[Ratboy]

So solar eclipses are a result of the moon blocking the sun.  It is good this is admitted because we can actually see where the moon is and see that it blocks the sun. We watch the sun and moon throughout history and track where they are.
However, it seems weird that lunar eclipses are always when the moon is opposite to where the sun is, unless the earth is now getting in the way of the sunlight.  Rowbotham rambles on a lot to explain lunar eclipses and part of the argument includes the observation that if you put a thermometer in sunlight, the temperature goes up. But if you put the same thermometer in moonlight, the temperature will go down.  I want someone to verify this.  Really?  Moonlight cools off things it hits?  Cloudless nights are generally colder than cloudy skies but the cold is not limited to just the areas the moonlight hits. 
Rowbotham also talks about how shadows bend in the opposite direction to light beams through things like prisms.  So because the earth is between the sun and moon, the shadow of the earth would bend away from the moon and therefore cannot cause lunar eclipses.  After I saw Peter Pan, my grade 3 teacher told me shadows are not real things that you can sew to your feet, but are simply darker areas where there is less light. 
Considering the moon being red-hot red sometimes, I have noticed that this often happens when there are forest fires in the area.  I have talked to people on the phone hundreds of miles from me and they looked out and the moon was white for them.  I suspect the smoke from the nearby fire made the moon look red like wearing sunglasses, not that the moon itself was giving off red light.  If a dark moon that gives off no light causes eclipses, we should not be able to see stars on either side of the known moon during the onset of a lunar eclipse.  Go out at the next lunar eclipse and see if stars disappear because of being blocked by this dark moon.   
I think Chapter XI is debunked. 

[StinkyOne]

I think it is pretty apparent to anyone with a few brain cells to rub together that ENaG is factually inaccurate. My main curiosity is how many FEers actually believe it. I know Tom does, but I don't see many other references to Rowbathom's book. I'm guessing it is because it is so out there. Maybe one of the FEers will comment?

[Dr David Thork]

If you asked a priest a very basic question on morality like, 'what does God think about theft'? he's going to flip open his bible and point to the commandment that says "thou shalt not steal".

If you ask something more complex or modern such as "Do you think social media encourages narcissism and is using it wholly evil?" then he's going to engage in a more in depth and bespoke answer to your question.

ENaG is like that. Its the FE bible. If you ask a basic question, you might get directed there for an answer. If its more complicated or modern, then the debate hots up.

[juner]

I think it is pretty apparent to anyone with a few brain cells to rub together that ENaG is factually inaccurate. My main curiosity is how many FEers actually believe it. I know Tom does, but I don't see many other references to Rowbathom's book. I'm guessing it is because it is so out there. Maybe one of the FEers will comment?

Keep your rants in the appropriate fora. Posting just to whine about ENaG adds nothing to the topic. I am trying to be patient, but the next one will be a week vacation.

[AATW]

ENaG is like that. Its the FE bible.

I have noticed that. It really is like that, it is thought of as infallible. The mental contortions they go through to keep believing in it really are astonishing.
I wonder WHY they revere it so. What is so special about it?
I mean, I've read some books which have influenced me but none which were just written by some bloke which I have thought of as infallible. Why would they be?

[Curious Squirrel]

If you asked a priest a very basic question on morality like, 'what does God think about theft'? he's going to flip open his bible and point to the commandment that says "thou shalt not steal".

If you ask something more complex or modern such as "Do you think social media encourages narcissism and is using it wholly evil?" then he's going to engage in a more in depth and bespoke answer to your question.

ENaG is like that. Its the FE bible. If you ask a basic question, you might get directed there for an answer. If its more complicated or modern, then the debate hots up.

Which is all fine and dandy if you take Rowbotham at his word as religion does with the bible. But deep dive into almost any of his experiments or other things, and his documentation is rather lackluster, and many of them make assumptions or draw conclusions based solely on at best sketchy reasoning. Like his assertions that theodolites are wrong about the dip angle to the horizon because he can't see one when he looks down a block of wood. His only 'evidence' presented being two of them had some degree of difference to them. He doesn't say how much this is, he doesn't say if this was an error large enough that it needed to be accounted for in the normal course of using this theodolite. Not to mention the devices are FAR more reliable and standardized today then they had any chance of being in his time. Yet EnaG has been brought up as 'proof' of their unreliability each time they've been brought up.

More directly on this topic, does the FES have any direct evidence in favor of this assertion of Rowbotham's that moonlight cools things down? Or is this another thing that people either dismiss or take him at his word for, depending on their personal feelings on the matter?

[Ratboy]

I doubt that Rowbotham looked at the moon through a telescope.  Look at an object that gives off light.  Look at an object at night lit by a narrow focused LED flashlight.  I think most people can tell the difference between something lit and something giving off light.  When a stove is hot we can tell it is glowing red, not reflecting light.
Take a telescope and look at the moon.  It is clearly being lit by light coming from one direction.  Tell me those are not craters and mountains.  The shadows are always on the one side away from where the light is shining from.
Now go somewhere where you can see mountains from about 100 miles away.  The mountains take up a fair bit of the field of vision in the distance.  Don't worry that you cannot see the bases and only the tops (foothills might be in the way).  Now look at the moon the next night.  How far would the moon have to be so that you cannot even see those mountains without a telescope?  Looking at some mountains and driving up to see how big they are (how far you have to drive to go around them) I am guessing that if the mountains on the moon are similar in size, the moon must be about 50,000 miles away.
Are you guys doing all these experiments and still maintaining the earth is flat?

[Rounder]

I doubt that Rowbotham looked at the moon through a telescope.

I agree.  He devotes a portion of ENaG to discussing the danger of moonlight, it would be unwise to use a telescope to focus moonlight on one's eyeballs, if one believes it to be a danger.

[Tom Bishop]

If you asked a priest a very basic question on morality like, 'what does God think about theft'? he's going to flip open his bible and point to the commandment that says "thou shalt not steal".

If you ask something more complex or modern such as "Do you think social media encourages narcissism and is using it wholly evil?" then he's going to engage in a more in depth and bespoke answer to your question.

ENaG is like that. Its the FE bible. If you ask a basic question, you might get directed there for an answer. If its more complicated or modern, then the debate hots up.

Which is all fine and dandy if you take Rowbotham at his word as religion does with the bible. But deep dive into almost any of his experiments or other things, and his documentation is rather lackluster, and many of them make assumptions or draw conclusions based solely on at best sketchy reasoning. Like his assertions that theodolites are wrong about the dip angle to the horizon because he can't see one when he looks down a block of wood. His only 'evidence' presented being two of them had some degree of difference to them. He doesn't say how much this is, he doesn't say if this was an error large enough that it needed to be accounted for in the normal course of using this theodolite. Not to mention the devices are FAR more reliable and standardized today then they had any chance of being in his time. Yet EnaG has been brought up as 'proof' of their unreliability each time they've been brought up.

I have read Earth Not a Globe cover to cover, and I agree with his assertion that looking through any kind of lens would produce an error in the actual position of a body.

From the Chapter on Theodolites --

A lens is a magnifying glass because it dilates, or spreads out from its centre, the objects seen through it. The infinitesimal or mathematical point actually in the centre is, of course, not visibly influenced, being in the very centre or on the true axis of the eye, but any part in the minutest degree out of that abstract centre is dilated, or diverged, or thrown further away from it than it would be to the naked eye; hence its apparent enlargement or expansion. Whatever, therefore, is magnified, is really so because thrown more or less out of the centre, and the more or less magnifying power of the lens is really the more or less divergence of the pencils of light on passing through the substance of which it is composed. In the telescope of a theodolite, or spirit-level, the spider's web of which the cross hair is made is placed in the actual centre; hence, in an observation, the point absolutely

p. 268

opposite to it is not seen, but only some other point minutely distant from it, but the distance of which is increased by the divergence caused by the lenses; and this divergence is what is called the "magnifying power."

When these discussions come up, I point you guys to that chapter to get a background. You need to show us some kind of theodolite that does not use any sort of lens.

You speak of "modern theodolites" as if lens physics has really changed in the last several hundred years.

More directly on this topic, does the FES have any direct evidence in favor of this assertion of Rowbotham's that moonlight cools things down? Or is this another thing that people either dismiss or take him at his word for, depending on their personal feelings on the matter?

There are numerous experiments which support Rowbotham's assertion that the moon produces cold light.

Search Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moon+produces+cold+light

[StinkyOne]

There are numerous experiments which support Rowbotham's assertion that the moon produces cold light.
Search Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moon+produces+cold+light

Nobel Prizes all around! You've discovered the impossible. (quite literally) Please explain how moonlight can cool something.

As it turns out, this is unsurprisingly wrong.
http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=1590436706491009951

Honestly Tom, light that cools things off? How are we supposed to take you seriously??

[Curious Squirrel]

There are numerous experiments which support Rowbotham's assertion that the moon produces cold light.
Search Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moon+produces+cold+light

Nobel Prizes all around! You've discovered the impossible. (quite literally) Please explain how moonlight can cool something.

As it turns out, this is unsurprisingly wrong.
http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=1590436706491009951

Honestly Tom, light that cools things off? How are we supposed to take you seriously??

Here's a wonderful video as well demonstrating what's going on here using the sun! Yes, he shows the sun 'making things cooler' in this video!

If you asked a priest a very basic question on morality like, 'what does God think about theft'? he's going to flip open his bible and point to the commandment that says "thou shalt not steal".

If you ask something more complex or modern such as "Do you think social media encourages narcissism and is using it wholly evil?" then he's going to engage in a more in depth and bespoke answer to your question.

ENaG is like that. Its the FE bible. If you ask a basic question, you might get directed there for an answer. If its more complicated or modern, then the debate hots up.

Which is all fine and dandy if you take Rowbotham at his word as religion does with the bible. But deep dive into almost any of his experiments or other things, and his documentation is rather lackluster, and many of them make assumptions or draw conclusions based solely on at best sketchy reasoning. Like his assertions that theodolites are wrong about the dip angle to the horizon because he can't see one when he looks down a block of wood. His only 'evidence' presented being two of them had some degree of difference to them. He doesn't say how much this is, he doesn't say if this was an error large enough that it needed to be accounted for in the normal course of using this theodolite. Not to mention the devices are FAR more reliable and standardized today then they had any chance of being in his time. Yet EnaG has been brought up as 'proof' of their unreliability each time they've been brought up.

I have read Earth Not a Globe cover to cover, and I agree with his assertion that looking through any kind of lens would produce an error in the actual position of a body.

From the Chapter on Theodolites --

A lens is a magnifying glass because it dilates, or spreads out from its centre, the objects seen through it. The infinitesimal or mathematical point actually in the centre is, of course, not visibly influenced, being in the very centre or on the true axis of the eye, but any part in the minutest degree out of that abstract centre is dilated, or diverged, or thrown further away from it than it would be to the naked eye; hence its apparent enlargement or expansion. Whatever, therefore, is magnified, is really so because thrown more or less out of the centre, and the more or less magnifying power of the lens is really the more or less divergence of the pencils of light on passing through the substance of which it is composed. In the telescope of a theodolite, or spirit-level, the spider's web of which the cross hair is made is placed in the actual centre; hence, in an observation, the point absolutely

p. 268

opposite to it is not seen, but only some other point minutely distant from it, but the distance of which is increased by the divergence caused by the lenses; and this divergence is what is called the "magnifying power."

When these discussions come up, I point you guys to that chapter to get a background. You need to show us some kind of theodolite that does not use any sort of lens.

You speak of "modern theodolites" as if lens physics has really changed in the last several hundred years.

No, I speak of 'modern theodolites' in direct reference to his objection during one of his tests, where he called them out as being unreliable because the two they had brought disagreed to some extent. He however doesn't mention to what extent. Regardless, this is what modern techniques and processes would fix.

His objections don't stand very well in regards to the dip angle though. IF there was no drop from eye level, then why would the horizon not appear at the center of the device, and as such be in direct alignment? IF this was such a large issue, why are they still in use? You make a bold claim that amounts to the Theodolite being terrible at the exact job it was designed to do. So what is your evidence for such a claim? Anything other than Rowbotham's words?

[Tom Bishop]

There are numerous experiments which support Rowbotham's assertion that the moon produces cold light.
Search Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moon+produces+cold+light

Nobel Prizes all around! You've discovered the impossible. (quite literally) Please explain how moonlight can cool something.

As it turns out, this is unsurprisingly wrong.
http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=1590436706491009951

Honestly Tom, light that cools things off? How are we supposed to take you seriously??

The article says that one of the experimenta may be fallacious because it was done with laser thermometers at a distance which may be inaccurate due to spreading beams. But the experiment was done with digital thermometers as well, not only laser thermometers. Experimenters have also put the laser thermometer up close to the target.

There is even a comment in the article you linked:

Okay everyone,

I saw the youtube videos, and I was intrigued, so I did the experiment twice between the hours of Aug 5th 9pm and Aug 6th 2am EST. I live in New England, and at our particular location tonight we had a perfectly clear night and an almost full moon (Full moon is Mon Aug 7th). Here's how I conducted the experiment:

At 7pm, took 2 standard 16 oz bar glasses and filled them up halfway with tap water, exactly equal amounts. We let them sit outside from 7pm to 9:45pm, to allow the water to acclimate to the outside temperature, while we waited for the moon to come up above the tree line.

At 9:45 pm, we took the glasses of acclimated water out to a big field on the side of my friends house where we would get approx 4 hours of uninterrupted moonlight. One glass measured 69.1 F. The other measured 69.2 F at that time. We made a small stand with 1" foam insulation board sitting up about 6" off the grass. The glasses were placed one foot apart on the foam and I put a piece of L-shaped cardboard in front of one to create shade. I decided on the foam base as a buffer so the glasses would not catch hot/cold from the ground. We let them sit for 2 hours, one in shade, one in direct moonlight.

At 11:45 pm, we went back out to measure the temperature. I used a "Taylor Compact Instant-Read Pen Style Digital Thermometer". This is a digital cooking thermometer which measures to 1/10 of a degree. I left the thermometer in the water for 2 minutes each time to try to get as accurate as possible. At 11:45 pm, water in the shade measured 64.0 F. Water in the moonlight was 62.7 F. I decided to re-measure what I just did a second time. The second reading yielded similar results - 63.6 F in the shade, 62.5 F in the moonlight.

At 1:45 am, we came back out and recorded the same temperatures twice, 58.8 F in the shade, 57.4 F in the moonlight (again, 2 minutes for each dip of the thermometer). It's just one test, first time ever doing this. We're going to test it again tomorrow. Does anyone have good advice for shooting video on this for youtube regarding lighting? My concern is getting lights too close to thermometer or glass and altering temp. I'd love to do this live-time so you can watch the thermometers change.

One test is not enough. I plan on doing hundreds. If the moonlight is cooler, you will see that. If the moonlight is warmer, you will see that. Tonight, the moonlight was cooler by 1.3 F, 1.1 F, and 1.4 F each time we did the test. Till next time...

Honestly Tom, light that cools things off? How are we supposed to take you seriously??

Have you done the experiment? How can you say what moonlight does and just sit and criticize if you have not done the experiment to see what many other people have seen?

I don't claim to understand it, but we are not in the position to judge what moonlight should or should not do based on rationalism when we have numerous empirical experiments which tell us that moonlight cools.

[AATW]

I don't claim to understand it, but we are not in the position to judge what moonlight should or should not do based on rationalism when we have numerous empirical experiments which tell us that moonlight cools.

Have a look at CuriousSquirrel's post and the YouTube video. Empirical evidence that sunlight makes things cooler?
The explanation is given in the video. Honestly. Cold light. If you could prove that in a way which doesn't make scientists laugh out loud you would win a Nobel prize.

[Rama Set]

Have you done the experiment? How can you say what moonlight does and just sit and criticize if you have not done the experiment to see what many other people have seen?

I don't claim to understand it, but we are not in the position to judge what moonlight should or should not do based on rationalism when we have numerous empirical experiments which tell us that moonlight cools.

So then you will cease criticizing the Cavendish experiment?  Or should we just let your hideous double standard slide?

[Tom Bishop]

I don't claim to understand it, but we are not in the position to judge what moonlight should or should not do based on rationalism when we have numerous empirical experiments which tell us that moonlight cools.

Have a look at CuriousSquirrel's post and the YouTube video. Empirical evidence that sunlight makes things cooler?
The explanation is given in the video. Honestly. Cold light. If you could prove that in a way which doesn't make scientists laugh out loud you would win a Nobel prize.

I looked at the video and its just bad. First he points a telescope at the moon and then he moves the telescope to compare the temperature to empty space. He may as well compare the temperature of the moon to the temperature of an ice cube...  That experiment does NOT tell us whether the light of the moon can make things cooler.

Next he makes some ridiculous claim that when you sit in the shade it is actually warmer. The example he gives involves putting a piece of foil in the sun and then putting it under a bush. Under the bush it is warmer. This is ridiculous. In the day time it is not warmer in the shade than it is directly in the sun.

He says the foil is like a mirror reflecting ambient IR of the objects around it. The foil is of course physically cooler in the shade, but the reflected IR is not. However, this does not explain experiments with non-laser thermometer devices taking a direct measurement of bodies which shows the same cooling moonlight effect.

None of the above really even tests the issue, and is an attempt to discount the tests based on flawed rationalism. Cooling moon light is not directly tested by that experimenter. Sweeping declarations and assumptions are made.

If moon light did not cool, then it should be easy to design an experiment that shows that. The experimenter in that video and the excuse masters on the internet do everything except that.

Rowbotham references an experiment performed by a notable mid 1800's scientist in which a telescope was indoors and closed to the elements, looking out a window at the moon. A room temperature thermometer was placed next to the eye piece and the temperature cooled. When removed it warmed again. This happened again and again.The excuses given do not describe what is happening there.

[Rama Set]

So Rowbotham is referencing experiments he has not done? Wow. Looks like you shouldn’t trust him either.

[HorstFue]

I don't claim to understand it, but we are not in the position to judge what moonlight should or should not do based on rationalism when we have numerous empirical experiments which tell us that moonlight cools.

I'll give you a hint: atmospheric counter-radiation
Part of the radiation emitted  by an object is reflected by the atmosphere, the rest goes through the atmosphere to outer space.
You can enhance the counter radiation, if you obscure part of the night sky "seen" by the object.
That's what these experiments do, obscuring part of the night sky - with the moon - by a "shading" object.
This way a "shaded" object - shading off part of the night sky, regardless of the moonlight - gets less cold than an unshaded object.

This is the way a carport works in winter. You shade off a significant part of the night sky from your car and don't need an ice scraper the next morning, as others which left there car in an open space.

[garygreen]

moonlight cooling things down makes about as much sense as a a bowling ball just stopping after colliding with a pin instead of knocking it over.  it defies the conservation of energy.  photons colliding with atoms don't cool them down (no, laser cooling isn't at all relevant here).  they either get absorbed (positive change in energy), or they don't interact.

I looked at the video and its just bad. First he points a telescope at the moon and then he moves the telescope to compare the temperature to empty space. He may as well compare the temperature of the moon to the temperature of an ice cube...  That experiment does NOT tell us whether the light of the moon can make things cooler.

you claim that moonlight cools things.  the best way to test that hypothesis is with a temperature sensor.  the telescope focuses moonlight on the temperature sensor.  when he points it at the moon, then moonlight is incident upon the sensor.  when he points it away, then it isn't.  how is that methodology not valid? 

Next he makes some ridiculous claim that when you sit in the shade it is actually warmer. The example he gives involves putting a piece of foil in the sun and then putting it under a bush. Under the bush it is warmer. This is ridiculous. In the day time it is not warmer in the shade than it is directly in the sun.

He says the foil is like a mirror reflecting ambient IR of the objects around it. The foil is of course physically cooler in the shade, but the reflected IR is not. However, this does not explain experiments with non-laser thermometer devices taking a direct measurement of bodies which shows the same cooling moonlight effect.

i searched but had a hard time finding the direct measurement videos you're describing.  link?

None of the above really even tests the issue, and is an attempt to discount the tests based on flawed rationalism. Cooling moon light is not directly tested by that experimenter. Sweeping declarations and assumptions are made.

this is pretty basic physics.  and it's all materials science stuff.  there's no re/fe split to be had.  the notion that materials science isn't based on empiricism is patently absurd.

[JohnAdams1145]

I have read Earth Not a Globe cover to cover, and I agree with his assertion that looking through any kind of lens would produce an error in the actual position of a body.

Perhaps, then, instead of trying to actually quantify the error, we can just dismiss all scientific claims with the catchphrase "lens error" -- this is clearly not real science. When you use a noisy measurement method, that doesn't make your experiment all wrong; you just need to correct for it at state your uncertainties. In this case, lenses do not produce significant amounts of noise; they produce distortion that is mathematically reversible.

I should also note that this kind of attitude is quite destructive toward doing any sort of experiment if you can just dismiss disagreeable results by pointing to minute "distortion" and saying it makes the experiment invalid, similar to how the horizon masking tall buildings is dismissed. Your eye also has a lens in it.

[Ratboy]

I never imagined that we would be here discussing whether the moon gives off its own light or is reflecting light from the sun.  And that we would discuss whether this moonlight has all the gnarly powers attributed to the widow at the end of the street's evil eye.  If moonlight can make meat rot faster, that pretty much throws all our medical science into disarray.  You can take a telescope and burn a hole into a piece of paper using sunlight.  I have looked at the moon with my eyeball through that same telescope (never would look at the sun that way) and my eye did not instantly freeze. 
Light that cools things is similar to anti-phlogiston proposed in the 1700s to explain rusting of iron before oxygen was thought up. 
Supposedly there is no flat earth conspiracy except for the one NASA has going on.  During the first episode of Young Sheldon, they show his model train shooting a ball straight up and catching it, very similar to what Rowbotham says would not happen.  Is Hollywood part of a conspiracy and they put this into the show using CGI to try and discredit Rowbotham?  Medical profession, television, space, maps, cellphones, and what other industries would be part of the cover up?  Where can a FE believer work without experiencing a major ethical and moral dilemma?   Shame on any FE'er who takes money from a business or government who has systems based upon a round earth. 
I read two of Velikovsky's books written in the 1950s and sold millions of copies.  They were better researched than Rowbotham's.  Velikovsky postulated that the other planets came close to earth in the past and that is what created mountains and the moon and what not.  One piece of evidence is the frozen mammoth found in the arctic that still had preserved flowers in its stomach showing that the temperature changed so fast as to deep freeze the mammoth that was grazing on green plants minutes before.  Good evidence but when I went to the source he cited, it said nothing of the sort and said that there was still some muscle preserved on the bones of the mammoth. 
Look at the moon with some binoculars or anything that will show the shadows of the craters and mountains.  Then tell me that the moon gives off its own light and this light is magical.
Back to lenses and their terrible magnifying ability, the guy in American Sniper was able to kill a person from a kilometer away, and this is confirmed by witnesses.  Are we to believe that lenses that can do this cannot tell us the earth is round? Or is this another conspiracy?  But there must be some FE'ers that are also survivalists who own rifles with scopes.  Do they believe the scope is that unreliable?