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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #40 on: January 05, 2018, 11:36:14 PM »
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What's the simplest explanation; that my experience of existing upon a plane wherever I go and whatever I do is a massive illusion, that my eyes are constantly deceiving me and that I am actually looking at the enormous sphere of the earth spinning through space at tens of thousands of miles an hour, whirling in perpetual epicycles around the universe; or is the simplest explanation that my eyes are not playing tricks on me and that the earth is exactly as it appears?

The simplest explanation is that your local coordinate system is a plane because the Earth is so large that it seems mostly flat at any one point (its curvature is small on the human scale; a basketball is far more curved). Anyone who understands math could tell you this.

The simplest explanation is that the earth is flat because it appears flat.

Your "giant basketball" theory is a rationalization against empirical reality.

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What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter straight up at 7 miles per second, and that NASA can do the impossible on a daily basis, explore the solar system, and constantly wow the nation by landing a man on the moon and sending robots to mars; or is the simplest explanation that they really can't do all of that stuff?

Whoever wrote this paragraph clearly has not done any sort of engineering. Technology today is truly marvelous. It's hard to imagine how all of this stuff was developed. Even basic metalworking is an art itself and yet we use this in the quantities of millions of metric tons! Are you seriously going to say that because a hard drive stores billions of times more numbers than you can hold in your brain that they don't exist? Or that a microprocessor that can do computations millions of times faster than your brain costs only $2? Or that explosives exist? This is fallacious reasoning at its best, and obscene ignorance at its worst. The chemistry and the physics are all there. Small-scale experiments have been done. Rockets do work in space and they have been launched. Speeds of ballistic missiles have been measured. Ballistic missiles have been tested. They work. Also, the writer assumes that we send rockets straight up. This is not true, and anyone with such a poor understanding of space exploration should at least do some research before asserting that all of it is fake.

Pointing at the existence of other technologies does not make the creation of working space technologies the simplest explanation.

Statements such as "Technology today is truly marvelous" is really just appealing the magic of magicians without really providing substance.

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When I walk off the edge of a three foot drop off and go into free fall while observing the surface of the earth carefully the earth appears to accelerate up towards me. What's the simplest explanation; that there exists hypothetical undiscovered Graviton particles emanating from the earth which accelerates my body towards the surface through unexplained quantum effects; or is the simplest explanation that this mysterious and highly theoretical mechanism does not exist and the earth has just accelerated upwards towards me exactly as I've observed?

First, while we cannot unify GR and the Standard Model, that says nothing about our observed gravity. Second, the writer should read the other pages on the wiki and note that EVEN FE THEORY ASSUMES THE EXISTENCE OF GRAVITY. Such ignorance is unforgivable. This is not to mention that UA posits that space is not isotropic, that there is a preferred coordinate system, and that literally everything else we observe in terms of orbits is due to gravity, while the Earth is a special case. Do you expect me to believe this? The simplest explanation is that there is some force in nature that pulls me toward the Earth.

FE does not assume the existence of gravity. We know exactly what we are talking about. We invoke gravitation, not "gravity". Gravity is a theory of universal attraction of all mass by the mechanism of either bending space or puller particles (which no one has ever seen). Gravitation is a description of the apparent attraction of bodies.

"Every Saturday the neighborhood mailman gravitates towards the Asian buffet"

That is the meaning of 'gravitaiton', and the meaning behind celestial 'gravitation'; our description of the apparent attraction that happens in the heavens. We do not invoke Gravity. We have not seen any graviton particles.

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What's the simplest explanation; that when I look up and see the sun slowly move across the sky over the course of the day, that the globe earth is spinning at over a thousand miles per hour - faster than the speed of sound at the equator - despite me being unable able to feel this centripetal acceleration, or is the simplest explanation that the sun itself is just moving across the sky exactly as I have observed?

This is wrong on so many levels. First, when we speak of speeds, we need to speak of REFERENCES. 1000 mph with reference to WHAT? It is true that points on the equator move at speeds over a thousand miles per hour WITH REFERENCE TO THE EARTH'S AXIS. Points on the equator move at NEGLIGIBLE SPEED with respect to the AIR at the equator (which also moves with the ground). The writer clearly suffers from Dunning-Kruger, misjudging his knowledge in physics by including terms such as "centripetal acceleration" without even understanding on a basic level (uniform circular motion) what it means. Of course you feel the centripetal force. THAT IS GRAVITY. Clearly the author has never drawn a basic force diagram in his life. The magnitude of gravity minus the magnitude of the normal force of the ground on you (what you actually feel) gives you the magnitude of the centripetal acceleration you experience. You do feel like you weigh less at the equator because of the spinning Earth. This has been measured and agrees with even the uniform circular motion calculation.

You are wrong. Centripetal acceleration is an ACCELERATION, not uniform motion. Centripetal acceleration should manifest on any rotating body, yet on the equator it is possible for a single strand of hair to fall to the floor of a calm room undisturbed.

Look at the experiments of Tycho Bache and other famous astronomers.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1012/1012.3642.pdf

Quote
VIII. Tycho also argues that if the cannon experiment were performed at the
poles of the Earth, where the ground speed produced by the diurnal motion is
diminished, then the result of the experiment would be the same regardless of
toward which part of the horizon the cannon was fired. However, if the experiment
were performed near the equator, where the ground speed is greatest, the result
would be different when the ball is hurled East or West, than when hurled North or
South.

The form of the argument is thus: If Earth is moved with diurnal motion, a ball fired
from a cannon in a consistent manner would pass through a different trajectory when hurled
near the poles or toward the poles, than when hurled along the parallels nearer to the Equator,
or when hurled into the South or North. But this is contrary to experience. Therefore, Earth is
not moved by diurnal motion.

If Tycho is to be believed, experiments have shown this to be correct. Moreover,
if a ball is fired along a Meridian toward the pole (rather than toward the East or
West), diurnal motion will cause the ball to be carried off [i.e. the trajectory of the
ball is deflected], all things being equal: for on parallels nearer the poles, the ground
moves more slowly, whereas on parallels nearer the equator, the ground moves more
rapidly.7

The Copernican response to this argument is to deny it, or to concede it but claim
that the differences in trajectory fall below our ability to measure. But in fact the
argument is strong, and this response is not.


Riccioli concludes in the pdf with:

Quote
None of the above examples of what should happen if the Earth moves are in
accord with what we see. Therefore, the Earth does not move with diurnal, much less
annual, motion.

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Quote
What's the simplest explanation; that the sun, moon, and stars are enormous bodies of unimaginable mass, size, and distances which represent frontiers to a vast and infinite unknowable universe teeming with alien worlds, black holes, quasars and nebulae, and phenomena only conceivable in science fiction; or is the simplest explanation that the universe isn't so large or unknown and when we look up at the stars we are just looking at small points of light in the sky exactly they appear to be?

This is even more wrong than the last point. What's the simplest explanation, that lab-scale experiments are vastly different from the stars and that they get the energy from "magic"? Or that they are balls of gas with nuclear fusion? You can't have both. What's the simplest explanation? Basic optics makes stars look small or you can't do math?

What lab-scale experiments? Stellar Fusion has never been demonstrated in a lab. Stellar Fusion is a hypothesis. You are ignorant of the progress of science.

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Even if we can't agree that the Earth is round, we can surely agree that the writer of this article lacks a basic understanding of physics and yet believes that he is well-equipped to ridicule accepted science. So I propose that this article be rewritten to reflect at least the current understanding of the debate.

Actually, we tend to know far more about science and physics than most Round Earthers here.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 02:18:53 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline AATW

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #41 on: January 06, 2018, 12:17:46 AM »
The simplest explanation is that the earth is flat because it appears flat.
Your "giant basketball" theory is a rationalization against empirical reality.
The most natural assumption, if you knew nothing about science at all, is that the world is flat. Because from our tiny perspective relative to the size of earth you can't observe a curve.
But:



See how silly this "proof" is?

And why do you keep ignoring videos like this?



3DGeek did some excellent analysis of it showing clearly that the lens showed straight lines as straight so you can't attribute any curvature, which can clearly be seen in the video, to lens distortion. He also posted a companion video showing the balloon being launched. This isn't NASA, it's just some amateur. It was completely ignored by all the Flat Earthers.

You also ignored my post when I showed photographic proof that your ideas on perspective are nonsense in this thread

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6875.160

You'd be taken more seriously if you actually engaged with this sort of stuff.

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That is the meaning of 'gravitaiton', and the meaning behind celestial 'gravitation'; our description of the apparent attraction that happens in the heavens. We do not invoke Gravity. We have not seen any graviton particles.
And have you any experimental about the "dark energy" which drives universal acceleration?
Have you observed the dark object which apparently causes moon phases and eclipses?
What keeps the sun up in the sky if it's circling above us? Why doesn't it fall? Why doesn't it change size as it moves away from us?
How does GPS work?
How does the airline industry get places when there is no agreed flat earth map?
How does the Coriolis effect make weather patterns move in different directions in different parts of the world?
Why can we see different constellations in Europe and Australia which move in different directions?

Is there any flat earth theory which is coherent and can answer any of this?
You demand an absurdly high level of proof for anything which shows you to be wrong about a flat earth, a lot of the above you just say "unknown" and seem satisfied by that.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #42 on: January 06, 2018, 12:49:18 AM »
The simplest explanation is that the earth is flat because it appears flat.
Your "giant basketball" theory is a rationalization against empirical reality.
The most natural assumption, if you knew nothing about science at all, is that the world is flat. Because from our tiny perspective relative to the size of earth you can't observe a curve.
But:

https://i.redd.it/jg8trsfe0m101.png

See how silly this "proof" is?

Hmm. I don't recall saying the word "proof," or seeing that word in our Occam's Razor article. Recall that we are talking about the "simplest explanation". The simplest explanation when looking at a plane is that it is a plane.

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And why do you keep ignoring videos like this?


Because we don't?

https://wiki.tfes.org/High_Altitude_Photographs

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3DGeek did some excellent analysis of it showing clearly that the lens showed straight lines as straight so you can't attribute any curvature, which can clearly be seen in the video, to lens distortion. He also posted a companion video showing the balloon being launched. This isn't NASA, it's just some amateur. It was completely ignored by all the Flat Earthers.

How are amateur ballon videos ignored when we have had the above page on Amateur High Altitude Photographs in our Wiki for years?

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You also ignored my post when I showed photographic proof that your ideas on perspective are nonsense in this thread

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6875.160

That doesn't seem to have anything to do with this thread. The number of RE'ers to FE'ers here is about 100 to 1. I can't get back to everyone.

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You'd be taken more seriously if you actually engaged with this sort of stuff.

You would be taken more seriously if you did some searching. We have talked about the high altitude balloonist argument on this site and the other one many, many times.

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And have you any experimental about the "dark energy" which drives universal acceleration?
Have you observed the dark object which apparently causes moon phases and eclipses?
What keeps the sun up in the sky if it's circling above us? Why doesn't it fall? Why doesn't it change size as it moves away from us?
How does GPS work?
How does the airline industry get places when there is no agreed flat earth map?
How does the Coriolis effect make weather patterns move in different directions in different parts of the world?
Why can we see different constellations in Europe and Australia which move in different directions?

Is there any flat earth theory which is coherent and can answer any of this?
You demand an absurdly high level of proof for anything which shows you to be wrong about a flat earth, a lot of the above you just say "unknown" and seem satisfied by that.

Unknown is a satisfactory answer. Just making something up and making that the main theory until proven wrong like astronomers do is not a satisfactory method.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 03:21:11 AM by Tom Bishop »

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #43 on: January 06, 2018, 03:15:15 AM »
Still you do not understand measured distances and the angle of the sun, despite accepting timeanddate.com to be correct.

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #44 on: January 06, 2018, 01:35:47 PM »
Let me clarify the acceleration aspect because it is actually a non-obvious thing, and FE theorists have noted something that is worth understanding. Let's use a circle to represent the equator (we're taking a 2d slice of the Earth). Draw a person standing normal to the circle (as the RE model supposes). Because of the Earth's rotation, this person travels in a circle about the center of the circle (which is on Earth's axis). Let's also consider the forces on the person. There is a downward (toward the center) gravitational force. There is an upward normal force that the ground exerts on the person (electromagnetic in nature -- this is the same force you get by pushing a door). Now you'll notice that the gravitational force is slightly bigger than the normal force. The forces are unbalanced, but the person doesn't appear to be accelerating, right? Wrong. The person is accelerating toward the center as the force diagram would suggest; the magnitude of the acceleration is given by a = v2/r. Plugging in 1000 mph for v and 6400 km for r, we derive an acceleration value of 0.0312201563 m / s^2 (0.3% of the acceleration of gravity). This means that the normal force (which is what you read when you step on a scale and what your body feels as apparent weight, is your mass times 9.76877984 m / s^2. This difference is so miniscule that nobody will notice. So, yes, you are correct that there is centripetal acceleration. You don't "feel" the centripetal acceleration because it gets mixed in with the gravitational acceleration which is much bigger.

I'd recommend reviewing a physics textbook for the derivation, but it becomes obvious when you draw a force diagram. If you don't understand, feel free to ask any questions and please do try drawing a force diagram (draw a diagram of the situation and draw force vectors on the object you're interested in).

When I get Inkscape working, I'll draw mine and you can compare it with yours. Perhaps this will resolve the physics question. Just because physics is hard to understand does not mean that it is not the most simple solution. All of this physics is just an application of Newton's 3 laws and Newton's law of gravitation (with g already found for us).

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #45 on: January 06, 2018, 01:47:49 PM »
I'd like to also include a bit of mathematical intuition for the seeming flatness of the Earth. Imagine you are standing on a large perfect sphere which is the Earth. It looks like the Earth's surface is flat because you can draw very straight lines on the surface. The Christoffel symbols of the second kind for spherical coordinates (note: this is the same coordinate system we use with latitude and longitude; the radius is fixed) are given at http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalCoordinates.html. As we all know, the Christoffel symbols vanish (become 0) in Euclidean space (that is, a coordinate system in which we can draw straight lines). Now consider movement on a very large circle (r=6400 km). Even if you move a seemingly long distance on your scale (say 10 km), you will move a very small angle. Extrapolating that to spherical coordinates, we can conclude that both theta and phi are very small in the local (that is, near you) coordinate system. So in the local slice of the spherical coordinates, you can see that all of the Christoffel symbols are incredibly small because the radius is large and the angular displacements small. This means that your local coordinate system is very similar to a Euclidean space and therefore the Earth seems flat.

TLDR: If you take a small section of a very large sphere, it looks flat. I wish I had a nice GIF for this, but I can't find one.


I'd also like to refute the idea that saying that "technology is marvelous" is fallacious. Take a look around you. Now pick even the simple things like plastic water bottles and try to understand how the plastic is produced by browsing Wikipedia. You can't. Specialization is truly immense, and I'm definitely not specialized enough to tell you even the basics of rocket science. You and I are not scientifically qualified to disparage the amazing work of places like NASA's JPL or even the amateurs who make it tens of km into the air. I study computer science, not chemical engineering or rocket science. But the fact remains that verifiable small-scale experiments have been conducted that prove that rocket technology works and that the science is sound. Specific impulses of various compositions of rocket fuel have been verified. Plugging that stuff into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation (first you find the exhaust velocity), you see that it takes a stupidly large, but doable, amount of rocket fuel to get you into space. The math is all there. Unless you find a practical reason (such as there isn't that much rocket fuel in the world) that rockets can't work, the burden of proof is on you to show that rockets are bunk because they do work on paper.


Also you seem to have a misconception about gravity. You differentiate between gravity and gravitation, but you'll note that it's called Newton's law of gravitation and not of gravity. They're one and the same. While General Relativity may not be the same, Newton's law of gravitation describes exactly what you call "gravitation", an observed attractive force between masses. Newton offers no explanation for the natural origins of such a force in terms of other forces or phenomena. It just exists. A problem in modern physics is describing the physical origins of gravity within the framework of the Standard Model, as we have done with the EM force. Unifying GR and Standard Model is where the graviton comes in, and the truth is the theory is incomplete and hard to understand there. Nobody knows.

Saying that stellar fusion has never been demonstrated in a lab implies an ignorance of nuclear physics. Applying well-known laws such as Newton's gravitation to stars and their observed masses allows us to calculate the temperatures and pressures in the cores of the stars. We can replicate and even contain such temperatures and pressures to demonstrate the fusion reactions. What we cannot do is extract enough useful energy from the processes to keep confinement (extremely energy-intensive). An example is the fusor. You can literally build a machine in your home that performs nuclear fusion, but consumes far more energy than you put in (due to conduction of the inner wire cage).

Lawson estimated the D-D thermonuclear reaction to require 13 keV of energy per reaction to initiate. This corresponds to a temperature of approximately 150 million K. You may think such temperatures are impossible to contain, but remember that all temperature is just average kinetic energy, and you can accelerate particles with an electric field. So it turns out that shooting the deuterium ions through a potential of 13kV (13000 V), we can achieve fusion temperature. You can take any TV flyback transformer to achieve a voltage of about 60-100 kV (although I only got about 30 kV for my musical plasma speaker). If you build the fusor correctly, you can demonstrate fusion in your own home.

Of course, if you don't understand/believe any of the garbage I just spouted, you could always observe a thermonuclear test. How do you think those people understood how to do nuclear fusion? Probably by modeling the stars first.

Now here's an interesting fact for you Round Earthers: you can make an ion beam with a temperature of 200+ million K in your home! That's over ten times hotter than the core of the Sun! How cool is that?
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 02:13:29 PM by JohnAdams1145 »

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #46 on: January 06, 2018, 07:19:55 PM »
You are wrong. Centripetal acceleration is an ACCELERATION, not uniform motion. Centripetal acceleration should manifest on any rotating body, yet on the equator it is possible for a single strand of hair to fall to the floor of a calm room undisturbed.
If you are on a playground merry-go-round that is spinning one revolution PER DAY, you can drop a strand of hair and it will fall to the floor without any noticeable centripetal acceleration.

But, that's just the same rotational velocity. Round earth theory would say that the centripetal acceleration at the equator is approximate (1000 mph)^2 / 3959 miles, or about 0.03 m/s^2. To get the same centripetal acceleration on the merry-go-round, you'd have to be traveling at approximately about half a mile per hour. With a radius of about 6 feet, that means you'd be going at a whopping 3/4 RPM. Do you think you would notice if you dropped a hair on such a merry-go-round and it drifted a few millimeters in the fraction of a second it takes to fall the floor?

This is a tiny effect. It's measurable, and that's why you have to correct weight for latitude, but it's impossible to detect without sensitive measurement equipment.

Quote
Look at the experiments of Tycho Bache and other famous astronomers.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1012/1012.3642.pdf

Quote
VIII. Tycho also argues that if the cannon experiment were performed at the
poles of the Earth, where the ground speed produced by the diurnal motion is
diminished, then the result of the experiment would be the same regardless of
toward which part of the horizon the cannon was fired. However, if the experiment
were performed near the equator, where the ground speed is greatest, the result
would be different when the ball is hurled East or West, than when hurled North or
South.

The form of the argument is thus: If Earth is moved with diurnal motion, a ball fired
from a cannon in a consistent manner would pass through a different trajectory when hurled
near the poles or toward the poles, than when hurled along the parallels nearer to the Equator,
or when hurled into the South or North. But this is contrary to experience. Therefore, Earth is
not moved by diurnal motion.

If Tycho is to be believed, experiments have shown this to be correct. Moreover,
if a ball is fired along a Meridian toward the pole (rather than toward the East or
West), diurnal motion will cause the ball to be carried off [i.e. the trajectory of the
ball is deflected], all things being equal: for on parallels nearer the poles, the ground
moves more slowly, whereas on parallels nearer the equator, the ground moves more
rapidly.7

The Copernican response to this argument is to deny it, or to concede it but claim
that the differences in trajectory fall below our ability to measure. But in fact the
argument is strong, and this response is not.


Riccioli concludes in the pdf with:

Quote
None of the above examples of what should happen if the Earth moves are in
accord with what we see. Therefore, the Earth does not move with diurnal, much less
annual, motion.


When Riccioli wrote this in the 17th century, cannons were much less capable than they are now. It is now demonstrable that such effects DO occur:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ballistics#Coriolis_drift
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C3%B6tv%C3%B6s_effect


JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #47 on: January 07, 2018, 01:33:02 AM »
You are wrong. Centripetal acceleration is an ACCELERATION, not uniform motion. Centripetal acceleration should manifest on any rotating body, yet on the equator it is possible for a single strand of hair to fall to the floor of a calm room undisturbed.

Wait wait wait. I'm mistaken in my explanation. I assumed that Tom Bishop was quibbling over my terminology and that he and I were in agreement that there is centripetal acceleration at the equator. Now that douglips has explained a bit more (and quoted the relevant portion, which I've reproduced above) I realize that Tom, you're even more wrong than I thought! First of all, let me define acceleration for you, since you clearly confused that with my invocation of "uniform circular motion"; I meant that a naive calculation assuming uniform circular motion (which isn't exactly true) would give you a rather accurate figure for the weight difference you feel at the equator, but you didn't get any of that I suppose. Acceleration is the time derivative of velocity. Remember that. Acceleration is the time derivative of velocity. They cannot be compared and cannot be equated. When I referred to uniform circular motion, that did not exclude the possibility of acceleration; in fact, uniform circular motion requires acceleration.

Now that I've noticed the last part of your sentence "yet on the equator it is possible for a single strand of hair to fall to the floor of a calm room undisturbed" I realize that you need to take a course on physics. Like right now. You should do an AP Physics 1 (introductory algebra-based mechanics) practice test (informally, it'll take 5 minutes of your time) https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/ap/sample-questions-ap-physics-1-and-ap-physics-2-exams.pdf.

Here's some questions on circular motion:
https://d3jc3ahdjad7x7.cloudfront.net/osIWIcvHhkuYq77iu3le1m5XduN1nEn2WnUGW3B9HG1Js4CW.pdf

I strongly encourage you to roughly sketch out some and completely do at least 5-10 of them and compute your score.
Now that you've completed those tests (and assessed your knowledge of at least Newton's laws and their application), I'll explain. I meant in all of my posts that you might be able to measure the centripetal acceleration using a sensitive scale and the known masses of the Earth and the object. Never would your experimental setup measure ANYTHING because the centripetal acceleration is NORMAL to the surface (what the layperson calls "vertical"). The spinning of the Earth only serves to make us feel a VERY SLIGHT BIT LIGHTER. In the case of circular motion, the centripetal acceleration is toward the center, not toward the side. You are confusing velocity with acceleration.

Now if you're wondering what the REAL centripetal acceleration is, refer to my post quoted below. douglips, you're wrong in the sense that your merry-go-round analogy doesn't work in this case. It's not that the hair dropped on the equator would imperceptibly shift a "few millimeters"; it wouldn't shift at all. The acceleration is in the wrong direction. A more appropriate analogy is hanging on horizontally to the edge of the slow merry-go-round (supported of course) and seeing if you stretch any bit (hint: it won't be a lot).
Let me clarify the acceleration aspect because it is actually a non-obvious thing, and FE theorists have noted something that is worth understanding. Let's use a circle to represent the equator (we're taking a 2d slice of the Earth). Draw a person standing normal to the circle (as the RE model supposes). Because of the Earth's rotation, this person travels in a circle about the center of the circle (which is on Earth's axis). Let's also consider the forces on the person. There is a downward (toward the center) gravitational force. There is an upward normal force that the ground exerts on the person (electromagnetic in nature -- this is the same force you get by pushing a door). Now you'll notice that the gravitational force is slightly bigger than the normal force. The forces are unbalanced, but the person doesn't appear to be accelerating, right? Wrong. The person is accelerating toward the center as the force diagram would suggest; the magnitude of the acceleration is given by a = v2/r. Plugging in 1000 mph for v and 6400 km for r, we derive an acceleration value of 0.0312201563 m / s^2 (0.3% of the acceleration of gravity). This means that the normal force (which is what you read when you step on a scale and what your body feels as apparent weight, is your mass times 9.76877984 m / s^2. This difference is so miniscule that nobody will notice. So, yes, you are correct that there is centripetal acceleration. You don't "feel" the centripetal acceleration because it gets mixed in with the gravitational acceleration which is much bigger.

I'd recommend reviewing a physics textbook for the derivation, but it becomes obvious when you draw a force diagram. If you don't understand, feel free to ask any questions and please do try drawing a force diagram (draw a diagram of the situation and draw force vectors on the object you're interested in).

When I get Inkscape working, I'll draw mine and you can compare it with yours. Perhaps this will resolve the physics question. Just because physics is hard to understand does not mean that it is not the most simple solution. All of this physics is just an application of Newton's 3 laws and Newton's law of gravitation (with g already found for us).

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Offline AATW

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #48 on: January 07, 2018, 08:44:09 AM »
Hmm. I don't recall saying the word "proof," or seeing that word in our Occam's Razor article. Recall that we are talking about the "simplest explanation". The simplest explanation when looking at a plane is that it is a plane.
There are two explanations for seeing a flat horizon. One is that the earth is indeed flat. The other is it isn't but any a curve cannot be perceived at ground level because of the scale.
Either is equally possible. The fact you can't see a curve from an airplane which greatly extends the distance you can see and your field of view illustrates that we could be on a much smaller globe and still not be able to perceive a curve. To work out which of the two possibilities is correct one must look at other evidence.
The think about Occam's razor is that it is just a guiding principle, it's not a hard fact which should be blindly adhered to.
And there is no objective measure of how "simple" an idea is anyway.
Quote
Because we don't?
https://wiki.tfes.org/High_Altitude_Photographs
Actually, that isn't a bad answer. Although it's strange, then, that I have seen a load of YouTube videos and posts on here claiming their is no curve. I've never seen a Flat Earther jump in and correct them to say "actually, there is a curve and this is why".
I'm interested about your model of the sun but maybe I'll start another thread about that.

Quote
That doesn't seem to have anything to do with this thread. The number of RE'ers to FE'ers here is about 100 to 1. I can't get back to everyone.
This board is not that busy though. Your answer to sunset and clouds lit from underneath is "perspective". You go on about empirical evidence, I provided some showing that you cannot explain clouds lit from below that way, that is not how perspective or shadows work. If you are serious about developing a coherent flat earth theory then you should be engaging with this sort of stuff. The perception is that you and other flat earthers just run away from the debate when are unable to answer the questions or are shown to be wrong. The fact you've ignored all my other questions rather reinforces that although I accept those questions are not related to this thread.

To respond more directly to the Occam's Razor Wiki entry:
Your eyes aren't "playing tricks on you", they are simply limited in resolution.
The NASA one is just silly. I could equally say is it simpler to think that the airline industry can build a machine made of metal weighing 1,265,000 pounds (A380) and then get it to fly thousands of miles carrying people in comfort and with machines in each seat where people can access thousands of hours of entertainment or is the simplest explanation that they really can't do all of that stuff? I honestly don't know how the A380 gets off the ground. I understand about lift but those things are MASSIVE and it always amazes me they fly. But they do. I've been on one. Just because you don't understand rocket science, doesn't make it impossible.
The frame of reference one is silly. If you step off a building from your point of view it looks like the ground accelerates towards you. To literally everyone else watching they see you accelerating towards the ground. And it's a bit rich sneering at gravitons when you look at all the things Flat Earth can't explain - what powers UA, 'Dark Energy'. That has been observed, has it?
The sun one is silly too. Again, frames of reference. And 1,000 seems like a lot but...oh, other people have done the maths around that, the force of centripedal acceleration is there but not enough so's you'd notice.
And the universe one...I'd say the simplest explanation is that all the astronomers in the world over the last few hundred years since telescopes got good are probably right. The scale of the universe may blow your mind, it blows mine too. But that is what our observations tell us.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #49 on: January 07, 2018, 09:57:34 PM »

Now if you're wondering what the REAL centripetal acceleration is, refer to my post quoted below. douglips, you're wrong in the sense that your merry-go-round analogy doesn't work in this case. It's not that the hair dropped on the equator would imperceptibly shift a "few millimeters"; it wouldn't shift at all. The acceleration is in the wrong direction. A more appropriate analogy is hanging on horizontally to the edge of the slow merry-go-round (supported of course) and seeing if you stretch any bit (hint: it won't be a lot).

Yes, the exact force involved is different, but I was trying to point out that the magnitude of the forces involved is crazy small. Anywhere on earth but the equator you'll have a centrifugal component that will change where an object lands if you drop it, and the amount it changes is very very tiny, and the total gravity + centrifugal vector will be felt as vertical anyway.

Anywhere on earth but the poles you'll have a coriolis effect from dropping the object, and the amount it changes the trajectory is very very tiny.

This appeal to tiny forces that they imagine must be very huge and obvious and therefore disprove round earth is a common hallmark of flat earth discussions. I have recently seen it in Rowbotham's work where he claims that if the moon were able to influence the water on earth at all (i.e. tides) that therefore all the water should be sucked up to the moon.

The false dichotomy of "if a force exists it must be terribly strong and do something we don't observe, therefore the force doesn't exist" is all over this forum.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #50 on: January 09, 2018, 01:38:35 AM »
TLDR: If you take a small section of a very large sphere, it looks flat. I wish I had a nice GIF for this, but I can't find one.

Sure. But the simplest explanation when looking at a plane is that you are looking at a plane.

Quote
I'd also like to refute the idea that saying that "technology is marvelous" is fallacious. Take a look around you. Now pick even the simple things like plastic water bottles and try to understand how the plastic is produced by browsing Wikipedia. You can't. Specialization is truly immense, and I'm definitely not specialized enough to tell you even the basics of rocket science. You and I are not scientifically qualified to disparage the amazing work of places like NASA's JPL or even the amateurs who make it tens of km into the air. I study computer science, not chemical engineering or rocket science. But the fact remains that verifiable small-scale experiments have been conducted that prove that rocket technology works and that the science is sound. Specific impulses of various compositions of rocket fuel have been verified. Plugging that stuff into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation (first you find the exhaust velocity), you see that it takes a stupidly large, but doable, amount of rocket fuel to get you into space. The math is all there. Unless you find a practical reason (such as there isn't that much rocket fuel in the world) that rockets can't work, the burden of proof is on you to show that rockets are bunk because they do work on paper.

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore all of Moller International's claims about its flying car are true.

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore long range bomb detectors are possible.

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore it is possible to find underground oil deposits with gravimeters

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore EMF detectors detect the presence of ghosts.


Quote
Also you seem to have a misconception about gravity. You differentiate between gravity and gravitation, but you'll note that it's called Newton's law of gravitation and not of gravity. They're one and the same. While General Relativity may not be the same, Newton's law of gravitation describes exactly what you call "gravitation", an observed attractive force between masses. Newton offers no explanation for the natural origins of such a force in terms of other forces or phenomena. It just exists. A problem in modern physics is describing the physical origins of gravity within the framework of the Standard Model, as we have done with the EM force. Unifying GR and Standard Model is where the graviton comes in, and the truth is the theory is incomplete and hard to understand there. Nobody knows.

Incorrect. Gravitation just means a general apparent attraction. Gravity is a mechanism involving the universal attraction by mass.

No one says "On Saturday nights the the local postman is attracted to the gravity of the Asian buffet". The correct term is that "On Saturday nights the local postman gravitates towards the Asian buffet".

It's called "Newton's law of Universal Gravitation" because all Gravity is Gravitation, but not all Gravitation is Gravity (see the postman example above). "Gravitation" is perfectly acceptable to use when referencing Gravity. Gravitate is an action word.

Quote
Saying that stellar fusion has never been demonstrated in a lab implies an ignorance of nuclear physics. Applying well-known laws such as Newton's gravitation to stars and their observed masses allows us to calculate the temperatures and pressures in the cores of the stars. We can replicate and even contain such temperatures and pressures to demonstrate the fusion reactions. What we cannot do is extract enough useful energy from the processes to keep confinement (extremely energy-intensive). An example is the fusor. You can literally build a machine in your home that performs nuclear fusion, but consumes far more energy than you put in (due to conduction of the inner wire cage).

Lawson estimated the D-D thermonuclear reaction to require 13 keV of energy per reaction to initiate. This corresponds to a temperature of approximately 150 million K. You may think such temperatures are impossible to contain, but remember that all temperature is just average kinetic energy, and you can accelerate particles with an electric field. So it turns out that shooting the deuterium ions through a potential of 13kV (13000 V), we can achieve fusion temperature. You can take any TV flyback transformer to achieve a voltage of about 60-100 kV (although I only got about 30 kV for my musical plasma speaker). If you build the fusor correctly, you can demonstrate fusion in your own home.

The Stellar Fusion reaction has never been replicated. "Achieving fusion temperature" is not the same as a Stellar Fusion reaction.

Quote
Of course, if you don't understand/believe any of the garbage I just spouted, you could always observe a thermonuclear test. How do you think those people understood how to do nuclear fusion? Probably by modeling the stars first.

Nuclear Fusion is not the same physical process as Stellar Fusion.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 02:29:34 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline xenotolerance

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #51 on: January 09, 2018, 03:50:28 AM »
TLDR: If you take a small section of a very large sphere, it looks flat. I wish I had a nice GIF for this, but I can't find one.

Sure. But the simplest explanation when looking at a plane is that you are looking at a plane.

Think more about what you are looking at. Are you looking at an airplane fly to the horizon? Looking at the curvature in power lines on Lake Pontchartrain? Looking at clouds with the shadows of mountains cast on them? The simplest explanation for these includes reference to the shape of the Earth, and it is not flat.

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #52 on: January 09, 2018, 07:18:01 AM »
TLDR: If you take a small section of a very large sphere, it looks flat. I wish I had a nice GIF for this, but I can't find one.

Sure. But the simplest explanation when looking at a plane is that you are looking at a plane.

Quote
I'd also like to refute the idea that saying that "technology is marvelous" is fallacious. Take a look around you. Now pick even the simple things like plastic water bottles and try to understand how the plastic is produced by browsing Wikipedia. You can't. Specialization is truly immense, and I'm definitely not specialized enough to tell you even the basics of rocket science. You and I are not scientifically qualified to disparage the amazing work of places like NASA's JPL or even the amateurs who make it tens of km into the air. I study computer science, not chemical engineering or rocket science. But the fact remains that verifiable small-scale experiments have been conducted that prove that rocket technology works and that the science is sound. Specific impulses of various compositions of rocket fuel have been verified. Plugging that stuff into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation (first you find the exhaust velocity), you see that it takes a stupidly large, but doable, amount of rocket fuel to get you into space. The math is all there. Unless you find a practical reason (such as there isn't that much rocket fuel in the world) that rockets can't work, the burden of proof is on you to show that rockets are bunk because they do work on paper.

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore all of Moller International's claims about its flying car are true.

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore long range bomb detectors are possible.

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore it is possible to find underground oil deposits with gravimeters

"Technology is Marvelous" therefore EMF detectors detect the presence of ghosts.


Quote
Also you seem to have a misconception about gravity. You differentiate between gravity and gravitation, but you'll note that it's called Newton's law of gravitation and not of gravity. They're one and the same. While General Relativity may not be the same, Newton's law of gravitation describes exactly what you call "gravitation", an observed attractive force between masses. Newton offers no explanation for the natural origins of such a force in terms of other forces or phenomena. It just exists. A problem in modern physics is describing the physical origins of gravity within the framework of the Standard Model, as we have done with the EM force. Unifying GR and Standard Model is where the graviton comes in, and the truth is the theory is incomplete and hard to understand there. Nobody knows.

Incorrect. Gravitation just means a general apparent attraction. Gravity is a mechanism involving the universal attraction by mass.

No one says "On Saturday nights the the local postman is attracted to the gravity of the Asian buffet". The correct term is that "On Saturday nights the local postman gravitates towards the Asian buffet".

It's called "Newton's law of Universal Gravitation" because all Gravity is Gravitation, but not all Gravitation is Gravity (see the postman example above). "Gravitation" is perfectly acceptable to use when referencing Gravity. Gravitate is an action word.

Quote
Saying that stellar fusion has never been demonstrated in a lab implies an ignorance of nuclear physics. Applying well-known laws such as Newton's gravitation to stars and their observed masses allows us to calculate the temperatures and pressures in the cores of the stars. We can replicate and even contain such temperatures and pressures to demonstrate the fusion reactions. What we cannot do is extract enough useful energy from the processes to keep confinement (extremely energy-intensive). An example is the fusor. You can literally build a machine in your home that performs nuclear fusion, but consumes far more energy than you put in (due to conduction of the inner wire cage).

Lawson estimated the D-D thermonuclear reaction to require 13 keV of energy per reaction to initiate. This corresponds to a temperature of approximately 150 million K. You may think such temperatures are impossible to contain, but remember that all temperature is just average kinetic energy, and you can accelerate particles with an electric field. So it turns out that shooting the deuterium ions through a potential of 13kV (13000 V), we can achieve fusion temperature. You can take any TV flyback transformer to achieve a voltage of about 60-100 kV (although I only got about 30 kV for my musical plasma speaker). If you build the fusor correctly, you can demonstrate fusion in your own home.

The Stellar Fusion reaction has never been replicated. "Achieving fusion temperature" is not the same as a Stellar Fusion reaction.

Quote
Of course, if you don't understand/believe any of the garbage I just spouted, you could always observe a thermonuclear test. How do you think those people understood how to do nuclear fusion? Probably by modeling the stars first.

Nuclear Fusion is not the same physical process as Stellar Fusion.

Tom, you're wrong about gravity and gravitation in the view of accepted science, not the science you preach. That was what I was getting to. In normal physics, gravity = gravitation. I'm sorry if that bothers you, but that's the state of the science. Of course, there's the "gravitation" that's been adapted to non-scientific meaning (that is, literary, meaning), but if you refer to gravitation in a physics context, you are referring to gravity. See the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity which clearly states in the first sentence that they are synonyms. You are making a false distinction that does not exist in science, and I'd advise you learn what you're talking about. Yes, words can have other meanings, but that does not mean that the scientific meaning of gravitation is any different than that of gravity. I certainly don't appreciate your intellectual dishonesty in this matter by citing the non-scientific meaning of "gravitate" as a verb to try to confuse people.

It's a fallacy to say that "I don't understand how a rocket goes at 7 mi/s" and so therefore it doesn't work. We could say the same thing about airplanes or gunpowder or a laptop. I never said that technology being marvelous was enough to justify any claim, but I do mean to say that your argument that just because something can do rather incredible things that it must be fake is a load of garbage. Clearly, you need to take a logic course to understand the difference between a statement and its converse. You can't just dismiss a technology because it appears to do things that are incredible. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT JUST BECAUSE TECHNOLOGY IS COMPLICATED THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, LIKE FLYING CARS. THAT IS THE CONVERSE. I would assume you knew this already, but either you are trying to muddy the waters or you just don't understand how logic works. I will include a quote that explains better.

Quote
The NASA one is just silly. I could equally say is it simpler to think that the airline industry can build a machine made of metal weighing 1,265,000 pounds (A380) and then get it to fly thousands of miles carrying people in comfort and with machines in each seat where people can access thousands of hours of entertainment or is the simplest explanation that they really can't do all of that stuff? I honestly don't know how the A380 gets off the ground. I understand about lift but those things are MASSIVE and it always amazes me they fly. But they do. I've been on one. Just because you don't understand rocket science, doesn't make it impossible

Quote
Nuclear Fusion is not the same physical process as Stellar Fusion.
You're so utterly wrong. You can't just make up distinctions as you please. You really need to justify these with evidence (other than your FE theory, this means EXPERIMENTS and OBSERVATIONS -- sound familiar?). It is literally the same process. Unless you would like to DESCRIBE (not just name as stellar fusion, whatever that means) a different process by which stars get their energy, I'd suggest you not enter this realm. Because I'd rather take a small leap of faith to say that I'm looking at a small section of a sphere so it looks flat than to take the incredible leap of faith that the flatness really is flat but that stars get their energy from a magical source. Do you see the problem here? Of course, if something looks flat, the simplest explanation is that it is flat; but this explanation contradicts so many other things that it is no longer the simplest. Why do I have to explain this basic logic to you?

Quote
"Achieving fusion temperature" is not the same as a Stellar Fusion reaction.
Clearly you know little about nuclear physics, so I'd advise you stay out of it. Nuclear fusion has happened on Earth. It's not just achieving fusion temperature. We have observed the products of such reactions. Particle accelerators can possibly fuse together the hydrogen-1 atoms in a similar fashion to how it's done in stars, and even notwithstanding that, we can measure the neutrino radiation coming out to check that it is the proper fusion reaction. This is how such reactions are verified. We also know that the Sun contains helium and hydrogen through its spectrum and also that stellar nucleosynthesis is the primary means for getting heavier elements. Stop trying to pretend to know about this.

EDIT: Besides, if you assert that humans cannot produce fusion no matter how hard we try, then how in the world could a 32 mile wide Sun do it? We achieve temperatures and pressures far higher than a 32 mile wide Sun could (especially with weak gravitation)
« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 04:02:41 PM by JohnAdams1145 »

totallackey

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #53 on: January 09, 2018, 03:22:50 PM »
Of course, if you don't understand/believe any of the garbage I just spouted, you could always observe a thermonuclear test. How do you think those people understood how to do nuclear fusion? Probably by modeling the stars first.
This is a crock of crap.

People do not understand how to do fusion as fusion is unproved.

There is no conclusive evidence for fusion taking place anywhere, certainly not in a controlled, natural process, and certainly not in a controlled, man-made process.

Any claim of a "fusion," bomb is just laughable.

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Offline xenotolerance

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #54 on: January 09, 2018, 03:37:53 PM »
Yo

Fusion is totally a thing. Stars do it, hydrogen bombs do it. What are you on about?

In nuclear physics, nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei come close enough to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles (neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as the release of large amounts of energy. This difference in mass arises due to the difference in atomic "binding energy" between the atomic nuclei before and after the reaction. Fusion is the process that powers active or "main sequence" stars, or other high magnitude stars.

A fusion process that produces a nucleus lighter than iron-56 or nickel-62 will generally yield a net energy release. These elements have the smallest mass per nucleon and the largest binding energy per nucleon, respectively. Fusion of light elements toward these releases energy (an exothermic process), while a fusion producing nuclei heavier than these elements will result in energy retained by the resulting nucleons, and the resulting reaction is endothermic. The opposite is true for the reverse process, nuclear fission. This means that the lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, are in general more fusible; while the heavier elements, such as uranium and plutonium, are more fissionable. The extreme astrophysical event of a supernova can produce enough energy to fuse nuclei into elements heavier than iron.

In 1920, Arthur Eddington suggested hydrogen-helium fusion could be the primary source of stellar energy. Quantum tunneling was discovered by Friedrich Hund in 1929, and shortly afterwards Robert Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans used the measured masses of light elements to show that large amounts of energy could be released by fusing small nuclei. Building on the early experiments in nuclear transmutation by Ernest Rutherford, laboratory fusion of hydrogen isotopes was accomplished by Mark Oliphant in 1932. In the remainder of that decade, the theory of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars were worked out by Hans Bethe. Research into fusion for military purposes began in the early 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project. Fusion was accomplished in 1951 with the Greenhouse Item nuclear test. Nuclear fusion on a large scale in an explosion was first carried out on November 1, 1952, in the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb test.

Research into developing controlled thermonuclear fusion for civil purposes began in earnest in the 1950s, and it continues to this day.

JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #55 on: January 09, 2018, 04:04:43 PM »
Of course, if you don't understand/believe any of the garbage I just spouted, you could always observe a thermonuclear test. How do you think those people understood how to do nuclear fusion? Probably by modeling the stars first.
This is a crock of crap.

People do not understand how to do fusion as fusion is unproved.

There is no conclusive evidence for fusion taking place anywhere, certainly not in a controlled, natural process, and certainly not in a controlled, man-made process.

Any claim of a "fusion," bomb is just laughable.

You're so wrong that it stretches credulity. Maybe you've never done something like this in your life, but a 15-year-old has built a homemade inertial electrostatic confinement fusor that produces a measurable neutron flux by performing the D-D reaction. People have literally built these things in their houses and tested them. So blindly asserting "there is no conclusive evidence" just displays a ton of ignorance and intellectual dishonesty -- you clearly know nothing about the developments in the field and are just asserting this because you think you can get away with it. Again, your argument comes down to you don't understand the concept and it seems hard to do, and therefore it is impossible.

But if you assert that nuclear fusion is impossible in all cases, you are supporting the RE argument. Why? Well look at Occam's Razor. If fusion doesn't power the Sun, then you have to conjure up some magic that does. Now which is more plausible, the Earth is round and only looks flat because it is large, or the Earth is flat, but the Sun has a magical source of energy that no FE modeler has ever described and that thermonuclear weapons are fake, amateur fusors are fake, etc?
« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 04:06:18 PM by JohnAdams1145 »

totallackey

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #56 on: January 09, 2018, 05:46:49 PM »
tl:dr additional "NO U!"
Additional tl:dr malarkey falling short of conclusive evidence.
Thanks for admitting fusion has not been achieved by man, let alone a completely natural process!

On the other hand, an easily verifiable, totally replicated process has been witnessed in nature and the lab!

Electromagnetism.


JohnAdams1145

Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #57 on: January 09, 2018, 10:26:31 PM »
totallackey, thank you very much for fabricating a quote in my post. Never did I say anything about how the evidence wasn't conclusive. You clearly don't even understand what electromagnetism is, and think that it can explain the Sun's energy. I have said many times over that nuclear fusion has been achieved by man. What hasn't been achieved is enough efficiency for the generated energy to be fed back into the reactor to sustain confinement and heating.

Clearly, you know close to nothing about basic physics if you think electromagnetism can explain the amount of energy in the Sun. What's the mechanism for the slow release of the energy? The mechanism for storage? Surely, you won't make yourself look like a fool by saying it is the Coulomb forces that do that.

It is people like you who smugly and sardonically debate (thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect) physics like you know it all when you clearly know close to nothing that make RE people question the intelligence of the FE community. If you want to have a scientific debate, please put a bit more content with physical reasoning than some junk YouTube video full of misconceptions. I'd also suggest you present some proof that you passed and understood a basic course in physics.

I'll demonstrate that you know close to nothing about the state of modern nuclear fusion and science in general:
1. Fusion has been achieved in particle accelerators, in a variety of reactors (NIF for example), and in thermonuclear bombs. This is not up for debate, unless you want to demonstrate even more ignorance of physics. The products have all been measured and line up with expectations for a fusion reaction.
2. Fusion has been achieved by amateurs at home, including a 14-year-old kid. That should tell you how little you know about science. Please, just once, acknowledge that you don't know that much and ditch the Dunning-Kruger (you don't have to do it publicly), and just READ instead of posting junk science that displays a clear lack of understanding of physics and even what electromagnetism is.
3. You clearly don't understand how many orders of magnitude more energy fusion puts out than any sort of chemical/electric interaction can provide. This goes to show your ignorance and stubbornness.
4. You probably can't even explain to me how to convert between eV and joules.

I did the energy calculation. You need to figure out how to turn 31 years into 4 billion, and electric fields are not going to cut it, considering you'd need approximately a 25 kV potential difference to even get the same amount of electric energy as there is thermal energy in the model I presented. Even if you double the amount of energy, that Sun is still only going to last 62 years maximum. We've detected absolutely no measurable charge imbalance in the Sun (and it's fairly easy to detect because of the strength of the electric force), which would be implied by any sort of potential difference existing within the Sun. But of course, with your lack of understanding of even basic electricity, I'm not surprised you believe this garbage.

Yes, I've made posts before that encourage explanation for misinformed people and that have said that we shouldn't demonize people for a lack of understanding. But the snarky quotes, and the complete misinterpretation of my post, leads me to believe that totallackey has not put the slightest effort into responding to the valid arguments made by the RE side and just wants to casually dismiss them by throwing out a few misinformed buzzwords a lot of junk science. And for that, I'll be equally mean.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #58 on: January 09, 2018, 10:48:39 PM »
Nuclear Fusion is a different physical process than Stellar Fusion. Look it up. Even if true Nuclear Fusion has been achieved by humans (I also have some doubts myself), it is still an entirely different reaction than Stellar Fusion. It does nothing to prove the mechanism that powers the stars.

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Re: Occam's razor
« Reply #59 on: January 10, 2018, 03:40:42 AM »
Nuclear Fusion is a different physical process than Stellar Fusion. Look it up. Even if true Nuclear Fusion has been achieved by humans (I also have some doubts myself), it is still an entirely different reaction than Stellar Fusion. It does nothing to prove the mechanism that powers the stars.

Tom is talking about proton-proton fusion, which is a type of nuclear fusion. It makes up a large part of the Sun's power. It can't be achieved in the lab due to the pressures required. Tom would like to claim this means it doesn't exist, I guess. Like usual, he is wrong. We know the expected outcome of this reaction because, you know, chemistry. We have detected the neutrinos created by this process.

Tom saying he isn't sure if nuclear fusion has been achieved by humans is right up there with thinking moonlight cools things off.
This is what fusion did to Bikini Atoll:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KMa6rVyMfdc/UdNCTqHhECI/AAAAAAAADIY/D3EkCjpfEwE/s1002/Bravo+crater.JPG
I saw a video where a pilot was flying above the sun.
-Terry50