1

Flat Earth Theory / Aiming ICBMs question

« on: November 07, 2024, 10:50:59 PM »

A couple of days ago a Minuteman III was launched from Vandenburg, possibly as a demonstration of American power in this time of conflict around the world. They have been testing ICBMs since the 1960s and the internet says there have been multiple instrumented test ranges to see where they splashed down. They have used radar, a grid of undersea microphones, and currently gps and radio transmitter on the missile. Physicists/mathemiticians calculate the theoretical landing site.  The scientists/military/government say that this is all consistent, the equations work and the missiles land where they are supposed to. This is all said to be based on the globe map and RE physics and equations.

Even over the range of missiles in current use in the middle east. If the earth is flat, the targets hundreds of miles away are in very different places than if the earth is round. I submit that it is impossible to accurately target a missile over hundreds, even thousands of miles if you are using the wrong map.

Do they think the earth is round or flat? If they are using the wrong map and equations, how do they hit where they aim? If they don't hit where they aim, are countries all over the world faking the ability and the danger? Are there thousands people who work on this in multiple countries who know the earth is flat? Do they have a flat earth map? If they do, can we get it and put it in the wiki and delete the current ones? If they don't, how are they hitting their targets?

Suggested explanation: Yes, they shoot rockets and hit where they aim and think that the earth is round BUT there are forces bending things so that their untrue assumptions about the shape of earth still result in consistency with their observations. If asked about evidence or equations for this, make up a name for the force like "Ballistic Acceleration". Of course there is no observational evidence math equations, but there are none for Universal Acceleration or Electromagnetic Acceleration, so apparently that's not a deal breaker.

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Firmament /Dome

« on: September 18, 2024, 07:05:53 AM »

Why is the most recent quote 1902, before the Wright brothers? Because airplanes proved them wrong. Ever flown in an airplane? I have many times.

Airplane designers can explain the effect of wing design on the speed, load carrying ability, and aeronautical characteristics of airplanes. Software models (like Microsoft flight simulator) use the known equations and simulate the airflow over the wing to model flight. Pilots confirm the accuracy of these models. 120 years of experiments by many people around the world, wind tunnels, equations, aircraft manufacturers, working airplanes, and they are all ignorant and you know the truth. Seems unlikely.

3

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Firmament /Dome

« on: September 18, 2024, 06:54:52 AM »

There are more types of altimeters than that.

https://www.uavnavigation.com/support/kb/general/inertial-navigation-system-and-estimation/introduction-altimeters

4

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Firmament /Dome

« on: September 18, 2024, 06:46:26 AM »

Planes fly because of the shape of their wings and Bernoulli's principle. Search youtube for "how do airplanes fly". I grew up at Edwards Air Force Base and my dad and my neighbors worked in aerospace. They all told the same story about how the air traveled faster over the top of the wing, so less pressure. Watch some videos. They worked manufacturing, testing, and flying airplanes, and those airplanes work. Really, people design, certify, insure, and travel on airplanes and no one knows how they work?? Yet somehow, millions of people get where they want to go. The question is, why am I arguing with people who think the earth is flat and no one knows how airplanes work.

5

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Relativity and frames question

« on: September 18, 2024, 02:40:49 AM »

I think you should write your theories up and submit them to all the leading scientific journals. You truly have revolutionary and paradigm shifting discoveries. No sane man can dispute them, lest he lose his sanity too. I look forward to seeing them publish confirmation and extension to your theories. You will be more famous and respected than Newton and Einstein. Let me know if I can help spread the word. You might start by getting all FEs to believe your model.

6

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Firmament /Dome

« on: September 18, 2024, 02:35:28 AM »

sandokhan, "t is either/or: you can't have both a dome and the UA. The dome makes the UA superfluous."

Why not? How does the dome cause things to accelerate at 32 ft/sec/sec? I bet you many FEs believe in both UA and dome. If there is no dome, where are planets and stars? Is there something like outer space in your model? Do you know the real truth of FE and all FEs who disagree with you are wrong?


sandokhan: "The Sun measures 636 meters in diameter, the orbital altitude is some 10-12 km."

If so, where does the sun appear to be when it is noon and you are 100 km from the spot directly underneath it? Rockets can fly over the sun? 636 meters in diameter?

The total solar energy per second on a surface perpendicular to the Sun is about 1350 Joules per square meter or about 0.275 watt-hours. Taking into account incidence angle and the surface area, the effective energy arriving at the Earth is about 1.75E17 Joules. And you are saying something that powerful is 636 meters across and 12 km away? If the sun is 12 km from the surface of the earth, the inverse square law says energy density varies with the inverse of the distance squared. So a plce directly underneath would get 4 times as much energy as on the surface 24km from the sun and places 1000 km away get almost nothing.

7

Flat Earth Theory / Re: UA can surpass the speed of light without any problems.

« on: September 16, 2024, 11:15:09 PM »

Acceleration can't be universal if by that you mean every existing thing. You must be moving relative to something or the velocity is not measurable. In RE, we simply don't know if the known universe as a whole is accelerating or moving in any way. In FE, at least the most common version, the entire known universe is the surface of the earth, the sky, and maybe a dome.

Are the stars fixed on the dome, or are we moving universally with them? What is universal acceleration in relation to? Perhaps there must be something but we can never see it? Perhaps we only know that because Michelson-Morley we know the earth is flat, and because things fall at 32 ft/sec/sec we know it must be accelerating? That would be taking the falling object as the reference and the rest of the universe as moving. Can we ever have an external reference?

Please advise any error I may have made. Hope to hear some good answers.

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: UA can surpass the speed of light without any problems.

« on: September 13, 2024, 10:19:00 PM »

It is so interesting that FE says we have been accelerating at 32 ft/sec/sec for thousands of years. We must be going pretty fast in some huge space and we never hit anything. So presumably, the space we are acceleration throughYet the dome model has no way to observe what is outside the dome, the space through which we are accelerating. So according to UA, all we know is how fast the earth is accelerating infinitely through possibly empty space, which is puzzling, because acceleration is in relation to some fixed point, and with UA and the dome model there is no known fixed point outside of the dome.

9

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Finding Polaris and FE model

« on: September 13, 2024, 10:00:36 PM »

AT sunset in Denver, someone in St Louis can see Polaris to the north. At that same moment, someone in Salt Lake City looking directly north would see blue sky. It is not distance, because Salt Lake City and St Louis are roughly the same distance from the north pole. FE explanation?

10

Flat Earth Theory / Relativity and frames question

« on: September 13, 2024, 09:54:13 PM »

I searched for the definition of frames in relativity because I have seen FE explanations that talk about frames:

A “frame of reference” is a standard relative to which motion and rest may be measured; any set of points or objects that are at rest relative to one another enables us, in principle, to describe the relative motions of bodies.

When I learn about FE models, the most popular is the dome. Far as I know, there is no observation or explanation, possibly no way to know what lies beyond the inside of the dome. The UA theory says we are accelerating, which implies a location outside the dome to measure acceleration relative to. Incidentally, lucky us that the acceleration is not in the opposite direction, or we would be pinned to the dome looking up at thew earth's surface.

Seems to me that in FE models, there is only one possible frame. Most popular is the dome model, its own frame that includes nothing beyond it. My question is whether there is a FE model with multiple frames, or is the frame relativity theory wrong/nonexistent, or what?

11

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Firmament /Dome

« on: September 13, 2024, 09:39:53 PM »

If you believe in UA and a dome, then the earth is accelerating at 32 ft/second/second and, apparently, so are objects in the sky. so a force adequate for that acceleration must be applied to the sun, moon, planets, asteroids, etc to accelerate identically. The material you propose is not strong structurally. The sun produces a huge measurable amount of energy and if the dome model is correct, the sun 35 miles across as calculated from a dome 3500 miles away (or maybe no one knows). Seems unlikely something that produces all that energy and is 35 miles wide would have So if the "dome" is made of aerogel, what holds up the sun? Is it so light that aerogel can support it or is there some other structure we don't know about?

12

Flat Earth Theory / 2 questions about UA

« on: June 11, 2024, 11:06:36 PM »

UA seems plausible, the model would explain what we observe in everyday life, at least for a while.

Question 1: The sun and moon seem to stay more or less the same distance per many FE models, thus they must be accelerating identically. Is there some structure that holds them up there? If the dome is holding them up, that would be some impressive structure. Or perhaps the same force that is accelerating the earth is acting on them but not airplanes.

Question 2: Do we have any reference outside the earth and astronomical objects that do not appear to be getting closer, thus must be accelerating as part of the earth/astronomical object system. Acceleration must be in relation to a point that is not accelerating, yet I see no info in FE on where that point is or how to observe it. My question is, can we observe or measure this acceleration from any frame of reference, or is the only way we know it is accelerating is by dropping things at the surface of the earth and attributing the acceleration of 32 feet/sec/sec to the earth rising instead of the object falling?

13

Flat Earth Theory / Re: falsification, epistemology, FE and RE

« on: June 11, 2024, 10:53:28 PM »

Re falsification of RE/FE:

On the wiki page of maps, all the FE maps are falsifiable by comparing the distances on the maps to gps, airline schedules, google maps, time/speed/distance, navigation works, etc, all consistent and proved many many times daily by airliners arriving, ships, many other ways. In most FE maps. Australia is way too big and the distance to Los Angeles (a route I flew) is way too long.

I have a globe and used a piece of string and the scale printed on the globe to measure some distances and compared them to google maps, lat/long, and various internet sites. They were all the same and matched RE. I submit a globe is the only map that is not falsifiable in that way.

Within Euclidean 3 space and Newtonian physics, RE is not falsifiable. All the FE maps in the wiki are easily falsifiable.

If you want to falsify RE, you can use non-Euclidean geometry and esoteric math. I can also prove that 1 = 0 using math, so ...

14

Flat Earth Theory / Re: falsification, epistemology, FE and RE

« on: June 11, 2024, 10:34:28 PM »

Re solipsism, this is the definition I meant:

    Philosophy
    the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
    "solipsism is an idealist thesis because ‘Only my mind exists’ entails ‘Only minds exist’"

Religion, politics, and flat earth often use what I would call "partial solipsism", saying "You can't know that." Information that falsifies their narrative can be dealt with by claiming you can't know (faulty senses, hypnotism, conspiracy, fake news, etc) things. For instance, one FE posted that it is impossible to know the distance across oceans. If the only certainty is
I think, therefor I am" and only your existence to ask the question is certain, all inconvenient facts can be dismissed.

15

Flat Earth Theory / falsification, epistemology, FE and RE

« on: May 19, 2024, 07:52:24 PM »

The wiki contains falsification of RE, even though RE has many observations and explains things like equatorial telescope mounts, sunset/sunrise, eclipse, day and night, 24 hour sun or darkness at the poles, etc etc etc. So let's say RE is falsified despite many reasons to think it is true. My question is whether FE models can be falsified. It seems to me that the ratio of proof of RE to falsification of RE is pretty high, many reasons to believe RE and few to falsify it. FE believers seem to hypothesize various explanations of the problems with various FE models without experiments, proof, equations, etc, just "well, it might be".

My question is why can't RE belief be saved by "well, it might be ..." as FE often is?

Could the true FE model be determined by falsification similar to RE falsification?

If that standard applied to all FE models, would any survive? Why can't the FE world falsify all but one model to determine the true form of the earth? If inconsistencies can be explained by unproven hypothetical forces, how can the FE world ever figure out which is true?

Is it the case that RE has to be complete, consistent, and flawless, while FE can have inconsistencies and not correlate to observations without "unknown forces and unknown equations" as the wiki formerly explained EA (aka "bendy light")?

Does someone have a flawless FE model, no inconsistencies that require light to bend etc? Or are all RE and FE models flawed and we can never know?

I submit that there is no falsification of anything that can not be explained by some mechanism you dream up if no experiment, equations, or other sharable and verifiable is required and that includes RE. For instance, one could easily make up a previously unknown force to explain Michaelson Morley RE falsification. I submit that in this sense, RE is exactly the same as FE models in that you have some reason to believe it, but it has flaws. Until we have experiments, observations, equations etc to explain things like UA and EA, FE is no more unfalsified than RE.

So the solipsist can not believe RE or FE.

16

Flat Earth Theory / Re: New idea on observing Sigma Octantis from multiple locations

« on: April 15, 2024, 11:16:03 PM »

Where is Sigma Octantus?

If the earth is a spheroid. light travels straight in a vacuum, and Sigma Octantus is a star 294 light years away and 1 degree off a line extended from the south pole, then all over the southern hemisphere it will be visible at any point in the southern hemisphere almost directly south and at an angle above the horizon equal to the latitude of the observer's location. This is explained in textbooks, web sites, videos, etc, consistently and unambiguously. Navigators have used this and observers have confirmed this. In this respect, the earth appears round and the geometry is consistent. Any RE will tell the exact same story. In this respect, the earth appears to be round.

If the earth is flat, we know the light is bending but do not know why or how. The bending can only be determined by what bending needs to occur for the round appearance to actually be flat. We don't know whether there is one pole or two. We don't know why at the same time people in the north see entirely different stars than people in the south. Since we don't know how the light bends, we don't know where Sigma Octantus actually is.

It is not just the azimuth of Sigma Octantus but also elevation (angle above the horizon). It is stated above (hypothesized? speculated?) that SIgma Octantus is directly above the south pole in the bi-polar model. Since Sigma Octantus is on the horizon when viewed from the equator, that makes it appear to be directly on the south pole while far to the south it appears to be far above it. So the light bends vertically as well as horizontally.

In the monopole disc model Sigma Octantus is in every direction, always directly opposite to the north pole. Seems like it would be visible from the northern hemisphere. It has the same elevation problem as bi-polar model.

So that leaves us with: RE has an explanation that is known, consistent with observations, and identical in all RE info sources. FE does not know which model and has no equations, explanations, or verification experiments to explain observations. Yet some believe the earth is flat. Sure would like to hear the details of EA, but so far the definition is "whatever it has to be to make the appearance of RE be actually FE".

Interestingly, if we know the light bends in various directions but do not know exactly how, Sigma Octantus could be anywhere. I claim that to know where Sigma Octantus is, we have to know the forces and equations of how the light bends. If it does not bend, the earth is round.

I hope we can all agree with everything I said above. Please advise if I said anything that isn't true.

17

Flat Earth Theory / gravity in different places and universal acceleration

« on: April 10, 2024, 08:27:49 PM »

I saw a video where a man had a scale and a weight that he showed, then took went on an airliner a thousand miles away and showed the weight was slightly different. I googled "does gravity vary in different places?". I got results that said that due to different mass in different places, gravity does vary. Greater in mountains, less above trenches, which makes sense if gravity is attraction between masses as claimed by conventional consensus science.

Questions for FEs: Is this true, does gravity vary slightly in different places? Perhaps error or conspiracy? If gravity does vary, and gravity is due to universal acceleration (per the wiki?), does that mean that different places have slightly different acceleration? Seems to me that would distort the flatness over time. Places with less gravity would accelerate slightly slower, thus falling behind and so getting lower and lower compared to average, and mountains having more gravity would be accelerating. They would get continuously higher.

Should the universal acceleration theory be discarded, or is there an FE explanation for varying gravity?

18

Flat Earth Theory / Are the distances shown on google earth true?

« on: September 06, 2023, 12:56:51 AM »

GPS, google earth, celestial navigation, does any FE have an example of them not matching? If they are all correct, the shape of the earth is a geometry problem. They either match RE or FE. If they are not correct, please explain.

To put it another way, does the US Navy know where its ships are? Can they send a ship to Japan and order it mid course to go to Australia? Will it arrive? Will they know the distance and therefor whether they have enough fuel and when it will arrive? Does the US Navy know the shape of the earth?

19

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Does observation of planets match Newton's and Kepler's laws?

« on: September 06, 2023, 12:45:39 AM »

Good faith: If someone had explanations, equations, and experiments that proved flat earth and explained things like sunset and sunrise, I would believe FE. Sunset and sunrise are explained by "the light bends", while there is no explanation of why, no experiment, no equations. The wiki page on EA used to say it bends due to unknown forces with unknown equations, but that seems to have been removed once I quoted the wiki page on zetetic where it said you should not believe things unless it has been experimentally demonstrated, and the EA page admitted there are no experiments proving EA bends light. I have listened to many FE ideas, people misunderstanding perspective and vanishing point etc etc etc. The FE ideas are full of misunderstandings and gaps. RE has explanation for sunrise and sunset that works geometrically, and so many other things.

Gotcha: This is another word for proof by contradiction, used in math and epistemology, Karl Popper says you can't prove anything, you can only assume things are true and show that leads to contradiction with known facts, so in perhaps the leading school of thought on epistemology, "gotcha" is all there is. The use of the word in daily life is not even about the probitive value of a statement. It is a tribal appeal to emotions, making the conversation not a search for truth, but invalidation by saying you're not looking for truth, you are trying to invalidate my tribe. Which I am, but calling my argument a gotcha attempt does not change the logic of the argument.

I wasn't even arguing that the earth is not flat. I was asking if someone can find flaws in the Newton/Kepler system, which explains why people see different stars above them in northern/southern hemisphere, why sun sets and rises, etc etc etc. Is there something we REs have missed in calculations and observations, or does RE geometry "work", is it consistent with calculations and observations? Please show your work. It is possible that the appearance of planets is consistent with RE yet the earth is actually flat. My observation about that is that even if true, it is remarkable that the RE calculations and observations are consistent because FE geometry is greatly different.

I doubt that any FE will say "observations and calculations of Newton/Kepler are consistent with observations". They just won't. Neither will they come up with Newtonian calculations that are inconsistent with observations.

Don't you think it is remarkable that RE could be be consistent with calculations and observations yet the earth is actually flat? That something so wrong could predict planetary motions accurately?

PS Flat eyes and under my feet??? I do not understand. I freely admit that if you just look around you, the earth looks flat. This is because the earth is so big, that locally, flat is a good approximation. FE breaks down when you try to explain sunrise/sunset, different stars in southern/northern hemisphere, etc etc etc.

20

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Does observation of planets match Newton's and Kepler's laws?

« on: August 30, 2023, 05:31:15 PM »

In my nearly 10 years trying to understand and verify the truth of FE, I have heard many FEs describe our world as a terrarium, flat land under a dome. It is always difficult to determine what exactly FE means, as FEs do not agree and often their ideas are presented as models, as possibilities, often multiple possibilities. So some say dome, some don't, whatever.

Forget the dome, sorry I mentioned it.

My question is whether the RE model of the solar system is consistent with observations and calculations per Newtonian physics. If RE astronomy was true, would it account for planetary motion as observed from the surface of the earth? Are Newton's equations consistent with orbital paths and are those paths what we would see in RE solar system?

The possible answers from FE believer are:

1. Yes, the RE explanation is consistent with calculations and observations, but that is just an amazing coincidence. The light bends to make the appearance of RE actually be FE, although FE can't explain the forces and equations involved.

2. No, here are calculations that show that Newton was wrong, or observations that show that Kepler was wrong.

All other answers, including the FE posts in this thread, do not answer my question. Dome or no dome, epicycles, fourier, etc. The question remains, is Kepler/Newton consistent with observations and calculations? If the solar system is what RE says it is, does that account for its appearance? Is RE consistent with Newtonian equations of mass and motion?

That is the only question of this thread.