The Flat Earth Society

Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Theory => Topic started by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 12:48:37 AM

Title: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 12:48:37 AM
FE wiki tells us that the Sun shines down on the flat Earth like a spotlight. Illuminating part of the surface to create day time.

How does that work then when the Sun is spherical and emits light over its whole surface. Why the sudden 'cut off' where daylight ends?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 05, 2019, 01:31:45 AM
What makes you think you can see forever through the atmoplane of the earth, and infinitely across the earth? More to the point, if you can't see the sun, it can't see you.

The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane, and you will see the apparent sun when the sun is close enough and the circular area of light passes over you.

See the Magnification of the Sun at Sunset article in the Wiki and the Cause of Sunrise and Sunset chapter in Earth Not a Globe.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: stack on January 05, 2019, 06:54:39 AM
What makes you think you can see forever through the atmoplane of the earth, and infinitely across the earth? More to the point, if you can't see the sun, it can't see you.

The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane, and you will see the apparent sun when the sun is close enough and the circular area of light passes over you.

I'm not sure it would work like that. Take a spotlight, for example. I can be standing in darkness yet still see the beams and the source. Like this:

(http://www.tannerhiggin.com/summer11eng1c/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/147_spotlight_mine.png)
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 09:53:06 AM
Quote
The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane, and you will see the apparent sun when the sun is close enough and the circular area of light passes over you.

This is fascinating Tom.... so there are two Suns that we can see?  What is the difference between the real Sun and the apparent Sun then?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 05, 2019, 12:10:09 PM
What makes you think you can see forever through the atmoplane of the earth, and infinitely across the earth? More to the point, if you can't see the sun, it can't see you.

The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane, and you will see the apparent sun when the sun is close enough and the circular area of light passes over you.

I'm not sure it would work like that. Take a spotlight, for example. I can be standing in darkness yet still see the beams and the source. Like this:

http://www.tannerhiggin.com/summer11eng1c/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/147_spotlight_mine.png

If there is too much atmosphere between you and those light sources, when you are in the dark area and far from the sun, that might not apply. You are talking about hundreds or thousands of miles of atmosphere. The atmosphere is not perfectly transparent and builds up with distance.

Of interest, Wise has an interesting investigation on the other website that, during the day, not all of the light may not be coming from the direction of the sun, and has several examples.

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=66236.msg2110544#msg2110544

Whether it is some sort of perspective illusion, I could not say.

There is also this: https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?9059-For-those-who-claim-shadows-must-be-parallel

Like your image, and what wise is showing, the light seems to be coming across a band of space in the sky.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 04:15:28 PM
Clarify what you mean by this Tom.

Quote
The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane

In your answers you are mentioning both atmoplane and atmosphere. So which is it?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 05, 2019, 04:27:02 PM
Clarify what you mean by this Tom.

Quote
The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane

In your answers you are mentioning both atmoplane and atmosphere. So which is it?

It's the same.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 04:32:35 PM
And the difference between the real Sun and the apparent Sun?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Curious Squirrel on January 05, 2019, 05:56:53 PM
What makes you think you can see forever through the atmoplane of the earth, and infinitely across the earth? More to the point, if you can't see the sun, it can't see you.

The rays of the sun are projected onto the atmoplane, and you will see the apparent sun when the sun is close enough and the circular area of light passes over you.

I'm not sure it would work like that. Take a spotlight, for example. I can be standing in darkness yet still see the beams and the source. Like this:

http://www.tannerhiggin.com/summer11eng1c/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/147_spotlight_mine.png

If there is too much atmosphere between you and those light sources, when you are in the dark area and far from the sun, that might not apply. You are talking about hundreds or thousands of miles of atmosphere. The atmosphere is not perfectly transparent and builds up with distance.

Of interest, Wise has an interesting investigation on the other website that, during the day, not all of the light may not be coming from the direction of the sun, and has several examples.

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=66236.msg2110544#msg2110544

Whether it is some sort of perspective illusion, I could not say.

There is also this: https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?9059-For-those-who-claim-shadows-must-be-parallel

Like your image, and what wise is showing, the light seems to be coming across a band of space in the sky.
Just for the record your first photo set is a terrible one to attempt to base an argument on for FE. Google Earth street view? Really? Have you ever walked around in street view? They use fisheye lenses to capture greater than a 360 degree view around the car/vehicle so a computer can then stitch together and attempt to smooth out the images. There tend to be distortions that only get more so as you move away from the center of frame. Heck, I've seen distortions of known objects in the middle of the frame. This seems to be a poor choice to try and base such an analysis on.

For your second it definitely doesn't show anything like "the light seems to be coming across a band of space in the sky." That would produce shadows that would get wider as you got towards the top. Even FE shouldn't be ready to agree with what is shown in this image. There's only a single sun ever visible in the sky. This suggest 7 different suns, each one affecting just 1 of the posts. This photo is quite likely doctored. The shadows don't even appear to maintain the same ratio to the height of their post, suggesting the light shining on each one is at a different height as well.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bad Puppy on January 05, 2019, 06:08:21 PM
First, if the sun is being projected onto the atmosphere, how far into it is it being projected? What properties does this projected surface have that enables projection the sun to be displayed without distortion at a specific position in the atmosphere?

Second, if it's just a projection and not the actual sun, how do you explain the ability to track earth-bound CMEs and other solar emissions from that projection directly to their destination? Projections have no mass, can't produce radiation.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 08:25:44 PM
What I really want to know is whether FE hypothesis accepts that the Sun is a sphere with light emitted with largely equal intensity from all parts of the surface. If that is the case then how it can be considered to act like a spotlight is currently beyond me.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: AATW on January 05, 2019, 08:30:59 PM
What I really want to know is whether FE hypothesis accepts that the Sun is a sphere with light emitted with largely equal intensity from all parts of the surface. If that is the case then how it can be considered to act like a spotlight is currently beyond me.
That puzzled me for a long time but it was then clarified. The sun sets due to perspective, so when the perspective lines merge at a finite distance the sun merges into the horizon, so you can see the 32 mile sun but not the THREE THOUSAND MILE gap between the earth and the sun.
That might be straw manning but I’m pretty sure that is how Tom explained it once albeit not quite in those words.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 05, 2019, 08:56:59 PM
That I have to say is a very interesting hypothesis. To visualise how that might work I am trying to work out how large the daylight area actually is for something as bright as the Sun to appear to disappear as the angle between the observer and the Sun gets vanishingly small. I immediately want to ask in that case how far away is the horizon for someone at sea level?  At the moment it seems like an analogy with the frog trying to cross the river by only jumping half the distance each time.  The angle between the Sun and the horizon could never be less than zero degrees when seen from a flat plane. Therefore at the very least you would always have twilight and no true darkness.

The way the FE hypothesis works you could never create this sort of scenario given the size and distance of the Sun in reality.  To make it work you are having to majorly change both the size and the distance of the Sun both of which have been measured very accurately.  The distance to Venus (brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon) was measured in the 1960s by radar. Once we knew the distance to Venus we could then work out the distance of the Sun from Earth by simple trig. That disproved the 3000 mile distance between the Sun and the Earth that FE hypothesis claims. Finally knowing how big something looks (angular size on the sky) from a certain distance then makes it easy to work out the true size of the Sun.



Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: stack on January 05, 2019, 11:03:27 PM
If there is too much atmosphere between you and those light sources, when you are in the dark area and far from the sun, that might not apply. You are talking about hundreds or thousands of miles of atmosphere. The atmosphere is not perfectly transparent and builds up with distance.

Given some altitude and a good telescope I should be able to see sunlight elsewhere on the flat earth even though I am in darkness. From that standpoint, I don't see how a spotlight sun can work.

Of interest, Wise has an interesting investigation on the other website that, during the day, not all of the light may not be coming from the direction of the sun, and has several examples.

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=66236.msg2110544#msg2110544

Whether it is some sort of perspective illusion, I could not say.

There is also this: https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?9059-For-those-who-claim-shadows-must-be-parallel

Like your image, and what wise is showing, the light seems to be coming across a band of space in the sky.

I remember Wise's thread. As others have pointed out, he was using google streetview which is a bunch of distorted lens images composited together from multiple cameras/angles over time. Hardly a sound empirical observation.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 06, 2019, 03:26:59 PM
Wise's photos are valid. Some of those shadows are pointing in different relation to the street or sidewalk. It doesn't matter if the picture is a wide-angle lense or not. A wide-angle lense isn't going to make a shadow that's pointing towards the street to run along the sidewalk or vice versa.

This is caused by a fisheye lens?

(http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg)
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bad Puppy on January 06, 2019, 04:21:46 PM
Wise's photos are valid. Some of those shadows are pointing in different relation to the street or sidewalk. It doesn't matter if the picture is a wide-angle lense or not. A wide-angle lense isn't going to make a shadow that's pointing towards the street to run along the sidewalk or vice versa.

This is caused by a fisheye lens?

(http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg)

They're pointing in different directions in relation to the camera.  You don't even need shadows to do it.  Just draw a bunch of equidistant lines of the same angle on a piece of paper.  Put a peg at the front of each line, and take a picture.  What do you see?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: AATW on January 06, 2019, 05:48:54 PM
This is caused by a fisheye lens?

(http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg)
No, it’s caused by perspective.
You often cite railway tracks appearing to merge so you do understand that parallel lines appear to converge by perspective.

Your understanding of perspective is so weird, you think it can cause the sunset when it can’t and you then forget about it when looking at photos like this.

As Bad Puppy suggests, you can test this easily yourself with a piece of paper. Draw some parallel lines and note that from an angle they appear to converge.

I don’t see how this “problem”, if it was one, would be any more explicable with the FE sun.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 06, 2019, 06:24:03 PM
Here we have the lines to show how the perspective works.  Note the post that is in vertical line with the photographer shows no shadow because from his perspective the shadow is directly behind the post.

Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: AATW on January 06, 2019, 07:23:45 PM
This literally took me 5 minutes.
Parallel lines drawn on a piece of paper. From top down:

(https://i.ibb.co/z5z4B2Z/IMG-3891.jpg)

From an angle. Now they're converging

(https://i.ibb.co/SVR48ZD/IMG-3890.jpg)
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 06, 2019, 07:31:42 PM
Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: AATW on January 06, 2019, 07:40:15 PM
Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image.
Not exactly, but it demonstrates the principle. A principle you actually do understand. The pictures you have posted of train lines also demonstrate it. The tracks are parallel but they don’t look parallel. Quite why you are pretending not to understand this is puzzling, especially as this problem, if it were a problem, would apply to the FE sun as much as it would to the RE one.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bad Puppy on January 06, 2019, 08:10:44 PM
Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image.

Then you try it and post your picture, Tom.  Better yet, Put some posts in the ground on a sunny day nice and straight, along a straight line, and make them the same height, just light the picture.  Measure their distance from one another.  Then Look at their shadows.  Measure the distance between the points of the shadows for adjacent posts (that's why the height is important to be equal).  Measure the angles between the shadows and the line of posts (that's why it's important to have them in a straight line).  Write it all down.  Stand back, and take a picture, just like this one.  Report your findings.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bobby Shafto on January 06, 2019, 08:52:17 PM
Wise's photos are valid. Some of those shadows are pointing in different relation to the street or sidewalk. It doesn't matter if the picture is a wide-angle lense or not. A wide-angle lense isn't going to make a shadow that's pointing towards the street to run along the sidewalk or vice versa.

This is caused by a fisheye lens?

(http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg)

Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image.

How 'bout this? Candles and skewers:

(http://oi63.tinypic.com/fehvs0.jpg)

No fisheye. No panorama. Are those skewers parallel?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 06, 2019, 09:17:53 PM
Quote
Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image

It doesn't have to look like the original photo to demonstrate the same principle Tom. Fact is you have shadows either side of where the photographers stand point is and the direction of the shadows swaps over either side of that point.  What is the original photo supposed to demonstrate in FE theory then?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 06, 2019, 10:14:19 PM
Wise's photos are valid. Some of those shadows are pointing in different relation to the street or sidewalk. It doesn't matter if the picture is a wide-angle lense or not. A wide-angle lense isn't going to make a shadow that's pointing towards the street to run along the sidewalk or vice versa.

This is caused by a fisheye lens?

http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg[

Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image.

How 'bout this? Candles and skewers:

http://oi63.tinypic.com/fehvs0.jpg

No fisheye. No panorama. Are those skewers parallel?

Kitchen lights around the kitchen aren't a 93 million mile distant sun with parallel light.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 06, 2019, 10:16:13 PM
I didn't think the Sun was 93 million miles away in your world.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: stack on January 06, 2019, 10:21:30 PM
Wise's photos are valid. Some of those shadows are pointing in different relation to the street or sidewalk. It doesn't matter if the picture is a wide-angle lense or not. A wide-angle lense isn't going to make a shadow that's pointing towards the street to run along the sidewalk or vice versa.

This is caused by a fisheye lens?

(http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg)

Unfortunately that looks nothing like the image.

How 'bout this? Candles and skewers:

(http://oi63.tinypic.com/fehvs0.jpg)

No fisheye. No panorama. Are those skewers parallel?

Kitchen lights around the kitchen aren't 93 million miles distant sun's with parallel light sources.

Seems to me no lights involved, just candles and skewers and one of your favorite topics, perspective. 
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Tom Bishop on January 06, 2019, 10:23:38 PM
Please point out the area in the image where "no lights [are] involved".
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: edby on January 06, 2019, 10:24:58 PM
Wise's photos are valid. Some of those shadows are pointing in different relation to the street or sidewalk. It doesn't matter if the picture is a wide-angle lense or not. A wide-angle lense isn't going to make a shadow that's pointing towards the street to run along the sidewalk or vice versa.

This is caused by a fisheye lens?

(http://photos.imageevent.com/datacable/apollo/icons/shadows61.jpg)
The shadows are exactly parallel.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: stack on January 06, 2019, 10:34:51 PM
Please point out the area in the image where "no lights [are] involved".

I'm talking about Bobby's image. Candles (unlit) and skewers. No lights. The skewers are parallel yet, due to perspective, don't look so. Just like your image with the shadows. And what does this have to do with a spotlight sun and why it can't be seen when in darkness?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bobby Shafto on January 06, 2019, 10:41:17 PM

Kitchen lights around the kitchen aren't a 93 million mile distant sun with parallel light.
Of course they aren't. The lights are not part of the physical model analogy in my image. The sticks (skewers) are. Are they parallel?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 06, 2019, 10:43:17 PM
Quote
And what does this have to do with a spotlight sun and why it can't be seen when in darkness?


Agreed any chance to getting back to the original question please?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bobby Shafto on January 06, 2019, 10:48:05 PM
Did I fall for Tom diverging off topic again? 

I just saw the image of posts and shadows and the errant interpretation that those shadows could be caused by a "band of light" and not from a single light source.

I don't want to be accused of trying to "suppress" Tom by joining in the call to get back on topic, but I'll not contribute more to the issue of that image if it is, in fact, off topic.

For the record, those skewers in my image are parallel, just as the shadows in the picture of those posts are. 

Edit to add: parallel shadows from an actual 93 million mile distant sun:
(http://oi64.tinypic.com/i2rsps.jpg)
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 06, 2019, 10:55:47 PM
And just as the rays of the Sun are parallel from 93 million miles distant.  Did you notice that subtle slip of the mind there when Tom seemed to admit about the Sun being 93 million miles distant.  Back to my original question, how can something like the Sun which is emitting light from all over its surface act like a spotlight?
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: JCM on January 07, 2019, 06:46:32 PM
A step by step approach regarding the Sun might be better....


1.  Is the Sun a sphere?  If not, why not?
2.  Does light emanate from every surface of the Sun? If not, then explain...
3.  If a spherical Sun emanates light from all of its surface, why does it spotlight? 
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Curious Squirrel on January 07, 2019, 07:22:51 PM
A step by step approach regarding the Sun might be better....


1.  Is the Sun a sphere?  If not, why not?
2.  Does light emanate from every surface of the Sun? If not, then explain...
3.  If a spherical Sun emanates light from all of its surface, why does it spotlight?
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Perspective according to one version of FE, electromagnetic acceleration according to another.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: JCM on January 07, 2019, 08:56:45 PM
A step by step approach regarding the Sun might be better....


1.  Is the Sun a sphere?  If not, why not?
2.  Does light emanate from every surface of the Sun? If not, then explain...
3.  If a spherical Sun emanates light from all of its surface, why does it spotlight?
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Perspective according to one version of FE, electromagnetic acceleration according to another.

If it’s yes, yes then EAT is even in a worse position since light if it bends that much it makes no sense to explain anything as the light rays coming from every point on a spherical Sun would negate bending as needed for EAT to shine on undersides of clouds for example. 
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 07, 2019, 09:54:54 PM
So we have a spherical Sun which is radiating light from all parts of its surface. That means light is being emitted out into the space in the form of an expanding (with distance) spherical shell. That means the Sun will shine with equal brightness regardless of which direction you view it from.


So now lets say that a sphere of light is situated above a flat surface as depicted by the flat Earth diagram on the FAQ page.  Regardless of whether you put the Sun 3000 miles or 93 million miles from the flat surface of Earth you will not get just a specific region of the flat surface illuminated at any one time. The nature of light simply won't allow that to work.  You would need to have some kind of mask between the Sun and the flat surface to restrict the areas exposed to direct sunlight.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: Bobby Shafto on January 07, 2019, 10:35:40 PM
I'll hazard an attempt to articulate what Tom has been attempting to say is the explanation.

It's not a "literal spotlight."  It's not the sun that is shaded from illuminating in certain directions. It's the atmo- (air) through which the sun is shining that is doing the shading.

When the sunlight has to penetrate less air mass, that is when we see it "projected upon the atmoplane." But at longer distances, when the angle of the sun is shallower, the air eventually becomes opaque to the sun and hence the sunlight won't penetrate it and for those in darkness, there is no "projection upon the atmoplane" due to that opaqueness.

This is not the cause of sunset. That's either a perspective effect or light bending upward. Even after sunset (or before sunrise) there is twilight because the sun's light is beginning to penetrate the air as the angle becomes shallower and thus less air to pass through.

If I have that wrong, I apologize; I can't claim to be able to fully apprehend it since I give it so little credence. It's more like a meteorological explanation than an atmoplanar one, and day/night would vary due to weather more so than characteristic atmo- opacity.

There's also the issue of the magnification effect claimed for which the atmolayer, with increasing density, magnifies the sun such that it maintains its apparent angular size despite receding into the distance. It's a remarkable confluence of features: atmolayer shading, magnification and perspective (or EAT) that causes the sun to appear to rise and set while all the while actually being some distance over a flat earth.

And this still doesn't explain the lateral displacement of the projected sun from the actual sun, but that's an issue pending explanation on another topic. Still, I hope I've gotten the "spotlight" "projection on the atmoplane" thing right.
Title: Re: Solar spotlight
Post by: shootingstar on January 07, 2019, 11:08:20 PM
Projected Sun, apparent Sun...what does all this mean?.   How about this idea...?

Sun emits light into space. Sun facing side of Earth is in daylight, other side is in darkness (night). Rotation of Earth means all parts of Earth surface experience 'day' and 'night' over a 24hr period. No need for apparent or projected Suns which actually don't exist. Atmosphere surrounding Earth scatters some of the light and turns the sky blue as seen from the surface. It also protects us from harmful non-visible radiation also emitted by the Sun.

These ideas about apparent Suns and projected Suns is just being created in order to make what we see fit in with a hypothesised flat Earth.  You can disagree with this by all means but I doubt you can prove it wrong.