[AATW]

The fact we can't proves that the earth is not flat.

The fact we cannot proves we cannot occupy all spaces at once.

I don't know what you mean by that. In order to produce a map I simply have to know how far places are apart and in which direction.
The earth has been mapped by various surveying methods down the centuries, as our technology has improved so has the accuracy of our maps.
We can now fly or sail around the world reliably because we have accurate maps.
BUT, all maps are a projection because it is impossible to map the surface of a sphere perfectly on to a flat plane. And if you try and create a map using the known distances between places you'll find it doesn't work. If the earth were flat then it would. The flat plane of the earth should map accurately on to the flat plane of a map. The reason maps are projections is because the earth is a globe.

So either:
1) The earth isn't flat.
2) The distances between places aren't known as accurately as we think. But if that is true then how do planes and ships get around so reliably? The whole global travel industry is based on the premise that we have accurate maps.

[robinofloxley]

edby stated Google Earth has NZ precisely where Cook stated it was in 1770.

Well sort of. edby said "... 172.7E, which agrees perfectly with Google". Now if that had been stated as 172.70000E, then I'd argue you might have a case, because over 200 years that should now be more like 172.70008E.
I think any reasonable person might say this shift is so insignificant that it can be ignored, especially as the original figure was quoted to one decimal place and we're quibbling about a discrepancy in the 5th decimal place here.

It's a bit like saying I weighed myself yesterday and I claim I'm the same weight I was 30 years ago (I wish) and you take issue with me because it turns out I've put on 0.5 grams.

NZ would not be precisely where Cook stated it was in 1770.

Agreed, strictly speaking, it isn't.

Furthermore, no noted changes in reporting (according to the thief of Sherwood) for over 20 years. despite all this  high-tech?

I assume you mean that according to the article I posted, the position of Australia was adjusted in 1994 and then not again until 2017?

Well I guess it's similar in a way to leap seconds, we allow a discrepancy between UTC and mean solar time to build up until it gets a bit awkward and then we choose a moment to apply a leap second to bring them back in step. It would be very annoying to be constantly adding leap milliseconds every day or so.

Similarly, we could reprint and reissue maps every week, but since things are only shifting by a meter or so every decade, it makes sense to me to periodically adjust.

"the thief of sherwood" - I should change my username, much more enigmatic!

[edby]

edby stated Google Earth has NZ precisely where Cook stated it was in 1770.

GPS, HRI via satellites...

NZ would not be precisely where Cook stated it was in 1770.

My measurement was approximate, estimating lat and long from a chart. The approximations matched perfectly. That does not imply NZ has not moved a few fractions of a degree. I explained that an arcsecond is 1/60^2 degrees, a very small angle, totally undetectable on a blurred image. (As two people have already stated above).

[edby]

Can you explain some more about the premise of this thread? Why would the latitude or longitude coordinates of New Zealand have changed since the mid 1800's?

The premise of the thread is to understand whether the early explorers of the southern uncharted zones such as Cook, Ross, Scott etc, knew roughly where they were, without using any kind of technology that could have been corrupted by the Great NASA conspiracy.

There is strong evidence that they did. There is more evidence of this from the text of Cook’s first voyage.


This took him round Cape Horn, across the Pacific, which is immense empty space. All the time he knew exactly where he was, despite not having been there before. Furthermore, the co-ordinates he used turned out to be reliable over time. I.e. the same place did not change its co-ordinates.

Note that if you use the exact co-ordinates given by Cook in the text, and compare them with Google, it turns out many of the longitudes were out by a few minutes. But we know why this is: they could not afford the more accurate clocks made by Harrison at that time. Later voyages used these, but not the first.

Another premiss of this thread: do the places given by lat-long represent all the possible places there are on the flat earth? If there are still great unexplored parts of the world, where are they? Do they have lat-long positions – which seems unlikely, given we have all those positions on existing maps – or is there some weird space time warp leading us to places outside those co-ordinates? Deep stuff.

[edby]

So either:
1) The earth isn't flat.
2) The distances between places aren't known as accurately as we think. But if that is true then how do planes and ships get around so reliably? The whole global travel industry is based on the premise that we have accurate maps.

Important: as stated earlier the first part of this investigation is not to try and show whether the earth is flat or not. Let's start with the assumption that the earth is flat. Given that, it is still a fact that New Zealand exists, and that Cook found his way there, and all round it, also revisited various small islands in the huge expanse of the Pacific, and that he was able to do so simply by knowing where he was.

I.e. he could say 'lets go to lat X and long Y', then set a course, and successfully get to that place, again and again. Assuming all that is true, we have to assume the veracity of the co-ordinate system.

We can then go on to ask, does this co-ordinate system define all the places that there are?

The point of using these old historical accounts is to go back to a time before the great NASA conspiracy.

[edby]

Wait, you can detail what constitutes validity but cannot discern that 172.7 = 172.7?

Two rough estimates can match perfectly, without more accurate estimates matching perfectly. Why do you find this point so difficult to grasp? Are you being serious? I wonder.

[robinofloxley]

Wait, you can detail what constitutes validity but cannot discern that 172.7 = 172.7?

Two rough estimates can match perfectly, without more accurate estimates matching perfectly. Why do you find this point so difficult to grasp? Are you being serious? I wonder.

I re-read the topic from the beginning and noticed this...

It is the OP stating New Zealand is in the exact same position, down to the tenth of a degree.

A statement I completely agree with, to the nearest tenth of a degree, it is in the same position. To the nearest ten thousandth of a degree, it isn't.

[juner]

Each of the last replies from RE remind of the good ole days of:

broken video

Please refrain from low-content posting in the upper fora. Warned.

[edby]

This is the log book of Cook’s second voyage, when he was commissioned by the British government to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to determine whether there was any great southern landmass. All the maps previous to that had speculated on the existence of some ‘Terra Australis’, but no one had dared sail that far South. He proved the Terra Australis Incognita to be a myth, however he did speculate on the existence of a continent on the Pole.

We continued to steer to the S. and S.E. till next day at noon, at which time we were in the latitude of 58° 15' S., longitude 21° 34' W., and seeing neither land nor signs of any, I concluded that what we had seen, which I named Sandwich Land, was either a group of islands, or else a point of the continent; for I firmly believe that there is a tract of land near the pole which is the source of most of the ice that is spread over this vast Southern Ocean. I also think it probable that it extends farthest to the north opposite the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans, because ice was always found by us farther to the north in these oceans than anywhere else, which I judge could not be, if there were not land to the S.; I mean a land of considerable extent. For if we suppose that no such land exists, and that ice may be formed without it, it will follow of course that the cold ought to be everywhere nearly equal round the pole, as far as 70° or 60° of latitude, or so far as to be beyond the influence of any of the known continents; consequently we ought to see ice everywhere under the same parallel, or near it; and yet the contrary has been found. (p573)

There is an interesting note (p525) on the difficulty of accurate longitude measurement. See below.

[Venus]

0.1 degrees works out to approximately 10kms so it looks like everything still checks out. Total Lackey, we forgive your excitement to yell GOTCHA!

0.1 ARCSECONDS, not 0.1 DEGREES !!!
1 arc second is 1/3600th of a degree, so 0.1 arcsecond is 1/36000th of one degree - I doubt very much if navigators, google maps or GPS works at that minute scale.

Here is my calculation...
Continents are moving on average 2.5cm per year, which is 0.025 metres/year, or 0.000025km/year
The circumference of the earth is 40,000km

0.000025/40,000*360 = 0.0000002025 degrees *3600 ~ 0.00073 ARCSECONDS (in whatever direction)

I do believe that in 100 years we will still be able to find New Zealand!!!

Or 0.00002 degrees in 100 years ie

[Rama Set]

I mentioned 0.1 degrees because that is the precision of the measurements cited in this thread and 0.1 degrees latitude translates in to approximately 10kms on the surface of the earth.

Most of what you have said is covered already in the thread.

[Spingo]

Can you explain some more about the premise of this thread? Why would the latitude or longitude coordinates of New Zealand have changed since the mid 1800's?

That’s quite an interesting statement to come from you Tom, with quite serious implications for your beliefs.
The maps made of sothern latitudes, NZ, and Australia in the 1700, particulary those by James Cook have been shown to be pretty accurate when compared to more modern cartographic techniques. The mapping accuracy clearly puts a final nail in the coffin for any idea of a flat earth map, which as you know would require some jiggling around of land masses from their current locations. It’s a problem that FE thinkers, like yourself have failed to address.

[edby]

Can you explain some more about the premise of this thread? Why would the latitude or longitude coordinates of New Zealand have changed since the mid 1800's?

That’s quite an interesting statement to come from you Tom, with quite serious implications for your beliefs.
The maps made of sothern latitudes, NZ, and Australia in the 1700, particulary those by James Cook have been shown to be pretty accurate when compared to more modern cartographic techniques. The mapping accuracy clearly puts a final nail in the coffin for any idea of a flat earth map, which as you know would require some jiggling around of land masses from their current locations. It’s a problem that FE thinkers, like yourself have failed to address.

Not quite. The accuracy experiment shows that the 18C navigators understood their position very well. Says nothing (so far) about the distance between those positions. Longitude can be measured on Flat Earth by the sun literally circling overhead, and measuring the time it is overhead compared the time at Greenwich. Latitude is an even simpler measurement. So the accuracy of latitude and longitude as a position measurement does not require a globe earth.

The question is how accurately the early navigators were able to measure distance travelled, which I will come to as the next part of the experiment.

[RonJ]

You need to do some studying on just how celestial navigation works on a ship at sea.  First of all you are dependent upon the weather.  You can't take a sighting of a star with cloud cover.  Maybe it's just partly cloudy and the primary star or planet you need to get a really good fix is obscured so you use something else that isn't the best.  That could easily compromise the accuracy of your position.  Another possibility is that the seas were really rough while trying to take a sight.  When you are being jerked around you just do your best and take an average. 

There's no way that celestial navigation would work on a flat earth.  The nautical almanacs all depended on spherical trigonometry for an accurate determination of position.  Maybe you could get an idea of your latitude by observing the sun at local apparent noon, but that's about it.  If anyone has ever seen a nautical almanac based upon a flat earth paradigm it would probably be very valuable.  It would be equivalent to the upside down airplane stamp that the post office printed as a mistake once.   

Getting you longitude requires an accurate clock and a accurate nautical almanac.  If the clock's accuracy fades then your position accuracy could fade as well.  If it's been several days since you've been able to get a good star fix because of the weather then you are just dependent upon your dead reckoning skills and your helmsmen's skill at holding a steady heading in maybe bad sea conditions.  You also need to know your ship's thru the water speed compensated for possible tides & currents.  It's possible that your assumed position could be off by 25 miles. 

In the 1800's a ship's captain wouldn't go to sea unless he thought he could navigate and deliver the goods.  Often times the captain would own a portion of the ship as well.  A lot was on the line.  Forget flat earth navigation.  It can't work, there were no accurate flat earth maps available, no nautical almanacs for flat earth, no mathematical possibilities for it to work....... I've been over this subject before.

Popeye was a round earth sailor and didn't get lost.   

[edby]

As I said, the question of whether the positions are accurate is a separate question from whether the distance between positions is accurate.

On that subject, this https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00014-00058/5 is William Wales' log book of the Resolution, the vessel of Cook's second voyage. Each page has a summary in his neat writing of latitude and longitude, weather conditions etc. They used two clocks to work out longitude.

I believe the 'DR' entries stand for 'dead reckoning'. When they could not get a celestial position they would estimate it from an estimate of the speed they were travelling. This is where we get into the question of GE vs FE. FE distances between points of latitude and longitude differ from GE distance, particularly in the South.

[RonJ]

I did read thru some of the ship's logs pertaining to the effort to determine longitude.  The clocks used would be an important component.  John Harrison was an important player in that realm and I assume that his clocks were used on the voyages in question.  They were certainly of sufficient accuracy to make useful measurements of a position.  A 10 second error would produce a 2 to 3 mile error in a calculated position.  Additionally a sextant sighting of many heavenly bodies would also typically produce an error of 2 or 3 miles.  At sea I would expect a possible error of about 5 miles. 

Any position due to (DR) dead reckoning alone could be a whole lot more inaccurate.  A measurement of the ship's speed thru the water is an important component, but even more important for a sailing ship would be any currents.  I can tell you from personal experience that there are currents out there that could add or subtract 30% to a ship's sailing speed that the crew would have no way of measuring with thru the water speed alone.  A 2 or 3 knot current is not unusual and could make a 48 to 72 nautical mile difference in a DR position that couldn't be detected until the next celestial fix.  I have no idea about currents in the area that the voyage was surveying but it's certainly something to consider.

You could spend a lot of time studying the logs of the surveying voyage trying to make sense of everything.  I don't know if the Board of Longitude determined the actual distance between any two longitude lines South of the Equator or not.  Certainly the divergence of the longitude lines South of the equator in the FE paradigm would be something that modern day geodetic surveyors have already debunked years ago.  Again, there are no real viable flat earth maps available, but they would be interesting to see. 

[Spingo]

Can you explain some more about the premise of this thread? Why would the latitude or longitude coordinates of New Zealand have changed since the mid 1800's?

That’s quite an interesting statement to come from you Tom, with quite serious implications for your beliefs.
The maps made of sothern latitudes, NZ, and Australia in the 1700, particulary those by James Cook have been shown to be pretty accurate when compared to more modern cartographic techniques. The mapping accuracy clearly puts a final nail in the coffin for any idea of a flat earth map, which as you know would require some jiggling around of land masses from their current locations. It’s a problem that FE thinkers, like yourself have failed to address.

Not quite. The accuracy experiment shows that the 18C navigators understood their position very well. Says nothing (so far) about the distance between those positions. Longitude can be measured on Flat Earth by the sun literally circling overhead, and measuring the time it is overhead compared the time at Greenwich. Latitude is an even simpler measurement. So the accuracy of latitude and longitude as a position measurement does not require a globe earth.

The question is how accurately the early navigators were able to measure distance travelled, which I will come to as the next part of the experiment.

No....not quite. The relative positions of all major land masses was firmly established toward the end of the late 1700s early 1800s, with the possible exception being the extent of Both the Artic and Antartica. This was the age of exploration driven partly by colonial expansion. The East India company and the British navy new exactly how far and exactly where all it’s strategic ports and colonies lay. As was previously mentioned the invention by Harrison of a very accurate naval chronometer made a huge difference in establishing precise locations, hence the value of the prize he eventually won.

The very fact that we know the relative precise locations of every port, town, city, river, lake, loch, mountain etc....in the world makes it impossible for any alternative arrangement of the land masses.....so no alternative flat earth map possible.

If you don’t agree which continental real estate would you wish to relocate and on what grounds?

[Tom Bishop]

Latitude and longitude were not based on carefully laid locations. They were based on the apparent position of celestial bodies from various parts of the earth. The North Star will define your latitude, for example.

Is the altitude of the North Star perfectly constant when moving between latitudes? Never tested, but assumed so.

[RonJ]

Latitude and longitude were not based on carefully laid locations. They were based on the apparent position of celestial bodies from various parts of the earth. The North Star will define your latitude, for example.

Is the altitude of the North Star perfectly constant when moving between latitudes? Never tested, but assumed so.

Interesting question.
You might say that the North Star changes very slightly in apparent location over the centuries but the difference is very, very small. In other words, the North Star can change it's apparent position over time. I don't think that the North Star is a 'smart' star and could intentionally change locations in the sky to foil a navigator as the navigator changes latitudes, even a flat earth one.  Besides you could have two navigators trying to navigate at the same time at different latitudes.  How would the North Star know where to be under those circumstances?  Of course with the current flat earth paradigm you have a 'smart' sun that can change orbits (somehow) to generate different seasons.  Why not produce a paradigm where the North Star can change it's apparent height to produce the correct apparent altitude when changing latitudes?  Currently the North Star is in the wrong spot and won't produce a proper sight except at the North Pole and a single other latitude depending on what the assumed position of the North Star happens to be above the North Pole. Maybe the earth is somehow spewing ions or dark energy straight up from the North Pole that is refracting the star light as a function of the observer latitude.  The apparent altitude of the North Star would have to vary from infinity at the North Pole to zero at the Equator.  I've tried a couple of exponentials and a tangent function, but haven't gotten anything that quite works yet.  That could fix the current measurement anomaly. 

[edby]

Latitude and longitude were not based on carefully laid locations. They were based on the apparent position of celestial bodies from various parts of the earth. The North Star will define your latitude, for example.

Is the altitude of the North Star perfectly constant when moving between latitudes? Never tested, but assumed so.

However the research suggests that the coordinates precisely reflect the physical location where it exists. I.e. the coordinate positions of the various islands Cook visited have not changed significantly over the centuries. Moreover Cook made several voyages, and each time was able to locate small islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean using this system of measurement.