2381

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Spirit Levels on a Flat Earth

« on: September 18, 2019, 04:06:21 PM »

The question is why is there no difference?.

Because gravity is a force acting downwards. By "downwards" I mean relative to your position, assuming you are standing up.
It's actually towards the centre of mass of the earth and on a globe earth downwards is relative to your position, but to all intents and purposes gravity acts downwards.
Were the earth flat, there was no gravity and it was UA creating the force we call gravity then that force would act downwards and be equivalent.
The headline is both produce a force which acts in a downwards direction relative to your position.

The reason the bubble moves from off center and lands center when you move it is because when you move the level you are adjusting or "realigning" how the force of gravity is acting on the vial. The force of gravity on the vial has changed.  How gravity is effecting the vial is different because its location is different.

Well, there would be a very slight difference because one end is higher than the other but that difference is so trivial that it's not what causes the bubble to move. Pete has done the maths for you.
The real difference is that the spirit level is no longer parallel to the ground so the force of gravity is no longer perpendicular to the tube - again, see my diagrams.
You have changed the orientation of the tube, the level of the liquid is still parallel to the ground because of the downward force of gravity but because the tube is not level the bubble is now off centre because the top of the tube is not at the centre.
This is true whether the force is caused by gravity or UA.

Sorry to keep repeating, but it is the central point to the issue and everybody just seems to ignore it.

No-one is ignoring you but Pete actually does have a good grasp of physics - better than me, I think. And he is right here.
It's not the changed force of gravity, it's the changed orientation of the tube. The force acting downwards remains constant whatever is causing the force.

2382

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 18, 2019, 10:59:02 AM »

I'd say all star emmission lines are just the result of passing through various gases in the upper atmosphere.

And yet the Hubble telescope, above the atmosphere, has a spectrograph...

https://www.nasa.gov/content/hubble-space-telescope-space-telescope-imaging-spectrograph

2383

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Spirit Levels on a Flat Earth

« on: September 18, 2019, 08:56:22 AM »

In the RE model, gravity is what determines that the bubble lands at the highest point of vial.  Why would UA do that?  How does UA maintain the bubble in the middle?

OK. The key thing is why does water "find its level"?
It's because of gravity.
Let's think about why a ball rolls down a hill.
There are two forces acting on it:



The downward arrow is gravity, the arrow pointing up the slope is friction.
A component of the downward gravity force acts down the slope, if that force is bigger than the friction force then the ball rolls, otherwise it doesn't.
The ball will roll until the forces are in balance. If the ball is on a level then the only force is gravity, as that is acting perpendiclar to the surface it's on there is no force sideways so it doesn't move. Gravity pulls the ball down, the surface it's resting pushes back up with an equal and opposite force (assuming a solid surface) so the ball is stationary.

Newton's first law - an object will remain at rest or moving at a constant velocity unless acted on by a force.

Water is a liquid. You can think of it as a jumble of balls, molecules, and the fact it's a liquid means the bonds between them are not strong and the molecules can move past one another.

This means that if you tip a container full of liquid you are effectively causing a slope so the same as above happens. The molecules tumble down the slope until the slope levels out and there is no more sideways force acting on them. I'm probably simplifying a bit there but this is why liquid "finds its level", the more viscous a liquid is the longer it will take to settle as the molecules move past one another more slowly.

If the tube in a spirit level was completely cylindrical then there would be no bubble, there'd just be a line of air at the top. The bubble is caused by the curve of the tube as I've shown above. If you tilt the tube the water stays level and because of the curve the bubble moves to the "top" of the inclined tube.

The cause of all this is the force of gravity pointing downwards.
If you replace the force of gravity by a force due to acceleration the same thing would happen. The whole premise of the equivalence principle is that if you're in a stationary lift on earth or a lift in zero g accelerating upwards at 9.8m/s2 you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Both cause you and everything else to experience a downwards force. That means if you jump then you fall back down and water will find its level - and that's what makes a spirit level work.

2384

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Spirit Levels on a Flat Earth

« on: September 16, 2019, 09:36:31 PM »

A spirit level does work because of gravity, but that's not what makes the bubble rest in the middle.
If the level is...level then the force of gravity would be the same across the liquid. That's what makes "water find its level".
But why would the bubble be in the middle? That's because the tube is slightly curved so the bubble rests in the middle.
If the level is at an angle then the highest point is no longer in the middle of the tube so the bubble moves.
It's not because a difference in gravity from one side of the level to the other.
This is how I understand it working:



When the level is level the highest point of the tube is in the middle so that's where the bubble goes.
When the level is tilted the highest point of the tube isn't in the middle so the bubble is to one side.

Obviously the curve is exaggerated in that diagram.

This is because of the force of gravity but if the force was replaced by the force of UA then why wouldn't it work just the same?

2385

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Spirit Levels on a Flat Earth

« on: September 16, 2019, 09:21:02 AM »

Never thought I'd type this phrase but: Pete is right here.
The difference in gravity between two sides of a non-level spirit level are far too small to have an effect here.
Spirit levels do work because of the force of gravity but if gravity was replaced by UA that acceleration would cause an equivalent force which would mean they'd still work.

2386

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Spirit Levels on a Flat Earth

« on: September 13, 2019, 04:21:41 PM »

UA, broadly speaking.

That was my initial thought, but if the low end and the high end are accelerating at the same rate, the bubble won't move whether it is at an angle or not. The only way to get the bubble to move from a tilt to level is if more force is applied to one end.

But the force of gravity on either end is the same on both ends too, so what's the difference?
I think this would work fine with UA.

2387

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 13, 2019, 10:53:44 AM »

The evidence is the earth, when viewed by every human on the earth, looks flat.

Not the humans in the ISS. But you said on the earth so yes, from the ground yes it looks flat.
Here is why using that observation alone is not sufficient for determining the shape of the earth:



Are basketballs flat?

2388

Flat Earth Community / Re: Members All Around the Globe - a collection of the worst memes on our Flat Earth

« on: September 12, 2019, 08:59:01 PM »

A friend who knows I'm a bit obsessed with/fascinated by you guys just sent me this

2389

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 12, 2019, 07:15:20 PM »

Google earth renders it as a globe, but that does mean those distances are provided are globe distances.

I really don’t know what “globe distances” means. The only issue, surely, is if they are correct distances.
If Google Maps is accurate, gives correct distances beteeen cities, and at a large scale models the earth as a globe then what does that tell you about the true shape of the earth?

2390

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Modern experiments

« on: September 12, 2019, 04:04:37 PM »

You claim to have reproduced the Bishop experiment.
You don't explicitly say what your result was but a combination of your comments on McToon's video and the fact you are a flat earther led me to assume what your results were. They clearly led you to believe that the earth is flat, or are part of why you believe that. That is surely a fairly reasonable assumption. If you got any other result then why would you be a flat earther? If my assumption is incorrect then please correct me.

It's pretty reasonable to believe people should check things out for themselves.
Up to a point - and that point being people realising their limits, not everyone has the skill or understanding to check everything out for themselves. You only have to look at some of the FE idiots on YouTube to see that - I'll admit that the level of understanding of things on here is generally higher.

The thing I really take issue with is you saying:

those who prefer the scientific method over the Zetetic method expect us to write our experiments up in great detail to save them the hassle of having to actually experience the world for themselves

No!
The whole point of someone writing up the result of their experiments, and the method they used to obtain them, is so other people can try it for themselves.

It allows other people to check your result and method. Maybe you made a mistake somewhere which led you to a wrong conclusion. How do I know unless I know what you did? How do you know if you made a mistake, come to think of it.
Sure, I can do my own tests but if I get different results, then what? Maybe I made a mistake but how will you (again, or I) know unless I've documented things so other people can check?
How do we move towards consensus unless we have both documented our methods and results so we can try and understand between us why we got different results?
That is how progress is made.

The attitude that comes across is
"I believe the earth to be flat because of tests I've done, but I'm not going to show you the results of those tests, you should do your own".

The first part of that, your conclusion, is so revolutionary that my immediate reaction is you must have made a mistake. It doesn't make me want to do my own tests, it makes me want to understand more about what you did that led you to that conclusion.

I believe it's counter-productive to want people to do their own tests if you're not going to document your own. Partly because your claim is so extraordinary - most people's reaction is going to be that you are mistaken. And partly for the reasons I've mentioned, progress is made by people cross-checking each other's work.

I have no criticism of you. I just disagree with the notion that you publishing your results will make others less likely to want to do their own tests, my view is it would make people more likely to.

2391

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Modern experiments

« on: September 12, 2019, 01:52:13 PM »

But, to answer your question more directly: the Bishop Experiment is rather recent, and easily reproducible.

Your best bet is to conduct the experiment yourself (as I and many others have) and draw your own conclusions.

You don't claim a result in this thread but in your chat with McToon you cite being able to "see too low" as the best evidence of a flat earth.
A fairly reasonable assumption that you state that because of the results of your experiments.

But in any case the "you" is plural. Maybe I should have said "one".

2392

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 12, 2019, 12:04:49 PM »

The video I watched from that dude was about satellite TV. He took some data from a site which helps you align dishes from different cities.
He then showed how if you use that data using a a flat earth map then the dishes point all over the place.
If you wrap the map into a globe though then they all point to a common point, the geostationary satellite.
The only possible FE explanations I see are that the FE map he's used is wrong - so if you move the cities to the "correct" places then maybe they do all point to the same place.
Or maybe there isn't just one satellite, maybe the dishes really are all pointing at different things. What those things are remains to be explained.

2393

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 12, 2019, 10:40:01 AM »

Neither of us currently occupy any position other than the surface of the flat earth plane.

Correct?

No. Incorrect. Because the earth is not a flat plane.

That is why surveyors use flat plane trigonometry when estimating the height of objects above.

They use it because on the scales they work at it gives accurate results. In the same way that relativistic effects are rarely taken into account when doing calculations on motion.
For most practical purposes Newton's laws work just fine. For most practical purposes for surveyors assuming a flat earth works just fine.
In both cases the maths is much simpler and gives good enough results to be usable, there is no need to complicate things at these scales.

The method you outline would work IF the earth is flat. But you'd still need to know the horizontal distance between yourself and the point that the sun is "above".
You can use Google Maps to do this of course, but as discussed that transforms into a globe as you scale out for the sake of accuracy, it avoids any projections necessary when one tries to map the globe earth onto a flat plane. If you try and peel an orange and lay the peel flat you'll see the problem.

2394

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 12, 2019, 10:13:01 AM »

The inverse square law that you mention is evidence that they are much further away.

I'd say the lack of parallax is better evidence. The ancients believed they were infinitely far away because of that, we have more precise way of measuring things now which means some parallax can be measured for nearer stars, but were the stars or moon as close as FE supposes you'd see a significant parallax which could be measured in cities a few hundred miles apart.

Oh, and lackey yes, of course maps are flat by definition. But Google Maps now changes its representation to a sphere as you zoom out to avoid the distortion you get over large distances when you try to project the spherical earth onto a flat plane. This only becomes an issue on the scale of countries or continents so for most practical purposes flat maps are usable.

2395

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Modern experiments

« on: September 12, 2019, 09:48:31 AM »

It appears to me that you are the person here attempting deception; deliberately ignoring the fact that the curvature keeps changing, which invalidates the argument of a ball earth since it is demonstrated that an illusion is occuring in the image

No one is ignoring that. No one is disputing that there are atmospheric effects which mean a simplistic model of a perfectly spherical earth in a vacuum isn't going to match observations.
Refraction will occur, particularly over water. So yes, that will affect results. But no, that doesn't invalidate the argument of a ball earth, it invalidates the argument of a perfectly spherical earth in a vacuum. An argument no-one is making.
The relevant question is not whether observations perfectly match a simplified model of the earth's curve and refraction, atmospheric effects change from day to day so you wouldn't necessarily expect that.
The question is does it match that model better than a FE model? In a FE model what's the building hiding behind? Why is any of it hidden? Why can't you see "all the way down to the shoreline"? You claim you could, why can't anyone else?

You want us to explain images which demonstrably involves an illusion?

I want you to explain why the images fit better with a globe earth model than a FE one, and why the illusion only happens when other people do tests. It never seems to be an issue for you:

"Whenever I have doubts about the shape of the earth I simply walk outside my home, down to the beach, and perform this simple test. Provided that there is no fog and the day is clear and calm, the same result comes up over and over throughout the year."

Are we supposed to just take your word for it?

The point being made here, fairly obviously, is that your account, while evidence, is not as compelling evidence as when someone carefully documents their experiment and shows their results.
Yours is just a claim. Anyone can make a claim. Which is more compelling:
1) A child claiming they have a 20 foot high tree in their house but refusing to show you any pictures of it or their home.
2) A child claiming they have a 20 foot high tree in their house, showing photos of said tree with them and their family, showing photos of the big house they live in and some proof of address.

I'm going with 2. It doesn't prove it of course, they could have taken the photo while at a visit to some mansion open to the public, they could have doctored the proof of address. But it takes a lot more effort to fake all that. It takes no effort at all to make a claim. As a wise man once said:

If you are making your claim without evidence then we can discard it without evidence.

Maybe next time you walk outside your home, down to the beach, and perform this simple test you could take some photos, show them to us and tell us the location you took them from, the direction your camera was pointing and your viewer height. Then we can investigate further.

2396

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 12, 2019, 08:50:24 AM »

The planets are luminaries .

You mean they generate their own light?
Why do they have phases then? That is a characteristic of something being illuminated by a light source, not something generating its own light.

2397

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Modern experiments

« on: September 12, 2019, 07:20:55 AM »

I guess more testing is needed.

You should make up your mind. You were only just done telling us how unproductive it is to expect people to perform more experiments.

No. I was saying how unproductive it is is to expect people to perform more experiments if you won’t show the results of your own tests.

Its unproductive to claim a result without giving details of how you conducted the test or documenting and showing the result.
Especially when the result is potentially so revolutionary for our understanding of the world we live in.

If someone in the middle of nowhere claims they got abducted by aliens, were taken to the aliens’ home world for dinner and then returned to Earth then I’ll smile and nod but I’m not interested in investigating their claims other than maybe asking a few sarcastic questions. My initial reaction, based on my understanding of the world, is they must be lying or deluded.
If the person presents some good evidence backing up their claim then while I’d remain sceptical I’d be more likely to investigate more seriously.

If you’re claiming the earth is flat because of “tests you’ve done” then there are two possibilities. One is that you have discovered something so revolutionary that congratulations on your Nobel prize. The other is you haven’t because you suck at doing experiments, you don’t understand things as well as you think you do or you’re lying or deluded.
I lean towards the latter, especially as you refuse to give details of what tests you did or show your results.

Again, the whole point of people publishing their experiment method and results is so other people can repeat their experiments. That is how consensus has been reached and progress made. The idea of everyone doing their own tests and forming their own model of reality based on those results is why there is such a mess of competing FE models.

Yes, it’s good for people to test things for themselves - although people have to understand there are limits to this in terms of their skills and the equipment they need.
But people should also share their methods and results so others can check their work and try and repeat their tests to see if they get the same results to build confidence in them, or not as the case may be.

2398

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Modern experiments

« on: September 11, 2019, 07:28:05 PM »

Yes. That’s the experiment which Bobby conceded could be evidence for a FE.
But he tried to reproduce the result and couldn’t. So now what?

Tom’s general tactic is to call any experiment which doesn’t confirm his world view fake, or try and explain it away somehow. To Bobby’s credit, he didn’t do that with the above, he did his own tests. And that is why while Tom’s snide comment about him being my hero is incorrect, I was certainly impressed by the time and effort Bobby spent to perform and document his own tests.

But this is how progress is made in science. People do tests, other people try and reproduce those tests. If the other people get the same results then that builds confidence in them. In this case Bobby didn’t get the same results, so I guess more testing is needed.

2399

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 11, 2019, 11:58:23 AM »

The assumption that Venus has a magic atmosphere with special reflective properties surfaces in the introduction along with the supposed fact that optical measurements have already provided accurate distances to the planets - all based on the assumption of a globe.

We know Venus is reflective because we can see it. It's illuminated by the sun so it must be reflecting that light and it's very bright in the sky so we know it reflects well.
You can tell it's being illuminated and not generating its own light because it has phases.
Optical measurements gave us decent enough measurements, the idea was to get a more accurate value. If a globe earth is assumed then it's because we know the earth to be a globe.
Any doubt about that had long since been removed by the time these experiments took place, Sputnik had been launched into orbit, Gagarin had been into space.

Second page we have the " expected round trip echo delay which varied between 283 - 449 " . That's conformation bias .

It assumes the other ways of measuring the distance were reasonably accurate, from that you can calculate the round trip time.

Third page we have " individual returning echo pulses were much weaker than the overall system noise , they could not be seen " .

And then goes on to explain how that problem was solved.

It's picking up reflected signals from the ionosphere , or dome imo.

Why would there have been any delay in the return signal then?

I'm interested to know what your education and professional experience is which means you think you can refute their work.
It's interesting you mention confirmation bias because that's what I see going on here...

2400

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Size/distance of Sun

« on: September 11, 2019, 10:49:27 AM »

There is no reason not to assume a flat base line.

Really... why is that then?  What evidence have you got that it is a flat base line?

Same reason surveyors assume it.

I wasn't very clear before. What I meant before was if you're going to use a method of similar triangles to calculate the height of the sun you need to know the horizontal distance from yourself to the sun.
You said use timeanddate.com to find the location of the sun but how do you know how far that is from you without referring to globe based world maps?