totallackey

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #100 on: January 13, 2018, 01:02:33 PM »
How would your math translate to this picture?


Hope you don't mind, I replaced your original link with a higher resolution version of the same image.
Not at all.

I very much appreciate it!
So... I have the answer to this question, but before I invest another second into attempting to educate you, lackey, I want to know that you're actually listening. Are you ready for this, or do you want to keep flinging shit around, hoping it sticks?
I do not think our little tet' a' tet' would or could be characterized as "me,""... not listening."
I'll get to your other question regarding the motions of the stars soon enough, but this question came first. It was an interesting trek through the internet for me to find the answer, but I'm back and ready to share with you what I've learned.
Thanks!

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #101 on: January 15, 2018, 01:32:58 AM »
Whoever made that picture lacks some pretty basic mathematics...

That's a rather complicated formula for measuring a rather irrelevant "drop"; we usually define drop by the "down" direction, which points toward the center of the circle, not some arbitrary one that's been picked.

There's no trigonometry required, and the fact that whoever made that picture doesn't understand that makes me question his/her/their credentials. The equation in Quadrant I of a circular curve is y=sqrt(r^2-x^2). So I don't see why it takes all that complicated numerical computation to figure this out. The equation for the "drop" (not really a drop, and I don't see how this figure would be relevant to occluded buildings) is simply 3959 - sqrt(3959^2 - d^2). The fact that the creator(s) of the image uses complicated trigonometry to find out exactly the same thing I've found should say something about his/her/their experience with mathematics.

As for the straight lines thing: yes this is true, you cannot draw straight lines on the surface of a sphere (pretty obvious, eh?); but if the sphere gets large enough, you can get something rather close.

totallackey

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #102 on: January 15, 2018, 03:26:18 PM »
Whoever made that picture lacks some pretty basic mathematics...
So, please detail what is wrong with the accompanying chart...

That's a rather complicated formula for measuring a rather irrelevant "drop"; we usually define drop by the "down" direction, which points toward the center of the circle, not some arbitrary one that's been picked.
State your problem with the chart, please.
There's no trigonometry required, and the fact that whoever made that picture doesn't understand that makes me question his/her/their credentials. The equation in Quadrant I of a circular curve is y=sqrt(r^2-x^2). So I don't see why it takes all that complicated numerical computation to figure this out. The equation for the "drop" (not really a drop, and I don't see how this figure would be relevant to occluded buildings) is simply 3959 - sqrt(3959^2 - d^2). The fact that the creator(s) of the image uses complicated trigonometry to find out exactly the same thing I've found should say something about his/her/their experience with mathematics.
So, there is no problem with the chart or the graphical representation of the fictitious ball earth...
As for the straight lines thing: yes this is true, you cannot draw straight lines on the surface of a sphere (pretty obvious, eh?); but if the sphere gets large enough, you can get something rather close.
Okay, all of this writing to essentially agree with whole graphic I presented...

So, tell us Mr. "I bandy Dunning Kruger because I find it a fashionable meme," what exactly is the name of the effect for making long drawn out contributions such as the one you did here?

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Offline supaluminus

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #103 on: January 15, 2018, 06:40:42 PM »
charts n’graphics n’trig n’shit

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you yet.

The short answer is, they didn’t convert to radians.

The long answer involves a swan dive down the rabbit-hole and tells us some history about how the degree came to exist as a unit of measurement for angles, and why it isn’t an accurate unit of measurement for scales of this size. We goin' on a field trip to Babylon, dawg.

What I wanted to do is to provide some visual aids and a recording to walk you through them, because this shit is really obscure, easy to miss, and a little confusing at first. I didn’t know anything about what I found in the process of investigating this chart, so please don’t take this as condescension - it was hard for me to wrap my own head around at first.

Anyway, I’m at work right now, but I can get this done tonight when I get home. Then we can discard this chart for being... completely irrelevant, and finally move on to our conversation about the movements of the stars n’galaxies n’shit.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 07:11:56 PM by supaluminus »
When an honest man discovers that he is mistaken, either he will cease being mistaken...

... or he will cease being honest.

 - a loyal slave to reason and doubt

totallackey

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #104 on: January 15, 2018, 08:19:33 PM »
charts n’graphics n’trig n’shit

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you yet.

The short answer is, they didn’t convert to radians.

The long answer involves a swan dive down the rabbit-hole and tells us some history about how the degree came to exist as a unit of measurement for angles, and why it isn’t an accurate unit of measurement for scales of this size. We goin' on a field trip to Babylon, dawg.

What I wanted to do is to provide some visual aids and a recording to walk you through them, because this shit is really obscure, easy to miss, and a little confusing at first. I didn’t know anything about what I found in the process of investigating this chart, so please don’t take this as condescension - it was hard for me to wrap my own head around at first.

Anyway, I’m at work right now, but I can get this done tonight when I get home. Then we can discard this chart for being... completely irrelevant, and finally move on to our conversation about the movements of the stars n’galaxies n’shit.
Thank you.

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Offline supaluminus

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #105 on: January 16, 2018, 01:39:40 AM »
charts n’graphics n’trig n’shit

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you yet.

The short answer is, they didn’t convert to radians.

The long answer involves a swan dive down the rabbit-hole and tells us some history about how the degree came to exist as a unit of measurement for angles, and why it isn’t an accurate unit of measurement for scales of this size. We goin' on a field trip to Babylon, dawg.

What I wanted to do is to provide some visual aids and a recording to walk you through them, because this shit is really obscure, easy to miss, and a little confusing at first. I didn’t know anything about what I found in the process of investigating this chart, so please don’t take this as condescension - it was hard for me to wrap my own head around at first.

Anyway, I’m at work right now, but I can get this done tonight when I get home. Then we can discard this chart for being... completely irrelevant, and finally move on to our conversation about the movements of the stars n’galaxies n’shit.
Thank you.

So, while I was going through some of the terms we're gonna need to go over, I realized we're gonna need to go over "cosine," "arcsin," and a few other things that are gonna take me some time. I'm gonna try to get it done tonight but I'm heading out to hang with friends, so it might not be until late. Bear with me, tiger.
When an honest man discovers that he is mistaken, either he will cease being mistaken...

... or he will cease being honest.

 - a loyal slave to reason and doubt

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #106 on: January 16, 2018, 02:25:22 AM »
What's supposed to be the problem with that picture? It's got two ways to calculate the same number - why is that a problem?

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Offline supaluminus

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #107 on: January 16, 2018, 02:35:25 AM »
What's supposed to be the problem with that picture? It's got two ways to calculate the same number - why is that a problem?

It grows exponentially inaccurate with distance due to the way it measures the angle (θ) between a given two radii. They forgot to convert degrees to radians.

Understanding what that means took me like 30-45 minutes of research, so if you don't understand it, just gimme time to put everything together.
When an honest man discovers that he is mistaken, either he will cease being mistaken...

... or he will cease being honest.

 - a loyal slave to reason and doubt

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #108 on: January 17, 2018, 04:43:20 AM »
The biggest problem with that picture is it measures a useless quantity. Towers and tall buildings stand normal to the surface, but clearly Flat Earth people cannot understand this. I don't understand what you hope to prove with that picture; the numbers are actually fairly accurate if you use the formula I gave (3959 - sqrt(3959^2 - distance^2)) as a comparison.

What I'm saying is that whoever made the chart is not wrong mathematically; however, this person is clearly a dilettante in mathematics if he has to use two different methods to take care of the various numerical issues calculating trig functions if there's such an easy derivation of the formula (that's mathematically the same).

I seriously don't know what you're trying to prove with the picture; the measurements are mostly correct, but largely irrelevant to proving FE. They do not represent a "drop" in the scientific sense because a "drop" is defined to be downward, and there's no concept of a drop over a distance on a sphere. Any novice in geometry can tell you that. The fact that you don't know that tells you something about how well you've researched Round Earth before deciding to trash it.


totallackey

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #109 on: January 20, 2018, 10:27:13 PM »
What's supposed to be the problem with that picture? It's got two ways to calculate the same number - why is that a problem?

It grows exponentially inaccurate with distance due to the way it measures the angle (θ) between a given two radii. They forgot to convert degrees to radians.

Understanding what that means took me like 30-45 minutes of research, so if you don't understand it, just gimme time to put everything together.
Hi.

I was wondering if you had a chance to put everything together and give us the scoop as to why the measurements are incorrect in the chart I have presented.

Thanks.

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Offline supaluminus

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #110 on: January 21, 2018, 10:01:20 AM »
What's supposed to be the problem with that picture? It's got two ways to calculate the same number - why is that a problem?

It grows exponentially inaccurate with distance due to the way it measures the angle (θ) between a given two radii. They forgot to convert degrees to radians.

Understanding what that means took me like 30-45 minutes of research, so if you don't understand it, just gimme time to put everything together.
Hi.

I was wondering if you had a chance to put everything together and give us the scoop as to why the measurements are incorrect in the chart I have presented.

Thanks.

lol no

It has kind of evolved into a project now. I already gave you the short version in an above post, and that's enough to get you started if you want to figure it out for yourself. Rest assured, OP will deliver, I just need time.

Sorry lol
When an honest man discovers that he is mistaken, either he will cease being mistaken...

... or he will cease being honest.

 - a loyal slave to reason and doubt

SylvanCyborg

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #111 on: February 09, 2018, 11:27:41 PM »
The result from the razor depends on what the person shaving already assumes to be true.

For example I have a beard, because I'm trying to keep an open mind. Still I trim occasionally when I can clearly see a hair is out of place.

In other words, I believe the simplest answer is that the earth is flat, because that's the way emperical evidence suggests.

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #112 on: February 10, 2018, 09:14:28 PM »
The result from the razor depends on what the person shaving already assumes to be true.

For example I have a beard, because I'm trying to keep an open mind. Still I trim occasionally when I can clearly see a hair is out of place.

In other words, I believe the simplest answer is that the earth is flat, because that's the way emperical evidence suggests.


Proof by assertion only works for undergraduate problem sets that you don't know how to do. It doesn't work in the real world. You probably believe this because you haven't seen the sheer number of problems with FE.
Have you read:
1. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8717.0 (International Space Station isn't just flying debris... you can see the solar panels)
2. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8781.0 (The Sinking Ship Effect, which FE people dismiss as "waves" instead of noting that the occluded part of buildings is almost the same regardless of conditions; also those waves must be absolutely huge)
3. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8380.0 (The clouds are lit from below at sunset, which would imply the sun is below the clouds in the FE model)
4. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8628.0 (The Sun drops below the horizon, implying it must go below the Flat Earth)
5. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6875.0 (More clouds lit below at the sunset)
6. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8013.0 (A Sun as small as the FE people would have you believe couldn't burn for more than 40 years; FE simply says "they don't know" how the Sun is powered or introduces some pseudoscientific garbage chock full of logical problems)
7. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=7853.0 (GPS works; ignore the garbage Tom spouted about eLORAN working with a GPS receiver; that is patently false. Interoperable in his quote means that there are receivers that can process both GPS/eLORAN signals and that they don't use the same frequency bands. http://www.ursanav.com/wp-content/uploads/Using-eLoran-to-Mitigate-GNSS-and-GPS-Vulnerabilities-2009.pdf)
8. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8595.0 (Doppler effect shows that the stars are moving very fast, and are therefore in all likelihood very far away; again ignore Tom, since he doesn't understand how spectra work)
9. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6633 (Airline flight data suggests distances that are incompatible with any flat map)

Seems like you think that FE seems simpler because you don't actually understand the scientific method and why people left it in droves thousands of years ago.

SylvanCyborg

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #113 on: February 10, 2018, 09:31:04 PM »


Seems like you think that FE seems simpler because you don't actually understand the scientific method and why people left it in droves thousands of years ago.

Thanks for the links. Agree to disagree.

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #114 on: February 11, 2018, 12:20:41 PM »
Occam's razor is pretty useless. I read the wiki and I can think of a few more examples:

Which contains less number of assumptions? That a sick person is sick because a microscopic pathogen entered our body and attacked our immune system or that it's just the nocebo effect.

Which has less number of assumptions? That a baby is created because the fusion of two gametes to create a diploid zygote which undergoes the various stages of embryonic development or that the stork plants it in a lady's womb.

Occam's razor is not a good argument at all. There are many things that are more complex than they look, and anybody who doesn't understand the reasons calling it off as an "assumption" really doesn't have any credibility.

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #115 on: February 11, 2018, 07:10:23 PM »
You (or the Flat Earth Society if you are just representing their wiki article) have misrepresented Occam's razor. It doesn't prefer the simplest explanation, it prefers the explanation that is no more complicated than necessary.

Or, in other words, it prefers the simplest explanation that explains all the observations.

In the case of germ theory, we can observe that exposing people to a pathogen makes them sick, regardless of whether they know they were exposed and thus eliminate the nocebo effect.

In the case of womb storks, we observe that sex or in-vitro fertilization lead to pregnancy, even if a woman is locked in a building with no stork access.

All of the strawmen in the wiki article are equally pathetic, without regard to contrary obvious observations.


Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #116 on: February 11, 2018, 10:49:02 PM »
You (or the Flat Earth Society if you are just representing their wiki article) have misrepresented Occam's razor. It doesn't prefer the simplest explanation, it prefers the explanation that is no more complicated than necessary.

Indeed, much of what I have seen consists of not even the simplest explanation, but the easiest. Simple does not mean that it requires no thought. 
Spherical Earth makes sense to me.
Educate me with sound, repeatable science and observations.

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #117 on: February 12, 2018, 07:10:15 AM »
You (or the Flat Earth Society if you are just representing their wiki article) have misrepresented Occam's razor. It doesn't prefer the simplest explanation, it prefers the explanation that is no more complicated than necessary.

Or, in other words, it prefers the simplest explanation that explains all the observations.

In the case of germ theory, we can observe that exposing people to a pathogen makes them sick, regardless of whether they know they were exposed and thus eliminate the nocebo effect.

In the case of womb storks, we observe that sex or in-vitro fertilization lead to pregnancy, even if a woman is locked in a building with no stork access.

All of the strawmen in the wiki article are equally pathetic, without regard to contrary obvious observations.
I brought it up because their wiki says it like that.
Now, don't kill me. But what's a strawman?

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #118 on: February 12, 2018, 08:46:20 AM »
A straw man is when you misrepresent the other sides argument in order to make it look bad.

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #119 on: February 12, 2018, 07:53:16 PM »
There are no NASA employees who have come out in support of the flat earth movement or commercial pilots.
I guess they don't fancy mysteriously dying in extremely unlikely accidents. Imagine that.

This was a guy who was in the investigation of the Apollo one fire, not how NASA launched its rockets.