[3DGeek]

I confess I'm a bit puzzled as to why FE'ers do this.

If the Earth is an infinite disk, of decent thickness - then regular "per Isaac Newton" gravity is a reasonable explanation.

No, it is not. Do you know Isaac Newton gravity depends on the mass of the objects?
Infinite disk would have to have infinite mass, and infinite gravity. Sounds stupid? It does.

Sorry - you're wrong.  Do this little thought experiment...suppose the FE was 1km thick - let's chop it up into 1km x 1km x 1km cubes.

Each cube produces a gravitational field on you and I.

If the FE world were finite - then in the center of the world, all of the cubes on the edges would be pulling us mostly OUTWARDS away from the center - and all of the nearby cubes would be pulling us mostly downwards and only a little bit to the sides.

But since all of the lateral pull from the cubes in front of us is precisely cancelled out by the cubes behind us - and all of the lateral pull from the ones to the left is cancelled out by the cubes to our right, the only remaining pull would be DOWNWARDS.

Suppose you now walk Northwards of the center by one kilometer.

Now there is one less row of cubes ahead of you - and one more row behind you.  So there would be a slight tug towards the South...still a decent downwards pull though - so it would seem as if you were walking downhill.   As you continue to walk North, more and more pull to the South and less and less to the North, so the perceived slope would get larger and larger.   Towards the edge of the Flat Earth, it would be more like climbing down a vertical cliff than walking on level ground.

So a FINITE FE with conventional gravity doesn't work.  BUSTED.

But if the FE is an INFINITE disk, then wherever you're standing, there are an infinite number of 1km cubes stretching off in all directions - you can walk anywhere and there are STILL an infinite number in all directions.

So the gravitational field of an infinite flat disk of finite (but large) thickness is pulling you directly downwards - just like on a round earth.

As an RE'er - this is a painful thing to have to admit - but FE (infinite world+newtonian gravity) works just fine.

I have no clue why these people insist on using Universal Acceleration - that's ridiculously easy to debunk ("Different gravity on mountain tops", "Different gravity at the equator")...where those things can be explained away (somewhat) with an infinite world with normal Newtonian gravity.

I'm pretty sure I could still debunk it - but it's much harder than UA.

[Curious Squirrel]

I confess I'm a bit puzzled as to why FE'ers do this.

If the Earth is an infinite disk, of decent thickness - then regular "per Isaac Newton" gravity is a reasonable explanation.

No, it is not. Do you know Isaac Newton gravity depends on the mass of the objects?
Infinite disk would have to have infinite mass, and infinite gravity. Sounds stupid? It does.

Sorry - you're wrong.  Do this little thought experiment...suppose the FE was 1km thick - let's chop it up into 1km x 1km x 1km cubes.

Each cube produces a gravitational field on you and I.

If the FE world were finite - then in the center of the world, all of the cubes on the edges would be pulling us mostly OUTWARDS away from the center - and all of the nearby cubes would be pulling us mostly downwards and only a little bit to the sides.

But since all of the lateral pull from the cubes in front of us is precisely cancelled out by the cubes behind us - and all of the lateral pull from the ones to the left is cancelled out by the cubes to our right, the only remaining pull would be DOWNWARDS.

Suppose you now walk Northwards of the center by one kilometer.

Now there is one less row of cubes ahead of you - and one more row behind you.  So there would be a slight tug towards the South...still a decent downwards pull though - so it would seem as if you were walking downhill.   As you continue to walk North, more and more pull to the South and less and less to the North, so the perceived slope would get larger and larger.   Towards the edge of the Flat Earth, it would be more like climbing down a vertical cliff than walking on level ground.

So a FINITE FE with conventional gravity doesn't work.  BUSTED.

But if the FE is an INFINITE disk, then wherever you're standing, there are an infinite number of 1km cubes stretching off in all directions - you can walk anywhere and there are STILL an infinite number in all directions.

So the gravitational field of an infinite flat disk of finite (but large) thickness is pulling you directly downwards - just like on a round earth.

As an RE'er - this is a painful thing to have to admit - but FE (infinite world+newtonian gravity) works just fine.

I have no clue why these people insist on using Universal Acceleration - that's ridiculously easy to debunk ("Different gravity on mountain tops", "Different gravity at the equator")...where those things can be explained away (somewhat) with an infinite world with normal Newtonian gravity.

I'm pretty sure I could still debunk it - but it's much harder than UA.

An interesting point (slightly off-topic, my apologies) is that the guys over at theflatearthsociety.org are actually much more into this whole 'infinite plane' idea than we see over here. It's one of the major differences between them that I've noticed. Although they also have a contigent that's a bit.... more extreme I suppose is a delicate way of putting it. Go look up 'denpressure' for a small taste if you're curious.