101

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Perspective in 'Earth Not a Globe' contradicts itself

« on: May 25, 2018, 09:26:58 AM »

This just illustrated that the author does not have a good understanding of optics.  Denser mediums do not magnify light, the angle of incident between the materials is what causes magnification or contraction.  A convex lens will magnify, a concave lens will contract.  We can confidently discard this quote.

Indeed, it's the shape of the interface between the two media plus the ratio in refractive index that determines the path of the light through the interface. If you have no sharp interface, then the gradient in refractive index and his spacial dispersion determines the behavior of light beams.

By the way, can anyone explain what a "atmolayer" is? Never heard this before...

The best part is the analogy to the laser. The divergence of the freely propagating laser beam is a consequence of the aperture of the laser resonator. You can understand this if you treat the laser beam as a so-called Gaussian beam of zero order. But if you look into the beam, it is imaged by the lens of your eye on your retina and it appears in its original size. Beside, the intensity is too high and you have all glare effects. Just use proper filter and maybe a camera instead of your eye ;-)   

102

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Examining EnaG claims of “horizon rises to eye level”

« on: May 25, 2018, 07:16:14 AM »

The problem is always the same, he doesn't understand how a lens works and attaches random properties to it that just fit to neglect the outcome of the experiment. For him a lens/telescope only works fine if he explains the recovery effect of objects behind the horizon. It's not that in this case he has a better understanding of it, but there it fits to his view on the world...

103

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Neutrinos

« on: May 25, 2018, 07:05:44 AM »

I hate to be the burster of bubbles here, but couldn't the neutrinos just curve up when inside the earth? How can we confirm they travel straight through matter, specifically the earth's insides whatever they may be?

First of all because there is no force that would act on the neutrinos to change there direction. Neutrinos only act via scattering events with quarks and the scattering is isotropic around the direction the neutrinos are moving. There is no preferred direction that would lead to a bending into a certain direction. Then you can measure the full angular dependence of all neutrinos arriving at the detector and you can compare their signatures. A scattered neutrino has a different signature as non-scattered one. So you can for example compare neutrinos that arrive horizontally at the detector with the ones arriving vertically from below. 

104

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Perspective in 'Earth Not a Globe' contradicts itself

« on: May 24, 2018, 03:52:59 PM »

You're right it's in reality a very simple optical effect, but look at the top of the page I linked. There you find the quotation from EnaG regarding the apparent size of the sun.

105

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Perspective in 'Earth Not a Globe' contradicts itself

« on: May 24, 2018, 12:28:20 PM »

Yes, that's would you would expect, but read this:

https://wiki.tfes.org/Magnification_of_the_Sun_at_Sunset#Lamp_Post_Example

106

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How Far Away is the Horizon?

« on: May 24, 2018, 12:20:47 PM »

(Always wary about globe earthers explaining EnaG to each other.)

I know, and they don't like it, too. But EnaG is no rocket science, in the end it's all very simple descriptions and explanations. The old fashioned language and the non-scientific, not really precise language is sometimes a bit of a problem. Basically one could summarize the whole content in 10 pages or so.

107

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How Far Away is the Horizon?

« on: May 24, 2018, 11:22:13 AM »

If you put the explanation in EnaG into a formula, you get d = h/tan(1°/60), where h is the eye level with respect to sea level and d is the distance to the horizon. Let's say eye level is at 2 meters, you get something like 6.9 km. On a globe you get about 5.1 km. It's roughly the same order of magnitude. That's what sounds reasonable if you have the "I'm standing at beach and watching the horizon" state of mind.

The problem is, that the EnaG formula scales linearly with height. At 20m the ratio is already 69:16, at 200m 690:50 and so on. That's the reason for the claim, that at larger height the horizon is always too hazy to be clearly visible. With this argument you are always safe. The value is too larger, no problem, there is hazy limiting you field of view. 

108

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Guide to Creating a Flat Earth Map

« on: May 24, 2018, 08:44:54 AM »

Who cares for the ancient Greeks? Perspective is a consequence of visual perception. Therefor, go to Amazon and buy a good book about optics. For a start, take this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Optics-Electromagnetic-Propagation-Interference/dp/0521642221/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527151310&sr=8-1&keywords=born+wolf+optics

109

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Perspective in 'Earth Not a Globe' contradicts itself

« on: May 24, 2018, 07:58:23 AM »

As far as I understood, there are some differences how perspective acts on objects on or close the ground and celestial objects. It also makes a difference, if the object is a light source or not. Cause light sources do not shrink. In your case, the sun is a light source, so it will not shrink. The lamp post will also shrink, but the lamp it self not (at least if it is dark and the lamp is switched on).

Interesting question is, how should you treat the moon? Is it a light source, therefor it is not shrinking as the sun? But if is only visible because it is reflecting light, does it still behaves like a light source? 

110

Flat Earth Community / Re: So everyone, I mean everyone – family and friends think I'm going insane

« on: May 24, 2018, 07:37:27 AM »

Reading this page one can have the impression, Antarctica is still a kind of terra incognita like it was 150 years ago. I mean, there people living and working there:

https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/livingsouthpole/station_new.jsp

Last week someone visit our university who is involved in several scientific projects based at the south pole. One was very interesting. They send a balloon equipped with some experiments and measurement devices  up in the sky at the south pole and mapped its path across Antarctica. And that's not a kind of magic, it's application of science and technology.     

111

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Wu Experiment vs. Bedford Level Experiment

« on: May 23, 2018, 06:12:37 PM »

But the experimental challenge to prove parity violation is much higher than to prove the shape of the earth. The later one can be clarified by more or less simple observations everyone can do by himself. The whole discussion is completely artificial and practically non-existing outside this flat-earth bubble.

112

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Wu Experiment vs. Bedford Level Experiment

« on: May 23, 2018, 05:58:31 PM »

You mean the parity violation for the weak interaction? But where is the connection to this Bedford experiment? Parity violation is a fundamental question in physics, the other thing is a simple observation that has only relevance for discussion in the flat-earth bubble.

Nevertheless, of course physics is not a straight forward thing. Experiments are not always crystal clear and under heavy debate. Same for theories. It´s quite natural if you exploring the unknown...   

113

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Testable hypothesis for FET perspective model

« on: May 23, 2018, 12:04:56 PM »

But an Airy disk is a limit on the spot size determined by the wavelength of the light. The resolution of the eye or a camera is determined by the spacing of the receptor cells (or pizels).

I don't know for the eye, but for an ideal camera the pixel size should be smaller than the size of the Airy disc, something like a factor of 1.5 is ideal. The camera should be limited by diffraction, not by pixel size. On the other hand, pixels should not be much smaller, because you don't gain anything regarding resolvable information. That's sometimes funny if people buy a smartphone with tens of megapixel, but a crappy lens :-) 

114

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Testable hypothesis for FET perspective model

« on: May 23, 2018, 11:53:38 AM »

Dr. Rowbotham postulates that disappearing due to perspective occurs at "the angular limits of the eye", asserting that the angular limit is around 1 arcminute.

I disagree with Round Earthers that disappearing from perspective is completely ridiculous. I can actually name the Airy disk as a mechanism for it.

The Airy disk is a pattern of rings created by diffraction. For the human eye in bright light, the limit is about 1 arcminute. Additionally, multiple point sources of light can appear to merge like so:



Given this mechanism, I can hypothesize the following:

• An object close to disappearing due to perspective should be significantly blurred.
• There should be a pattern of rings, if it is indeed blurred from the Airy disk.

That's a bit too naive approach. The full diffraction pattern you can only observe for diffraction at single object. Maybe you remember from school diffraction at a slit, double slit or grating. The pattern is basically the square of the Fourier transform of your diffracting object. In case of the the Airy disc, this is a point like object or a tiny hole.

What you see with your eye or if you take a picture with a camera is the convolution of the object and the point spread function of your imaging system. The point spread function is basically the image of a single point that you get due to the limited aperture of your eye or camera. The higher order fringes are not visible in this convoluted image, you just observe the blurriness. Due to this blurriness and depending of the contrast of the imaged objects, more and more details are getting lost.   

115

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Guide to Creating a Flat Earth Map

« on: May 23, 2018, 11:18:25 AM »

Unfortunately, this picture does not represent how they explain/understand perspective. Let's assume the right person is at the horizon, then they would draw the "perspective lines" just the other way round. The horizon would have risen to eye level so that the person on the right appears just as a point at the horizon. From that point one line would go straight into the eye of the person on the left, the other line to his feet. The angle between this two lines is the fixed angle of less than 1°.

For them your sketch is nothing more than an untested assumption, a kind of extrapolation of the situation if both people would be much closer together. No proof or illustration of reality. 

Now you can say, light travels in straight lines and this kind of perspective would need kind of light bending. Yes, that is true and there is no indication, no experiment that would give rise to this assumption. But of course no one can exclude (at least on the level the discussion is held here), that physics works in a way, that it only appears to be working in the same way on short and long distances. Of course, it's getting a bit hard to exclude this for distances of a few hundred miles if you accept that people could go to the moon, but if you also neglect this, it's getting difficult to argue.

It is a very different way on the interpretation of experiments and their range of validity. For a physicist an explanation is valid as long as it is based on some experiment and no observation is in contradiction to it. For them something is only valid, if there is an explicit proof. And this proof has to be as direct as possible. In principle it has to be done only using your senses, that's the strongest proof. Therefor, a sentence like "I looked out of the window and I observed that the earth is flat" has a much higher value than any sophisticated experiment.   

116

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Neutrinos

« on: May 23, 2018, 07:54:25 AM »

Thanks for your input regarding the experiments with neutrino sources. It's very interesting. Unfortunately, flat earth believers only engaging with the usual low level of understanding responses.

I really like this neutrino experiments, they are quite straight forward. And neutrinos are much better probe, cause they're not effected by magnetic fields or refraction. And the low scattering cross section is also helpful. 

And beyond the question how could the cosmic neutrinos travel through the earth, so that they can approach the surface straight from below, one could extend this to questions like, how could a tiny sun be responsible for the observed flux of sun neutrinos, how could there be any cosmic neutrinos at all, if all stars are just little lights at the sky, and all the other sources of neutrinos are non-existent or of completely different nature and size.

And one could continue with all the other radiation and particles approaching the earth. How does a flat earth believer explains a cosmic microwave radiation background of 2.7 K, and so on, and so.       

117

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Horizon is Always at Eye Level

« on: May 18, 2018, 04:15:09 PM »

Yes you are correct, Alcohol will float on top of water. But to do so needs carefully pouring on top of the water, and to avoid stirring or mixing.

Vodka is not pure alchol, it is already diluted to about 40% with water, so is already in suspension. Mixing of any kind will keep the alcohol in suspension.

https://www.solubilityofthings.com/water/alcohols

Vodka is soluble with water, and will not “settle out” nice try tom, but clutching at straws i am afraid!

I would take something like ethanol or isopropanol. Should not be too expansive.

I'm not even sure the alcohol is doing what I wanted it to, which was improve the wetting angle for less ambiguous sighting of water levels. I was just trying different things: windex, water with a little dish soap, hydrogen pyroxide, isopropyl alcohol, water/antifreeze...whatever I could think of that I had at the house. Settled on the vodka (now, I'm not sure if it wasn't Bacardi's rum and not vodka. Yeah, it was rum now that I think about it. I emptied what was left of 2 bottles and mixed it with distilled water. I don't think I ever got around to trying the vodka once the rum seemed to work okay.)

But I do want to try the Rain-x. I just don't have any, and I'm loathe to buy things for this project. I like spending time on this because it's fun and you never know what you might learn; but I'm not so concerned with the flat/globe debate that I need to spend any money on it.

The height of the meniscus is a function of the relative surface tension of the different interfaces involved. Water has relatively high surface tension, the different alcohols ( I mean in the chemical sense, not brands ;-) )  a much lower one, therefor less pronounced meniscus. Liquid helium would be the best. Maybe I should give it a try...

118

Flat Earth Theory / Re: True Horizon Level

« on: May 18, 2018, 01:10:08 PM »

Perfectly right. You can only create a horizon on a flat earth following the law of perspective described in EnaG... And why do you have to follow this law? Because the earth is flat and we see a horizon.

119

Flat Earth Theory / Re: You should be able to see the moon more often

« on: May 18, 2018, 01:04:25 PM »

It's not very strange, because if you would try, you would realize that it will not work...

120

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Horizon is Always at Eye Level

« on: May 18, 2018, 12:57:01 PM »

In the real world yes, but they decided to play their game and doing some experiments to present them here, so they have to play along their lines...