Yes, actually you can 'prove' it.  It just depends on what YOU would consider as proof.  For some you actually have to directly see something with your own eyes to believe it.  That procedure is fraught with difficulties.  There are plenty of YouTube videos that can explain curvature, if you choose to believe it.  Many will say those video must be fake.  Sometimes you can't even believe what you actually see with your own eyes.  Think that's wrong? Just visit a good magician and he will 'school' you.  Personally, I believe in math and science.  Theories were developed and then tested.  Is everything perfect?  No.  The theory that has actually worked for me in my everyday working life has been that the earth is an oblate spheroid.  If I had a land job and drove to work everyday and never had any other view except the land locked one, I could believe in a flat earth view myself.  Really, it wouldn't matter much anyway.  However, these days, much of the everyday goods you consume are produced in Asia.  That can be good or bad, but that's another subject.  Those goods largely arrive in the USA via container ship.  These ships are just glorified trucks that travel on the earth's oceans.  Soon these will probably be autonomous and won't have a human crew aboard.  At the present time there are human crews aboard.  The whole system is set up with the globe earth as the underlying principles.  Many of us spend 4 or 5 years at a merchant marine academy to learn the science behind getting from point A to point B on the globe.  Each and every thing is based upon the globe earth paradigm.  After we graduate we go to work on a ship and turn all that theory into practice.  It all seems to work.  That's why I believe.  Do I really need further proof?  No.    What kind of proof do YOU need?

Please allow me to rephrase my statement.

No one can mathematically prove any landmass has the surface curvature as dictated by a 3959 mile radius. If they could or have, it would have been posted by now.

The curvature of a ball earth does not add up or match our existing landmasses.
Measure the angle of the sun.  Sorted.

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Offline RonJ

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Mathematically it's a straightforward path to show that the earth has curvature over a landmass.  It would be easy if you understood the works of Nathaniel Bowditch and had a Sextant, accurate clock and a nautical almanac.  You can use a sextant inland.  I've personally done it in the Midwest where I live when I'm not at sea.  There is a YouTube video that shows the procedure.  When using this procedure you have to convince yourself that the only way it will work is by using spherical trigonometry on a globe earth.  Would it theoretically work on a flat earth?  Maybe, but I don't know of ANY accurate charts or ANY nautical almanacs that were made using the flat earth paradigm.  It really wouldn't be necessary because the existing procedures work and have for 100's of years.  Will you directly measure the curvature of the earth?  No, you won't.  The curvature of the earth is only a byproduct of the mathematical calculations you make.  If you changed the known radius of the earth then you wouldn't get an accurate answer.  The bottom line is this; you use the radius of the curvature of the earth and some spherical trigonometry to arrive at your position.  If you do that at a known position and you get that same position back after making your measurements and calculations using spherical trigonometry and the known radius figure of the earth, you have just proved that the radius is what you expected it to be.  If you don't believe that, just try another radius figure and see what happens.  You are looking at a curvature of only 8 inches in a mile.  It's really hard to directly observe.  I was out driving this afternoon and the earth really didn't look flat or round.  The highway just went up & down by 100s of feet over 4 or 5 miles.  There is no way I could tell whether the earth was flat or round.  If you believe in science and math you can do the experiments and convince yourself.  The hardest thing I had to do, years ago, was to figure out how the sextant can actually measure your position on the earth.  There is a theory and method to that madness that was worked up by Bowditch and those methods are still used today.  There is a couple hour YouTube video on celestial navigation that that I wish I had when I was starting.  I use H.H. Dutton's text book and taught myself, tried it on a sailboat, and it works.  I didn't get lost.
You can lead flat earthers to the curve but you can't make them think!

Earthman



Please allow me to rephrase my statement.

No one can mathematically prove any landmass has the surface curvature as dictated by a 3959 mile radius. If they could or have, it would have been posted by now.

The curvature of a ball earth does not add up or match our existing landmasses.
Measure the angle of the sun.  Sorted.
You are sure welcome to start another topic with that issue. However, what ever results you come up with will not prove Earth's land masses have the curvature as dictated by a Earth with a 3959 mile radius nor will is add any.   

Both elevation and curvature or lack thereof can be established and or verified in the same manner with two reverence points of “Sea Level”.  The fact that central Australia’s highest point is less than 1300’ proves it does not have the curvature RE claim for a Earth with a 3959 mile radius.  Simple math and established landmass elevations and a RE curvature chart prove the shape of our Earth is not what we all have been taught.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2018, 01:57:39 AM by Earthman »

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Offline stack

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Please allow me to rephrase my statement.

No one can mathematically prove any landmass has the surface curvature as dictated by a 3959 mile radius. If they could or have, it would have been posted by now.

The curvature of a ball earth does not add up or match our existing landmasses.
Measure the angle of the sun.  Sorted.

You sure welcome to start another topic with that issue. However, what ever results you come up with will not prove Earth's land masses have the curvature as dictated by a Earth with a 3959 mile radius nor will is add any.   

Both elevation and curvature or lack thereof can be established and or verified in the same manner with two reverence points of “Sea Level”.  The fact that central Australia’s highest point is less than 1300’ proves it does not have the curvature RE claim for a Earth with a 3959 mile radius.  Simple math and established elevation and a RE curvature chart prove the shape of or Earth is not what we all have been taught.

Seems like you keep mixing FET with RET. But in both cases the highest point in Australia between the coasts is 1300 feet above sea level.  It's almost like you think, as I think RonJ mentioned, that RET puts a curved dome over landmasses. I honestly don't understand what you keep going on about.

Earthman



Please allow me to rephrase my statement.

No one can mathematically prove any landmass has the surface curvature as dictated by a 3959 mile radius. If they could or have, it would have been posted by now.

The curvature of a ball earth does not add up or match our existing landmasses.
Measure the angle of the sun.  Sorted.

You sure welcome to start another topic with that issue. However, what ever results you come up with will not prove Earth's land masses have the curvature as dictated by a Earth with a 3959 mile radius nor will is add any.   

Both elevation and curvature or lack thereof can be established and or verified in the same manner with two reverence points of “Sea Level”.  The fact that central Australia’s highest point is less than 1300’ proves it does not have the curvature RE claim for a Earth with a 3959 mile radius.  Simple math and established elevation and a RE curvature chart prove the shape of or Earth is not what we all have been taught.

Seems like you keep mixing FET with RET. But in both cases the highest point in Australia between the coasts is 1300 feet above sea level.  It's almost like you think, as I think RonJ mentioned, that RET puts a curved dome over landmasses. I honestly don't understand what you keep going on about.

It's simple. Australia does not have 191 miles of curvature as dictated. It's not part of a globe earth. If it was, it would measure 191 miles high at center. The center would be 191 miles above the east and west coast waters. It has less that 1300' of curvature so to speak.   You're globe earth theory with curvature charts put a curved 191 mile high dome over it. Not us.

Have a nice evening,
« Last Edit: November 12, 2018, 02:11:38 AM by Earthman »

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Offline RonJ

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Maybe if you thought of the earth like this; start with a perfectly smooth round sphere with a radius of something like 3957 miles.  Now on top of that sphere add the land masses and oceans. Everything sticks because every little bit is pulled toward the center of the sphere by gravity.  Now you have all your land masses and oceans.  You could see if you were on a road somewhere in the middle of a landmass you really couldn't tell that there was any curvature at all.  You would always be standing vertical no matter where you were on the land, in any part of the earth.  Now consider a perfectly round cactus with a bunch of long spines sticking out.  Are all the spines parallel?  No, but each individual spine could be perfectly vertical relative to the surrounding surface of the round cactus.  Spines on the opposite sides would actually point in a completely different direction.  Now, if you took a couple of 1000 foot towers that were separated by 10 miles, you could measure a difference in the distance between the top of the tower and the bottom.  That's because, just like a cactus, the towers wouldn't be exactly parallel.  Wouldn't this prove that there is curvature in the earth?  Would there be much difference in the top VS bottom distances?  Very careful measurements like this have been made in certain structures because the curvature of the earth was important and had to be factored in.     
You can lead flat earthers to the curve but you can't make them think!

Earthman

Maybe if you thought of the earth like this; start with a perfectly smooth round sphere with a radius of something like 3957 miles.  Now on top of that sphere add the land masses and oceans. Everything sticks because every little bit is pulled toward the center of the sphere by gravity.  Now you have all your land masses and oceans. 

Then the landmasses on that kind of earth will be nothing but Plateaus sticking out of the water. How high these plateaus would stick out of the water all depends on the width and length and shape of the landmass. No horizontal landmass adjoining the coastline will exist because its below the dictated curve of a sphere. I will get into this issue another day.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2018, 02:51:41 AM by Earthman »

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Offline RonJ

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Yes, you are starting to get closer.  The landmasses essentially ARE just plateaus sticking out of the water.  A lot of islands, Hawaii, for instance are essentially just the tops of mountains that extend far below the sea. Mauna Kea is actually taller than Mt Everest, but it doesn't count because some of Mauna Kea is below the water.  Guam is another example.  It is a bit mountainous but is adjacent to the lowest point in the ocean, the Marianas Trench thats about 7 miles deep.  You have to understand that about 71% of the earth is covered in water.  Most people don't really appreciate this fact because their only view of the sea is an occasional trip to the beach or maybe a trip on a cruise ship for a week.  I can tell you from personal experience that the trip distances at sea are long.  When we left Yokohama, Japan for the Panama Canal it usually took us about 20 to 21 days to get there.  That's running about 500 miles/day.  A ship is slower than a truck but it doesn't have to stop.  It runs 24 hours a day for as long as it takes to get there.  We could hold about 25000 miles worth of fuel in our tanks.  That's one complete circle around the earth.  It has also been claimed that less than 10% of the bottom of the sea has been explored.  That's because the area is so vast and hard to get to.  I worked on research ships for about 5 years and there's some huge mountains and deep valleys, all underwater, that are largely unseen by most humans.  I didn't make or design the earth.  All I'm trying to do is describe what I've personally witnessed and learned about while going to the merchant marine academy and witnessing much of what the scientist saw on the research ships.  If you actually saw some of the underwater topographic maps you would probably be surprised. This doesn't really prove or disprove the globe earth, but a lot of the things I've personally witnessed do.
You can lead flat earthers to the curve but you can't make them think!

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Offline stack

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It's simple. Australia does not have 191 miles of curvature as dictated. It's not part of a globe earth. If it was, it would measure 191 miles high at center. The center would be 191 miles above the east and west coast waters. It has less that 1300' of curvature so to speak.   You're globe earth theory with curvature charts put a curved 191 mile high dome over it. Not us.

Have a nice evening,

Just to satisfy my own curiosity and to try and understand what you think RET suggests. Is the following image representative of what you think the result is from globe earth curvature charts? (Obviously not to scale)




Please allow me to rephrase my statement.

No one can mathematically prove any landmass has the surface curvature as dictated by a 3959 mile radius. If they could or have, it would have been posted by now.

The curvature of a ball earth does not add up or match our existing landmasses.
Measure the angle of the sun.  Sorted.
You are sure welcome to start another topic with that issue. However, what ever results you come up with will not prove Earth's land masses have the curvature as dictated by a Earth with a 3959 mile radius nor will is add any.   

Both elevation and curvature or lack thereof can be established and or verified in the same manner with two reverence points of “Sea Level”.  The fact that central Australia’s highest point is less than 1300’ proves it does not have the curvature RE claim for a Earth with a 3959 mile radius.  Simple math and established landmass elevations and a RE curvature chart prove the shape of our Earth is not what we all have been taught.
It is not an issue, simple maths using the sun as a fixed point will show the size and shape of the earth.  Do you really think you have found that we have been incorrectly measuring distances?

Offline edby

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[…]
Many of us spend 4 or 5 years at a merchant marine academy to learn the science behind getting from point A to point B on the globe.  Each and every thing is based upon the globe earth paradigm.  After we graduate we go to work on a ship and turn all that theory into practice.  It all seems to work.  That's why I believe.  Do I really need further proof?  No.    What kind of proof do YOU need?
Good point. The question is not, do you believe in GE or FE, but rather, who would you choose to design aviation and navigation systems, given your personal safety might depend on whether it is correct (= works).

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Offline RonJ

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I dug out my 'Handbook of Mathematics' and it does have a nice section on spherical trigonometry in it.  The bottom line is that it gives you all the relationships of distances between points on a sphere.  It absolutely works on the earth each and every time it's tried.  Yes, you need a few modifications when the equations are applied to the earth because the earth is not a perfect sphere, but the differences are small.  Of course there is a 'price of entry' for understanding all this, but if you are willing to 'pay the price' the proof that the earth is a sphere is at your disposal. What is really crazy is that all the knowledge described in my handbook goes back 100s of years.  I started to mess with a sextant and celestial navigation years before I started working as a professional seaman.  At that time I owned a bit of farm ground on a gravel road in Midwestern USA.  The property came with a deed and abstract. That paperwork described in detail the survey of the property complete with the latitude and longitude of the points that defined my property lines.  Since I was 'up to speed' on all that kind of stuff I decided to verify all the survey points of my property outlined in the abstract.  I fully expected it to be just an exercise to verify my understanding of all the principles I had learned.  To my surprise I did find an error of about 50 feet in one of the lines.  I took those concerns to my attorney who dismissed all my efforts 'out of hand' but said he would look into it.  A couple of months later he came back and stated that I was correct in my calculations and had my abstract updated.  That's been more than 25 years ago and that same attorney still is 'giving my a bunch of crap' about that episode costing him a couple hundred bucks.  As a practical thing the lot lines would have been the same if the earth were flat or round, because those small differences won't matter.  At larger distances the differences starts to add up.  If the airlines or shipping companies were not using the right methods things would get ugly.  If today's engineers who are designing certain things don't take the curvature of the earth into account they would probably be fired.     
You can lead flat earthers to the curve but you can't make them think!

Earthman

This should be clear enough for anyone to understand. Accepting it is what's hard.


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Offline stack

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This should be clear enough for anyone to understand. Accepting it is what's hard.



Clear in the sense that I think I understand what you think. And clear in the sense that I understand that you don't understand globe earth theory. Do a little poking around on the subjects of geodesy and NAVD88.

Earthman

This should be clear enough for anyone to understand. Accepting it is what's hard.



Clear in the sense that I think I understand what you think. And clear in the sense that I understand that you don't understand globe earth theory. Do a little poking around on the subjects of geodesy and NAVD88.


Thanks for the tip.  Take a look at the meaning of level, sea level and see how topographical maps are made and ask yourself why doesn't Earth's landmass have any curvature. 
« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 03:17:54 AM by Earthman »

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Offline RonJ

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The top diagram that has a nice curve between A and B may illustrate something interesting.  Consider if the earth between A and B were polished very smooth and was a perfect sphere.  What would you expect to happen to a bunch of water if you let it go in the center of the bulge?  Would it flow downhill to A or B?  No.  What's the real technical definition of downhill?  It always towards the center of gravity.  The center of gravity at the center between point A and point B would be towards the center of the earth.  Therefore the water wouldn't head for A or B but would tend to just spread out towards the middle.  In fact if you dug a canal that was at Sea Level at both ends (A and B) and rose up the bulge 191 miles, you wouldn't expect any water to flow at all even if the gates of the canal were open at A and B.  Why?  Because the water everywhere between A and B would be at an equal distance to the center of the earth and would experience an equal pull of gravity everywhere.  What makes water flow is the difference in gravity between one point and another.  Now if you go to the bottom diagram and dug the same canal and opened up the gates, I would expect the sea at A and B to flow in, overflow the canal and mostly fill in the bulge up to the 191 miles.  That probably wouldn't happen in actual practice because the sea level would fall a lot at A and B due to the amount of water needed, but at the end you would expect that the water levels would equalize until the top of the water was at an equal distance to the enter of the earth everywhere on the oceans and between A and B.  So you would then have maybe 191 miles of ocean water at the center, except there wouldn't be enough water in the oceans, so it would be some lower. 
You can lead flat earthers to the curve but you can't make them think!

This should be clear enough for anyone to understand. Accepting it is what's hard.

Linked for brevity

Clear in the sense that I think I understand what you think. And clear in the sense that I understand that you don't understand globe earth theory. Do a little poking around on the subjects of geodesy and NAVD88.


Thanks for the tip.  Take a look at the meaning of level, sea level and see how topographical maps are made and ask yourself why doesn't Earth's landmass have any curvature.
Level: Many definitions, but in 'sea level' it is probably being used as either a noun (a position on a real or imaginary scale of amount, quantity, extent, or quality) or an adjective (at the same height as someone or something else)
Sea level: the level of the sea's surface, used in reckoning the height of geographical features such as hills and as a barometric standard
Topographical maps are made in relation to sea level. On a globe, sea level could alternatively be described as (roughly) a specified distance from the center of the globe. You're attacking a strawman. Sea level on the globe Earth is not a plane, it is a sphere.

On a globe, the blue line indicates sea level. (Rough diagram, I know it's part of an oval, but work with me here.) The two black lines indicate the shores of Australia. The orange line is the 191 mile 'bulge' between Australia's shores. The green line is the highest point on Australia, which is the brown line. Obviously this isn't to scale, but intended to assist. Topographical height is determined by sea level. Sea level is (roughly) a sphere of radius r around the core of the Earth. This is the location height is measured against. Not against the chord/plane represented by the grey line. That would be fairly useless.



You're basing your point on a strawman. Perhaps a misunderstanding on your part, but a strawman nonetheless.

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Offline stack

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This should be clear enough for anyone to understand. Accepting it is what's hard.

Clear in the sense that I think I understand what you think. And clear in the sense that I understand that you don't understand globe earth theory. Do a little poking around on the subjects of geodesy and NAVD88.


Thanks for the tip.  Take a look at the meaning of level, sea level and see how topographical maps are made and ask yourself why doesn't Earth's landmass have any curvature.

Here's a quick primer on how modern topo maps are made as well as how other survey maps/charts are created: Globe earth centric.



Bonus material. What's the highest mountain on earth? It's complicated:


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Offline RonJ

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Yes, the basic distance to the earth's center is based upon sea level.  Well it's actually Mean Sea Level, because sea level itself has minor variations due to tides, winds, storms, or sometimes earth quakes.  You usually see the height of something quoted in MSL (mean sea level).  Airplanes fly above the earth in height above MSL as well.  When we came into port and went under a bridge you can bet that we knew exactly what the height of the tides were.  Otherwise the ship might hit the bottom of the bridge if our calculations were wrong.  Usually there were calibration marks on the bridge support structures to give us an 'up to the second' report on the local sea level at that time.  We could then look at the water marks on the hull of the ship to know how far the ship was immersed in water (its draft) and then knowing that could calculate how far the top (highest point) of the ship was above water (the air draft).  All of this stuff was nice to know before going under a bridge.  There have been rare occasions when the local MSL was just too high because of heavy rains upstream on a river and our air draft was just a bit too high to fit under a bridge.  We just had to anchor out until things settled down before going the short distance up river into the port. 
You can lead flat earthers to the curve but you can't make them think!

Globe believers have an established curvature chart for an Earth with a 3959 Mile radius.  It dictates how much curvature there should be over land and water.
Are there any Globe believers here who can calculate how much curvature should be over Australia using their own charts?  And can they also prove Australia does in fact have the curvature as dictated by comparing it to the actual surface shape, and show us how they came to that conclusion?

Applying the Earth curvature Chart to our Earth’s landmass is a simple and easy way to prove right here and now if Earth is indeed a ball.  The debate would be over.

Can they do it?  Let see.


Australia is roughly 2400 miles in width.  Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay Western Australia to Sunshine Coast, Australia is 2406 miles. See picture below.

How much curvature should Australia have? How much does it really have? How did you come to this conclusion? Please include all methods.

We will be waiting…

Thanks in advance,
The shape and size of the earth is proven, no belief is required.  By asking here you are just 'testing' people who visit this site rather than anything useful.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 04:00:46 PM by inquisitive »