1

Flat Earth Theory / DIY Coriolis demo

« on: June 04, 2015, 12:18:45 AM »

Check out this site for a DIY Coriolis demo that anyone can do to prove the effect exists:

http://www.smartereveryday.com/toiletswirl

I would be interested to see how many FE supporters actually get off their potties and go do this! Post your results below!

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sunrise

« on: February 12, 2014, 02:55:29 AM »

If the picture above is correct what is the shortest distance between Perth, Australia and Cape Town in miles?  Please show the route.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Shortest distance from "A" (Perth, Australia) to "B" (Cape Town, South Africa). On a flat map, the route to achieve this would be a straight line joining these two points.

Stop avoiding the question.

3

Flat Earth Community / Re: The earth is round

« on: January 19, 2014, 11:28:31 AM »

Evidence shows that the Earth is flat.

What evidence?

This? (from a Bedford level experiment, signed off as correct by a FE representative)

Hmm, no...

Perhaps this one? (also from a Bedford level experiment, also signed off as correct by a FE representative)

No, not that one either...

I know!

No, that's no good either...

Solar eclipses? Lunar eclipses? Flights from YSSY to KLAX? Midnight sun at the Amundsen-Scott station (for 6 months)? Cyclones and hurricanes? Tides? Coriolis corrections for artillery? The ISS (visible with a good telescope)?

No wonder so few people take the FEH seriously...

4

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 21, 2013, 11:12:18 PM »

I KNOW that these documents do not exist because I did absolutely nothing in effort to find these documents and they did not present themselves to me.

Laziness. What if they were under the cushion of your lounge chair? You would KNOW they don't exist, yet there they would be, existing quite happily under the cushion supporting your lazy, un-zetetic posterior. You'll never learn anything with that attitude Tom, no wonder you support FEH.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 21, 2013, 11:14:22 AM »

Tom, on the gnome experiment, why don't you test your theories as to possible causes of error? Get a garden gnome, and a sensitive set of scales, a powerful electromagnet (one can be made for next to nothing) and a means to create a powerful static charge (you could borrow a Van de Graaff generator, or build your own, again for next to nothing). Then you could run your own experiments to see if magnetic or electrostatic fields have any effect on the weight of the gnome, or the reading of the scales. Throw in a barometer and thermometer, and you can also see how much difference atmospheric density makes to the weight. This, I would think, would be a natural course of action for a zetetic: to proceed by inquiry. You are a zetetic, right Tom?

If you want experiments done you're going to have to pay for it. I'm not a charity. The scale used in the gnome experiment is going for about $500 USD. Van de Graff generators are going for about $175. A garden gnome runs about $23.99.

You can paypal $700 plus shipping to tom.bishop.enterprises@gmail.com.

I wasn't asking you to do them for my sake, I was suggesting you do them for your own. However, if you have no desire to proceed by inquiry, then perhaps you should stop criticising those who are.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 20, 2013, 10:03:52 PM »

Tom, on the gnome experiment, why don't you test your theories as to possible causes of error? Get a garden gnome, and a sensitive set of scales, a powerful electromagnet (one can be made for next to nothing) and a means to create a powerful static charge (you could borrow a Van de Graaff generator, or build your own, again for next to nothing). Then you could run your own experiments to see if magnetic or electrostatic fields have any effect on the weight of the gnome, or the reading of the scales. Throw in a barometer and thermometer, and you can also see how much difference atmospheric density makes to the weight. This, I would think, would be a natural course of action for a zetetic: to proceed by inquiry. You are a zetetic, right Tom?

Oh, and as far as space flight, how do you explain the silent, fast-moving dots of light that I can observe in the night sky when I look out my window (or better yet, go outside and watch at the predicted time)?

7

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 19, 2013, 03:03:02 AM »

1.  If the experiment used proper procedures to eliminate sources of error, then those procedures will be mentioned in documents on that experiment.
2.  Those procedures were not mentioned in documents on that experiment.
3.  The experiment did not use proper procedures to eliminate sources of error.

Alternatively:
3. Proper procedures to eliminate sources of error were used, but not documented.

Just had to toss that in.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 18, 2013, 12:13:52 PM »

The misuse of balance was my own error that Tom was rebutting.

No offense intended Rama.

I suppose the two terms may well be used interchangeably these days, with the true meaning having been forgotten, but whenever I hear 'balance', I picture a traditional pan balance which, when you think about it, simply compares two masses and, if balanced, would remain so no matter what the strength of gravity (or UA) was. 'Scale', on the other hand, brings to mind a device used to weigh a single mass, and display the weight as accurately as possible on a calibrated scale (or digital readout in the case of electronic models).

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 18, 2013, 07:52:43 AM »

Zeroing the balance won't help when things are physically lighter in high-pressure environments.

Ignoring your misuse of "balance" (again), the difference in weight due to buoyancy is only ~1-2μg/L (as I pointed out earlier).

How do we know that all materials in the digital scale are non-magnetic?

Variances due to magnetic or static forces could be determined by creating a controlled and variable field of each type and observing the result of variations in the field strength and direction. I'm sure that someone would have thought of doing this at some point, which may be why it is not regarded as a significant factor in this experiment.

How can it be that things are "lighter at the equator" if the equator bulges out there and there is more mass beneath your feet?

It's commonly known as "centrifugal force", and it is fairly significant at the equator, but has no effect at the poles (I suggest you look into it if you are not familiar with it; the physics of rotating systems is quite fascinating, and not always intuitive). Besides, there's not really that much more mass, the bulge is only a very small percentage of the overall radius.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 16, 2013, 09:33:11 PM »

The gnome experiment is not a controlled trial. It is not being conducted in a lab, but being sent from person to person via post mail.

Gravity measuring experiment are incredibly sensitive and outside factors weigh in. For example, how are they ruling out that the varying magnetic field of the earth is not affecting the metal weights in the weighing machine?

Different areas on earth have different atmospheric pressures, if only slight, and thus things fall faster/slower via buoyancy. How are they ruling out that either the gnome or the balance are not affected by the pressure?

The static force is said to be orders of magnitude stronger than the gravitational force. How do these experiments account for the static force from the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room the experiment is conducted in?

See: http://milesmathis.com/caven.html

Per the Mercator gravity map, my comment is that it comes from a space mission and is automatically invalidated on grounds that sustained space travel is not possible. These alleged gravity space missions were not controlled, either.

...says he who considers looking out your window, or stepping off a chair, as evidence.

No, the gnome experiment is not a controlled trial, it doesn't need to be. Sit down and run some numbers and you will see that the variations are too large to be caused by any of the factors you mentioned, even if they were combined. Buoyancy on the gnome would be in the order of 1.3x10^-3g (assuming it displaces 1L of air, which it probably doesn't, it probably displaces less). Electrostatic charge? It's ceramic, so I'm not sure (I've never seen ceramic hold a charge, let alone be influenced by one, but that's not to say it's not possible). Magnetic field of the earth? Not going to affect the gnome, because it's ceramic.

Yes, gravity measuring equipment is very sensitive, it also has ways to account for all of the factors you mentioned (oh, and balances are not used to measure gravity, they don't work for that).

11

Flat Earth Community / Re: Questions for the FAQ

« on: December 16, 2013, 04:34:44 AM »

May I suggest a few?

Tides (frequency and simultaneous highs on opposite sides of the earth need to be explained)
Bedford Level (an unbiased analysis of the two most commonly cited experiments (Rowbotham and Wallace) would be good)
Sunrise/sunset (not just the physical obscuration of the sun by the horizon, but also the north/south displacement relative to where they would be expected in FET)
Navigation by sextant and chronograph (the old way to find latitude and longitude respectively, before GPS).

That's all I can think of right now, if I think of more I'll add them later.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravity vs. Universal Acceleration

« on: December 15, 2013, 10:23:38 PM »

What is your proof of UA?

Go stand on a chair, and then jump off of it.

This only proves relative acceleration between you and the earth. It's far from conclusive. Do this with your eyes closed. What do you feel? (this isn't conclusive either, it's just a variation on that tired old 'experiment')

Also (and I hate to bring this up yet again), what about the variations in measured weight of a given mass at different locations around the world? Check out this site for some data: http://www.gnomeexperiment.com/

Or you could also have a look at a gravity map, here's one overlaid on a Mercator projection:

13

Flat Earth Community / Re: Global earth v concave earth.

« on: December 13, 2013, 09:40:38 PM »

Spank, bj covered it exactly; the y-axis is height above sea level. Some people are just too dense to figure out what this means, so I'll explain as best I can:

According to Wikipedia's Nile page, the primary source for the Nile originates at 8,858ft. Logically, the end is at 0ft, as it runs to the sea. Both of these altitudes are relative to mean sea level, which is a constant distance from the centre of the earth (well, almost, there are some variations due to the equatorial bulge, and local variances in gravity, but we'll use the simpler explanation for now). What does this mean? For every mile the Nile travels, it gets (on average) 2ft closer to the centre of the earth. To reiterate, this change is not relative to a straight line, it is relative to a curve. Is that really so hard to understand?? I don't get why so many people seem to struggle with something so simple...

14

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Perfectly flat bridge vs round earth

« on: December 10, 2013, 09:08:10 PM »

ITT: An REer just admitted to bendy light.

But since I am also RE, I agree that it would appear to slope upward gradually.  If you took a telescope and viewed as far out as you could, you would probably see the increasing gap between the water and bridge.

ITT: An REer just admitted to bendy light.

Sorry, but RET's atmospheric refraction is not the same as FET's bendy light.

Quite right, atmospheric refraction generally causes light to refract downwards, sometimes so much so that an object on the surface of a body of water can still be seen by an observer 6 miles away whose eye level is only a few inches above the water. It has been thoroughly studied, and well explained. 'Bendy light', however, requires that light consistently bend upwards, as well as left and right, at varying rates depending where on the earth you are, and what time of day it is. It requires consistent inconsistency, as someone so eloquently put it! In short, refraction has been observed and explained, 'bendy light' has not. I'm not even going to get into the 'Bollybill effect'...

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Perfectly flat bridge vs round earth

« on: December 10, 2013, 10:26:43 AM »

Mind if I throw in some numbers?

Distance from London to New York: 5,600km
If you built a perfectly straight bridge this long, the end of it would be at an altitude of ~2,100km above the surface of the earth, and an angle of 48.7° to the gravity vector (apparent uphill slope of 41.3°), making it a very tough climb!

How far along this bridge would you need to travel to officially be in space? 1,133km, at which point it would feel like an uphill slope of about 10°.

Would it appear to slope upwards? Well, actually, it would just a bit. Thanks to the fact that air density falls as altitude increases, light bends down slightly, which would make a completely flat surface appear to slope up gradually. How much would depend on the density gradient at the time.

Of course, this is all assuming a round earth. I've no idea what the distance is supposed to be on a flat earth, as there is a lot of conjecture as to the proper layout of the continents, but a flat bridge would follow the surface in this case. Note: it would still appear to curve upward slightly (as would the ground beneath it), thanks to the density gradient of the atmosphere.