Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #20 on: August 16, 2014, 01:38:15 AM »
Once again, Gulliver, I am indebted to you for providing this excellent video.  To my amusement I continue to be surprised by the frequency with which two people can receive exactly the same data and draw completely different conclusions.

I took several screens shots of this video and found that the horizon is in the middle of the photo and that we do not observe a declination of 5-6o as we would expect if the earth was an oblate spheroid (that model hereafter called the OSM).  When the camera is pointed up the horizon curves as expected by OSM, when the camera points down the horizon curves the opposite way, and quite regularly we obtain frames of a flat horizon.  We know that all camera lenses are compound spherical shapes and without making any confirming checks, I expect the Go Pro to share this characteristic.  Without the optical mathematics to map pixels correctly, and without any knowledge of the plane which the camera is on, our ability to make judgements about the true shape of the earth from these images is ambiguous at best.  For me, the lack of declination in many of the shots gives me sufficient encouragement to return to my original post i.e. lets perform the weather balloon experiment with camera equipped surveying equipment suitably mounted to establish the declination of the horizon.  We also need to establish the height of the equipment, presumably using GPS.

With regard to Rama Set's comments, I am fully aware of the multiplicity of Geoid models, including the confusion as to whether they are gravimetric, sea level based, magnetic etc etc ad nauseum.  The unambiguous point that I am making is that the are NO REAL WORLD applications of these models to any large scale mining or civil engineering projects such as mines, tunnels, railroads or bridges to compensate for the substantial differences of several metres in RL over the distances involved in these projects.  Moreover, even the British Ordnance Survey continues to use the Geoid established in the 1800's rather than any later geoids because it is more accurate by a significant amount (without checking up to 80cm by memory) than the accepted international Geoid for Great Britain.  My further understanding is that the application of corrections to standard civil surveys to account for the earths curvature is against the law in the UK, as discussed in Samual Rowbothams book.

Offline Gulliver

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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #21 on: August 16, 2014, 07:28:18 PM »
I took several screens shots of this video and found that the horizon is in the middle of the photo and that we do not observe a declination of 5-6o as we would expect if the earth was an oblate spheroid (that model hereafter called the OSM).  When the camera is pointed up the horizon curves as expected by OSM, when the camera points down the horizon curves the opposite way, and quite regularly we obtain frames of a flat horizon.  We know that all camera lenses are compound spherical shapes and without making any confirming checks, I expect the Go Pro to share this characteristic.  Without the optical mathematics to map pixels correctly, and without any knowledge of the plane which the camera is on, our ability to make judgements about the true shape of the earth from these images is ambiguous at best.  For me, the lack of declination in many of the shots gives me sufficient encouragement to return to my original post i.e. lets perform the weather balloon experiment with camera equipped surveying equipment suitably mounted to establish the declination of the horizon.  We also need to establish the height of the equipment, presumably using GPS.

Please show your work and I'll be glad to assist, in particular, examples showing your claim "when the camera points down the horizon curves the opposite way"
Don't rely on FEers for history or physics.
[Hampton] never did [go to prison] and was never found guilty of libel.
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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #22 on: August 17, 2014, 12:10:38 AM »
camera pointed up, earth curved up... hmmm about the logical spoonerism

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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #23 on: August 17, 2014, 12:19:45 AM »
camera pointed up, earth curved up... hmmm about the logical spoonerism
Where do you see "earth curved up". Surely you don't think clouds are "earth", do you?
Don't rely on FEers for history or physics.
[Hampton] never did [go to prison] and was never found guilty of libel.
The ISS doesn't accelerate.

Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #24 on: August 17, 2014, 12:44:10 AM »
these clouds are conforming aren't they?  the horizon is still the horizon.   Once again, the unambiguous point is that the weather balloon experiment requires properly designed surveying instrumentation.    It is a little scary knowing that the answer awaits us for so little effort... but egg sighting as well.  Join me Gulliver, you have as much interest as me in resolving this matter.  Assist me to get this experiment done and the results distributed.

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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #25 on: August 17, 2014, 02:38:42 AM »
these clouds are conforming aren't they?  the horizon is still the horizon.   Once again, the unambiguous point is that the weather balloon experiment requires properly designed surveying instrumentation.    It is a little scary knowing that the answer awaits us for so little effort... but egg sighting as well.  Join me Gulliver, you have as much interest as me in resolving this matter.  Assist me to get this experiment done and the results distributed.
Oh dear, how sad. No, the horizon is not the astronomical horizon. No, I don't need to perform an experiment, but feel free to design and run one yourself. All the best.
Don't rely on FEers for history or physics.
[Hampton] never did [go to prison] and was never found guilty of libel.
The ISS doesn't accelerate.

Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #26 on: August 17, 2014, 04:33:01 AM »
Gulliver, you are pretending to have some superior knowledge to belittle me?  Then let the reader of this repartee make their own decisions.  What is unambiguously clear is that at an altitude of 100,000' the declination to the horizon has to be more than 5 degrees to be consistent with the OSM of the earth.  If the earth is flat, the declination will be very close to nil.  Good luck with baffling the other readers with your superiority.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #27 on: August 17, 2014, 03:35:41 PM »
Gulliver, you are pretending to have some superior knowledge to belittle me?
That's his general modus operandi, yes.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #28 on: August 17, 2014, 04:03:17 PM »
Gulliver, you are pretending to have some superior knowledge to belittle me?  Then let the reader of this repartee make their own decisions.  What is unambiguously clear is that at an altitude of 100,000' the declination to the horizon has to be more than 5 degrees to be consistent with the OSM of the earth.  If the earth is flat, the declination will be very close to nil.  Good luck with baffling the other readers with your superiority.
I made no such claim.
Don't rely on FEers for history or physics.
[Hampton] never did [go to prison] and was never found guilty of libel.
The ISS doesn't accelerate.

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Offline Rushy

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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #29 on: August 25, 2014, 03:22:39 AM »
It is a lot easier to measure the non-curvature of water than the horizon. On a sphere or sphere-like object, nearly everything is curved (straight lines do not exist on a perfect sphere). Thus if the Earth were round water over X distance would be curved (it isn't).

As an additional fun fact, it is hypothesized that ancient Egyptians utilized water's complete and utter flatness to aid in building the pyramids. They filled sections of rock with water and used the water level as a guide for the foundation of the main structure.

Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #30 on: August 25, 2014, 07:44:36 AM »
It is a lot easier to measure the non-curvature of water than the horizon. On a sphere or sphere-like object, nearly everything is curved (straight lines do not exist on a perfect sphere). Thus if the Earth were round water over X distance would be curved (it isn't).

As an additional fun fact, it is hypothesized that ancient Egyptians utilized water's complete and utter flatness to aid in building the pyramids. They filled sections of rock with water and used the water level as a guide for the foundation of the main structure.

Hi Irushwithscvs, glad to see you chipped in on this topic.  I have made several observations of non curvature at Port Philip Bay in Victoria, Australia... more or less the same experiment as the Bedford Canal experiment with the same outcome.  Nonetheless,  the principle of the experiment proposed in this thread is to obviate the need to make allowance for lenses etc and look strictly for the declination of the horizon using appropriate surveying equipment from a horizontal datum at approximately 100,000'.  If the earth conforms to OSM, we expect the declination of the horizon to be close to six degrees.. no ifs or buts. 

I would be grateful if you would put up a comment in support of this proposal and help keep this thread maintained on this very narrowly focused aspect of unambiguous proof of FEM or OSM.

Offline b0gdan

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Re: An Easy Horizon Experiment to Prove the World is Flat or Oblate Spheroid
« Reply #31 on: February 23, 2015, 08:25:41 PM »
Hi Guys,
I'm new here. I'll be honest with you, I do not believe that the earth is a disc in space. I have read about a kid that strapped a camera to a weather balloon and took pictures from the "edge" of space. It really doesn't seem that difficult. Also the required equipment is not that expensive, in fact some might argue that using a high end camera might have a wide angle lens that would distort the flatness of the earth and so on. I've seen weather balloons with parachuttes that climb to over 25km for under $150. You would need a camera to take a picture every minute or so, and also you will need very good thermoinsulation and something warm like handwarmers because at that altitude the temperature is quite low and the equipment could be dammaged.

I really don't understand why you wouldn't do that, are you affraid you will clearly see that the earth is round? From that altitude you'll get a glimpse of the curvature, you won't see spectacullar round earth views but it would be something. If you're right then... you will have more proof for your studies :)