[SiDawg]

It's commonly accepted by Flat Earth believers that there's no known map of the flat earth. The "Azimuthal Equidistant Projection" often used is just a conceptual image, it does not reflect reality, just a rough idea of what the flat earth might look like (and by "might" i mean, it's normally accepted that it's something OTHER than that map...)

So how would one go about constructing an accurate map? Obviously navigating coast lines and recording in to journals is a pain staking expensive process. But what I propose is to start with a very very simplified basic map:

Lets construct a Flat Earth map using only 12 points

For those 12 points, let's use these known cities:

• Cape Town
• Kinshasa
• Stockholm
• Beijing
• Jakarta
• Perth (West Australia)
• Anchorage (Alaska)
• Honolulu
• Auckland (New Zealand)
• Montreal
• Panama
• Buenos Aires

So question now is: how can we determine the true distances between these cities? And that's where I'm curious what Flat Earth believers think would be an acceptable method. I know "flight times" have been raised and rubbished (i.e. seen as "skeptical") a number of times, but surely there's a logical/mathematical way to still use that data? For example, theoretically planes could "lie" to us and be travelling very slowly, in order to make distances seem longer than they truly are. Plus planes can use "slipstreams" so they can go much faster than their reported specs.

I'm curious what, if any, aspects of plane data Flat Earth believes will accept? Do you accept published maximum/minimum speeds of planes? Also, do you accept the reported speeds of winds (slipstreams) in the upper atmosphere?

If you accept that data, then that will give us "maximum" and "minimum" distances for each reported flight time between those cities. That should give us a "rough" possible map of the flat earth right?

[Max_Almond]

How about if you have people measure the angle and direction to the sun from each of these cities at the same moment?

Given that they're all looking at the same sun, you can then plot the positions of the cities using that data.

Even quicker, you can take the angle/direction information from a site such as suncalc.org, since this has always been verified as accurate.

Note: the data collecting would have to be done at a few different times, for thoroughness.

[SiDawg]

Yeah that's a nice idea. Perhaps it requires a website, to coordinate such world wide effort, and code an easy way for participants to submit their finding.

Was also wondering: could short wave radio be used to measure distances? There'd no doubt be a bit of variance from atmospheric conditions, but I'm thinking the precision would be less than using flight times/plane speeds. Would also require a large amount of coordination, and not many people have short wave radios... might be able to get the SWR community interested though. I wonder if internet calibrated clocks would be accurate enough. Apparently light circles the earth about 7.5 times a second... the cities i've chosen (and can be changed) are roughly 60 degrees apart, so light/EM radiation would take about 22ms to travel 60 degrees (plus a bit more once it goes up, bounces of ionosphere, bounces back again). That's reasonably "slow" in the grand scheme of things but maybe the combination of clock accuracy and atmospheric conditions would make the data essentially useless hmm

Another method i was thinking of: we have access to a huge database of images of land (i.e. google maps). If the "great round earth conspiracy" is ensuring that google map images are stretched or skewed away from flat earth "reality", this can surely be measured using known lengths? We could use cars for example: you could get an average length of a car, and use that to "calibrate" any google map image, or confirm that the image isn't being stretched or distorted. If you've confirmed it hasn't been stretched or contorted, you can also use the same cars to provide an accurate length of distance for each image... Do that enough times from place to place and you have a another method of measuring distance. Again, a lot of margin for error in such a calculation, as most google map images only have a resolution of half a meter or so, plus relies on populated land between each location. In order to prove the globe earth I think the most useful distances will be between Africa, South America, Australia, and pacific islands, so that makes that a bit useless.

Or we could of course just use "known driving times"... You can use google street view to get distances from signs: gather enough data, they can't ALL be wrong...

Or use shipping distances and times: but as we've seen on this site, direct evidence from people on board such ships is tossed aside.

[Tontogary]

Yeah that's a nice idea. Perhaps it requires a website, to coordinate such world wide effort, and code an easy way for participants to submit their finding.

Was also wondering: could short wave radio be used to measure distances? There'd no doubt be a bit of variance from atmospheric conditions, but I'm thinking the precision would be less than using flight times/plane speeds. Would also require a large amount of coordination, and not many people have short wave radios... might be able to get the SWR community interested though. I wonder if internet calibrated clocks would be accurate enough. Apparently light circles the earth about 7.5 times a second... the cities i've chosen (and can be changed) are roughly 60 degrees apart, so light/EM radiation would take about 22ms to travel 60 degrees (plus a bit more once it goes up, bounces of ionosphere, bounces back again). That's reasonably "slow" in the grand scheme of things but maybe the combination of clock accuracy and atmospheric conditions would make the data essentially useless hmm

Or use shipping distances and times: but as we've seen on this site, direct evidence from people on board such ships is tossed aside.

Maybe shipping distances are not tossed aside, just ignored.
I have posted 5 times now to ask If there is any answer to my verification of distances measured vs calculated, and the FEers have studiously ignored the post each and every time.

It’s almost like a conspiracy to avoid the questions or discussions that have difficult answers.....

As for Short wave radio, it would be possible to measure phase difference compared to distance, but you would not be able to measure what phase you were receiving as far as i remember.
Early hyperbolic navigation systems such as decca were able to to a certain extent, but you needed different widely spaced transmission bases to resolve the issue, but it was not perfect, and did not have a great range. Omega was a worldwide system used by the military with very long wavelengths to try to determine positions (mainly for submarines to get a fix before launching their missiles) which needed base stations around the world, with lots of investment and infrastructure.
Satellite based systems made them both obselete, along with Loran which was a time based measurement.......

However I am confident in my ships equipment to measure distances that we have travelled to within 2% accuracy, and this is accurate enough for a map basis. It wont be accepted because the FEers KNOW it will give a result they cannot agree with, ie the only way you can match the distances MEASURED, would be to have a globe earth, hence the rejection/ignoring/disbelief of any sort of system that tells how far apart 2 places on earth are!

[SiDawg]

Is there an authoritative source for shipping routes/distances that can be used? Or is it just a case of using GPS with the equipment on board an individual ship... i mean i guess there's not really a need to post that stuff back on to a database right? GPS is effectively better than such a database (i.e. trusted live data)

[Tontogary]

Is there an authoritative source for shipping routes/distances that can be used? Or is it just a case of using GPS with the equipment on board an individual ship... i mean i guess there's not really a need to post that stuff back on to a database right? GPS is effectively better than such a database (i.e. trusted live data)

There are tables that have been used for years, and in the tanker industry we used “BP distance tables” which showed the distances between port, the only problem being they are sea routes, so for instance the distance from london to Houston goes via the Gulf of Mexico.

However careful choice of the routes such as Perth to Lombok straits (Bali) or Durban to Mumbai, will give a direct route. They have been published and used for decades.
There are a number of on line calculators based on distance tables.
These days i use a computer based version, where in the past it was very quick to look up the distances as it was much quicker than calculating distances via traverse tables, or Mercator sailing, or great circle calculations using logs and log tables.........

[edby]

We haven’t discussed triangulation. This is the traditional method not supplanted until GPS. Very simple, just measure the angles between three points, then keeping adding triangles, until you cover as much of the country as you want.

The modern systematic use of triangulation networks stems from the work of the Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell, who in 1615 surveyed the distance from Alkmaar to Breda, approximately 72 miles (116 kilometres), using a chain of quadrangles containing 33 triangles in all. Snell underestimated the distance by 3.5%. The two towns were separated by one degree on the meridian, so from his measurement he was able to calculate a value for the circumference of the earth – a feat celebrated in the title of his book Eratosthenes Batavus (The Dutch Eratosthenes), published in 1617. Snell calculated how the planar formulae could be corrected to allow for the curvature of the earth. He also showed how to resection, or calculate, the position of a point inside a triangle using the angles cast between the vertices at the unknown point. These could be measured much more accurately than bearings of the vertices, which depended on a compass. This established the key idea of surveying a large-scale primary network of control points first, and then locating secondary subsidiary points later, within that primary network.

I remember when I first came across the British Ordnance Survey maps, where they had to address the problem of curvature. They solved it by pretending the British Isles, which are long and thin, were on a cylinder.

I keep asking about an FE system. Presumably this could includes triangulation and surveying?

[edit] This explains in more detail how Snell worked it all out. Fascinating, never knew any of this. Apparently navigators had been using the wrong number for a long time, until Snell improved the measurement.

The problem now is to create a Flat Earth map which replicates the observed angles. Any ideas?

[Max_Almond]

How about if you have people measure the angle and direction to the sun from each of these cities at the same moment?

Given that they're all looking at the same sun, you can then plot the positions of the cities using that data.

Even quicker, you can take the angle/direction information from a site such as suncalc.org, since this has always been verified as accurate.

Note: the data collecting would have to be done at a few different times, for thoroughness.

The reason I posted this is because it very clearly won't work (for a flat Earth; works fine on the globe).

See Sly Sparkane's excellent video for a demo:

https://www.metabunk.org/flat-earth-debunked-by-measuring-angles-to-the-sun.t9118/

[Tom Bishop]

How about if you have people measure the angle and direction to the sun from each of these cities at the same moment?

Given that they're all looking at the same sun, you can then plot the positions of the cities using that data.

Even quicker, you can take the angle/direction information from a site such as suncalc.org, since this has always been verified as accurate.

Note: the data collecting would have to be done at a few different times, for thoroughness.

The reason I posted this is because it very clearly won't work (for a flat Earth; works fine on the globe).

See Sly Sparkane's excellent video for a demo:

https://www.metabunk.org/flat-earth-debunked-by-measuring-angles-to-the-sun.t9118/

That link is assuming certain things about perspective and the infinite nature of perspective lines. "How it should operate on a Flat Earth" -- Hogwash. Those people either have not read Earth Not a Globe, or have issues with reading comprehension. The perspective lines are treated to intersect a finite distance away, not an infinite distance away.

Where did the Ancient Greeks ever demonstrate their idea that the perspective lines would recede for an infinite distance? No such thing was demonstrated. It is a hypothesis, and that is exposed in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham.

[inquisitive]

How about if you have people measure the angle and direction to the sun from each of these cities at the same moment?

Given that they're all looking at the same sun, you can then plot the positions of the cities using that data.

Even quicker, you can take the angle/direction information from a site such as suncalc.org, since this has always been verified as accurate.

Note: the data collecting would have to be done at a few different times, for thoroughness.

The reason I posted this is because it very clearly won't work (for a flat Earth; works fine on the globe).

See Sly Sparkane's excellent video for a demo:

https://www.metabunk.org/flat-earth-debunked-by-measuring-angles-to-the-sun.t9118/

That link is assuming certain things about perspective and the infinite nature of perspective lines. "How it should operate on a Flat Earth" -- Hogwash. Those people either have not read Earth Not a Globe, or have issues with reading comprehension. The perspective lines are treated to intersect a finite distance away, not an infinite distance away.

Where did the Ancient Greeks ever demonstrate their idea that the perspective lines would recede for an infinite distance? No such thing was demonstrated. It is a hypothesis, and that is exposed in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham.

Read and understand the meaning of perspective.

[9 out of 10 doctors agree]

Where did the Ancient Greeks ever demonstrate their idea that the perspective lines would recede for an infinite distance? No such thing was demonstrated. It is a hypothesis, and that is exposed in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham.

Well, we know that light travels as a wave. Using the wave equation one can derive the rules of optics. By those rules, the vanishing point is infinitely far away.

Please submit proof that overturns the universally accepted theory of optics.

[nickrulercreator]

How about if you have people measure the angle and direction to the sun from each of these cities at the same moment?

Given that they're all looking at the same sun, you can then plot the positions of the cities using that data.

Even quicker, you can take the angle/direction information from a site such as suncalc.org, since this has always been verified as accurate.

Note: the data collecting would have to be done at a few different times, for thoroughness.

The reason I posted this is because it very clearly won't work (for a flat Earth; works fine on the globe).

See Sly Sparkane's excellent video for a demo:

https://www.metabunk.org/flat-earth-debunked-by-measuring-angles-to-the-sun.t9118/

That link is assuming certain things about perspective and the infinite nature of perspective lines. "How it should operate on a Flat Earth" -- Hogwash. Those people either have not read Earth Not a Globe, or have issues with reading comprehension. The perspective lines are treated to intersect a finite distance away, not an infinite distance away.

That is not how perspective works.

[Max_Almond]

How about if you have people measure the angle and direction to the sun from each of these cities at the same moment?

Given that they're all looking at the same sun, you can then plot the positions of the cities using that data.

Even quicker, you can take the angle/direction information from a site such as suncalc.org, since this has always been verified as accurate.

Note: the data collecting would have to be done at a few different times, for thoroughness.

The reason I posted this is because it very clearly won't work (for a flat Earth; works fine on the globe).

See Sly Sparkane's excellent video for a demo:

https://www.metabunk.org/flat-earth-debunked-by-measuring-angles-to-the-sun.t9118/

That link is assuming certain things about perspective and the infinite nature of perspective lines. "How it should operate on a Flat Earth" -- Hogwash. Those people either have not read Earth Not a Globe, or have issues with reading comprehension. The perspective lines are treated to intersect a finite distance away, not an infinite distance away.

Where did the Ancient Greeks ever demonstrate their idea that the perspective lines would recede for an infinite distance? No such thing was demonstrated. It is a hypothesis, and that is exposed in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham.

That post had nothing to do with perspective. What are you talking about?

[SiDawg]

That link is assuming certain things about perspective and the infinite nature of perspective lines. "How it should operate on a Flat Earth" -- Hogwash. Those people either have not read Earth Not a Globe, or have issues with reading comprehension. The perspective lines are treated to intersect a finite distance away, not an infinite distance away.

We don't need to "assume" anything about perspective: we KNOW how perspective works. This is how it works https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9513.0

What element of that are you saying is not true? It shows you EXACTLY what a "perspective line" is and what it represents... yes mathematically they "kind of" intersect, but at an infinite distance... so for all intents and purposes, they never intersect.

[AATW]

Where did the Ancient Greeks ever demonstrate their idea that the perspective lines would recede for an infinite distance? No such thing was demonstrated. It is a hypothesis, and that is exposed in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham.

What experiment could you do to demonstrate that? How do you do experiments over infinite distances?
But you don't need an experiment. All you need to do is understand that light travels in straight lines from an object into your eye - something I believe you accept - and geometry does the rest



If light travels in straight lines from the bottom of the person on the right and the top of the person on the right into the eye of the person on the left then it will do so at different angles because the bottom and top of the person are in different positions - this could be your two rail tracks.
It's a triangle, two of the corners are the bottom and top of the person, the 3rd is your eye.
It's obvious that as the person gets further away the angle at your eye gets smaller. That is why objects get smaller as they move away.
When does that angle become 0? At infinity, clearly. Otherwise it's not a triangle any more and you can see from the above diagram that it has to be one.

Now, obviously in real life that doesn't mean you can see the top and bottom of the person distinctly at any distance, the limits of our vision and sometimes the atmosphere prevent that. But in theory given perfect vision and a perfectly transparent atmosphere you would be able to, that is WHY optical magnification "restores" things. Restore is a misleading word, it implies the object had vanished but it hadn't, it is just a limitation of your vision. If you were with someone who had better vision than you then there would be distance when you could no longer see the object but they could. That proves that perspective lines don't merge at a finite distance - the perspective lines can't have merged for you and not for them.

Rowbotham didn't expose anything, clearly on a flat earth you'd be able to see the sun at all times, you wouldn't get buildings occluded by the curve of the earth and so on so he rationalised and made up a new version of perspective to attempt to explain these things. He started with the presmise of a flat earth and rationalised how things like perspective could be changed to explain observations which clearly can't be explained on a flat earth. But no-one else accepted his ideas because they are wrong, there's a reason he has pretty much been forgotten by history and his ideas have not become mainstream. They just don't reflect reality.

[hexagon]

Unfortunately, this picture does not represent how they explain/understand perspective. Let's assume the right person is at the horizon, then they would draw the "perspective lines" just the other way round. The horizon would have risen to eye level so that the person on the right appears just as a point at the horizon. From that point one line would go straight into the eye of the person on the left, the other line to his feet. The angle between this two lines is the fixed angle of less than 1°.

For them your sketch is nothing more than an untested assumption, a kind of extrapolation of the situation if both people would be much closer together. No proof or illustration of reality. 

Now you can say, light travels in straight lines and this kind of perspective would need kind of light bending. Yes, that is true and there is no indication, no experiment that would give rise to this assumption. But of course no one can exclude (at least on the level the discussion is held here), that physics works in a way, that it only appears to be working in the same way on short and long distances. Of course, it's getting a bit hard to exclude this for distances of a few hundred miles if you accept that people could go to the moon, but if you also neglect this, it's getting difficult to argue.

It is a very different way on the interpretation of experiments and their range of validity. For a physicist an explanation is valid as long as it is based on some experiment and no observation is in contradiction to it. For them something is only valid, if there is an explicit proof. And this proof has to be as direct as possible. In principle it has to be done only using your senses, that's the strongest proof. Therefor, a sentence like "I looked out of the window and I observed that the earth is flat" has a much higher value than any sophisticated experiment.   

[Max_Almond]

I just posted an image of how the sun's light forms different shapes on the (flat) Earth's surface at different times of the year, and I suddenly stumbled on something awesome - and perhaps the solution to solving the conundrum of creating a flat earth map.

Here's the image:



Now let's see if I can put into words what I realised:

1. On the equinoxes, the area of sunlight forms a perfect straight line across the (flat) Earth's surface
2. This can be tested and measured, and is proven to be true
3. This map is a verified projection of the globe (equal to the Gleason AE Map)
4. Flat Earthers like to tell us it's not really an accurate map, it's just the best we've got, for now. But...

Are they then expecting us to believe that it's just a coincidence that the places that are in daylight happen to form a perfectly straight line across the surface of the Earth?

Every single place on Earth, verified and measured?

I'm not quite able to put it into the words yet - but do you see what I'm saying?

[Tom Bishop]

Now let's see if I can put into words what I realised:

1. On the equinoxes, the area of sunlight forms a perfect straight line across the (flat) Earth's surface
2. This can be tested and measured, and is proven to be true

Where is a listing of observations from across the world for that?

3. This map is a verified projection of the globe (equal to the Gleason AE Map)
4. Flat Earthers like to tell us it's not really an accurate map, it's just the best we've got, for now. But...

Are they then expecting us to believe that it's just a coincidence that the places that are in daylight happen to form a perfectly straight line across the surface of the Earth?

Every single place on Earth, verified and measured?

I'm not quite able to put it into the words yet - but do you see what I'm saying?

You are posting an assumption that every point on earth was measured rather than calculated or assumed.

[Max_Almond]

1. I could tell you, but you probably wouldn't understand
2. You are assuming that I'm posting an assumption. Mistakenly

[edby]

Where did the Ancient Greeks ever demonstrate their idea that the perspective lines would recede for an infinite distance? No such thing was demonstrated. It is a hypothesis, and that is exposed in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham.

(1) Perspective lines do not exist in reality, as everyone here now agrees. Parallel lines exist, to be sure, but they do not meet, being parallel.
(2) Aristarchus did further experiments to support Eratosthenes assumption about parallel rays of light. Note 'parallel rays of light' NOT perspective lines, as already said above.