn't set directly in the west: according to the flat theory, it sets somewhere in the northwest, and according to the globe theory, it sets somewhere in the southwest. Furthermore, according to the globe theory, there will be no "astronomical night" but a mere twilight. A certain section of the sky remains lighter (or "less dark") even after the sun has set: and that less dark section moves further towards to the south, never really disappearing, and being in the south by midnight; and after midnight, it moves further towards the east, until the sun rises from the southeast. (Or, according to the flat theory, it rises from the northeast.)

There is a very fundamental problem with the entire southern hemisphere in FE theory.

In RE terms, the apparent rotation of just about everything in the sky is the reverse of the direction the Earth rotates in.   The sun, moon, stars and planets all rise above the horizon in the East and set again in the West.   In the Northern hemisphere - close to the north pole, this means that things like the "midnight sun" describe circles around the sky and they move clockwise around the pole star - which is vertically above your head.

FE theory seems to be able to reproduce those effects by rotating the firmament and moving the sun and moon around appropriately.

But at the south pole, things get decidedly squirly.  In RE terms, the celestial bodies still rise in the East and set in the West in the southern hemisphere - but if you're at the south pole, that means that everything is moving in COUNTER-clockwise circles around you at a point above your head.

In FE theory - that simply can't happen.   In the version of FE theory shown in the maps on the Wiki, there is no south pole - there is an infinite plane of icy nothingness that surrounds the known world.

In FE versions that DO have a south pole, you should be able to see polaris from there - and the firmament doesn't rotate counter-clockwise around a point above your head.

But what a lot of people are missing is that you don't have to be right at the south pole to see this. (Which is just as well because it's forbidden by massive amounts of UN patrol ships/planes/drones/whatever).

Anyone who's been to Australia or NewZealand will tell you that the night sky looks NOTHING like FE descriptions.  You can see the point that everything is rotating around - and polaris isn't it!   There is no actual bright star at the south pole of the sky...but if you watch long enough - you can see that the firmament is rotating in a counter-clockwise direction about a point with no star.   If you stand reasonably far north in the northern hemisphere - you see the firmament rotating in a clockwise direction about a point with that bright star called "polaris".

It might be tempting for FE'ers to claim an outer ring of the firmament that rotates counter-clockwise - but that doesn't reproduce what you see in the southern latitudes...the rotation would still have it's "center" at the pole star - and it simply doesn't do that.

The ONLY (very half-assed) explanation I've heard is that people in the southern hemisphere are confused and are actually looking North when they think they're looking South!!

Well, I have a cousin who lives in NewZealand and on the couple of trips I went there - I saw with my own eyes how the sky looks - and for 100% sure it doesn't match any of the FE descriptions of it...and yes, I knew full well which way was North.

The fact of the rotation's center being a blank patch of sky - the fact that the direction of motion is counter-clockwise - and the fact that the constellations are completely different there - totally busts the idea of a simple rotation of a fixed firmament.

But I don't expect to hear any good explanations for this...it's a helluva stretch for FE'ers to explain any of these southern-hemisphere phenomena effectively.

(And I still have no credible answer as to how the FE moon produces TWO high tides each day.)

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Southern midnight sun

« on: May 22, 2017, 03:15:40 PM »

One problem I'm starting to realise about talking to FE proponents is that there isn't just one set of FE theories - for each question you ask, there may be several, quite different, sets of FE theory.

This can make discussing things like these very difficult - you'll hear discussions that go:

Sceptic         :  X can't happen.
FE proponent: X is caused by Y.
Sceptic         : But the wiki says Y doesn't exist.
FE proponent: Oh, well I don't believe in everything the Wiki says.

...later...

Sceptic: So what about Y?
different FE proponent: Didn't you read the Wiki?  Y doesn't exist.  Stop posting about things that are in the Wiki!

Examples of "Y" being "the south pole", "gravity", "the edge of the world", "the firmament vault"...the list goes on.

I can understand why there are different opinions about all of these things - but putting together a coherent picture of "What Flat-Earthers believe" is like nailing Jello to the ceiling...and for sure, the Wiki isn't comprehensive about the things it DOES discuss.