[Valentine]

Last June I drove from Luton (England) to Harare (Zimbabwe). From luton my sat nav displayed 7650 miles and 7 days 11 hrs to arrive in harare. From England we drove through France, Spain, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Congo, Zambia and finally Zimbabwe. During this trip my sat nav never put a foot wrong it was acurate enough to find all the hotels that we slept as the trip took us 15 days and 7900 miles to complete. So I don't get why FE doesn't have at least land maps. Just curious

[iamcpc]

Last June I drove from Luton (England) to Harare (Zimbabwe). From luton my sat nav displayed 7650 miles and 7 days 11 hrs to arrive in harare. From England we drove through France, Spain, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Congo, Zambia and finally Zimbabwe. During this trip my sat nav never put a foot wrong it was acurate enough to find all the hotels that we slept as the trip took us 15 days and 7900 miles to complete. So I don't get why FE doesn't have at least land maps. Just curious

I agree 100%. I have taken similar trips along north/south america and have corroborated that maps like yahoo, apple etc are accurate and can be used to navigate the earth.


Here is the thread in which we have been discussing it.

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=11616.0

[RonJ]

One good reason would be the distortion of the map South of the equator.  On Goggle earth the longitude lines converge towards the South Pole.  The flat earth maps would require that the longitude lines continue to diverge all the way to the ice wall & beyond.  Australia & New Zealand distances would be totally screwed up. Anyone trying to use a Google earth map distorted to a flat earth format would be quickly lost if it weren't for the road signs telling you how far it was to the next town. 

[SpaceCadet]

I think flat earthers uaually say google maps are based on a flat earth but made to look like a spherical earth or something along those lines.

There is also the argument that anything not directly experienced cannot be accepted as evidence so your trip cannot be seen as validity or otherwise of google maps.

These are the usual arguments I have come across with respect to ecperiences such as yours.

I haven't done anything as adventurous as you but my brother used to ride cross country during his national service year. About 988km. All via google maps. I don't  remember him ever saying he got lost once.

[edby]

The distances given by Google are the best evidence that the world is not flat.

[Tom Bishop]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

[edby]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

Evidence?

[Tom Bishop]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

Evidence?

https://gis.utah.gov/nad83-and-webmercator-projections/

[edby]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

How does it compute distances between points on different flat maps?

[robinofloxley]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

Evidence?

https://gis.utah.gov/nad83-and-webmercator-projections/

You keep quoting this as evidence. It isn't. Your interpretation of the article does not agree with mine - sorry.

NAD83 is a geographic (globe based, lat/long) coordinate system. It is more accurate for local use in North America than WGS84. WGS84 is a better choice for global use, hence why it's used for GPS. If you want really accurate maps for North America, NAD83 is what you start with.

As the article states:

The advantage of the NAD83 datum is more accuracy for modeling and analyzing locational data in North America.

Note carefully - this is specifically referring to the (geographic i.e. 3D) NAD83 datum, not a 2D projection from it.

The article then goes on to talk about UTM NAD83 Zone 12N. This is a projected coordinate (i.e. 3D to 2D) system (based upon NAD83), so you can print it out, add a scale in miles or km or whatever and take it with you. However it is a still a projection and as such it can only be considered accurate for the area (i.e the zone) it is designed to cover (that's why UTM has zones).

it’s the best projection system for measuring distance and area when working with statewide GIS data

It is also nice because it does a great job of preserving the shape of real world objects modeled in your GIS

If the earth is flat and these particular flat maps are the most accurate possible representations, why the need for the phrase "preserving the shape of real world objects" do you think?

[iamcpc]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

Tom, if someone took all the series of smaller flat maps and put them together then we have a map of the earth do we not? We are talking about many people (myself included) who have traveled thousands and thousands of miles using one planetary map. not a smaller series of flat maps. One planetary sized flat map. There is a LOT of evidence that an accurate flat map of the earth exists. You can no longer deny it.

Please test it. Take a few days off and take a road trip. I've driven around both north and South America. I've traveled across Europe too. This is a FLAT 2d map of the earth.

mapquest.com

[AATW]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

Evidence?

https://gis.utah.gov/nad83-and-webmercator-projections/

Dude, there is literally a picture of the globe on that page and the word "projection" is in the URL.
Why is any projection necessary? Were the earth flat then all you'd need to do is scale from the real flat world to a flat map.
Projection is only needed because the earth isn't flat.

[edby]

Please test it.

Yes do. This has been explained to you many times, but one more time.

London latitude 51.50, longitude 0.13
New York latitude 40.71 longitude 74.00

Straight line distance using haversine formula, which is only valid on globe earth 5570.22 km
Straight line distance using Google 5,568.15 km

About the same, right?

The haversine formula will only work for globe earth. If I use the same coordinates to calculate straight line distance on the AE map, I get 5943.50 km.

A 400km difference.

Just test it.

Gaussian curvature is an intrinsic property of the surface, meaning it does not depend on the particular embedding of the surface; intuitively, this means that ants living on the surface could determine the Gaussian curvature. For example, an ant living on a sphere could measure the sum of the interior angles of a triangle and determine that it was greater than 180 degrees, implying that the space it inhabited had positive curvature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curvature

Or try the orange peel test. Peel an orange and try to re-assemble it on a flat surface. Won't work.

Or read and understand this https://www.wired.com/2014/09/curvature-and-strength-empzeal (non technical and accessible).

[Valentine]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

I do understand what you're saying so why don't you put a series of flat earth maps together and create a map.

[iamcpc]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

I do understand what you're saying so why don't you put a series of flat earth maps together and create a map.

Valentine,
The main reason is because of this:

There are many varying beliefs among the flat earth theory. To name a few some believe in a great ice wall, some believe in a dome, some believe in a firmament, some believe in a various combination of those things and some believe in none of those things.

Even without the "edge". Some believe the north pole is in the center, some believe that Zion in in the center, etc. etc.

Only one map can every satisfy a very small percent of the flat earth community. Because of that making a map is impossible.

[Max_Almond]

Talking of maps and projections - no pun intended - here's an interesting video from a commercial pilot showing and explaining the paper charts they used to use, as well as the clearly globe-based electronic maps they use now:

[Bad Puppy]

Google uses a series of smaller flat maps to navigate from location to location.

I do understand what you're saying so why don't you put a series of flat earth maps together and create a map.

Valentine,
The main reason is because of this:

There are many varying beliefs among the flat earth theory. To name a few some believe in a great ice wall, some believe in a dome, some believe in a firmament, some believe in a various combination of those things and some believe in none of those things.

Even without the "edge". Some believe the north pole is in the center, some believe that Zion in in the center, etc. etc.

Only one map can every satisfy a very small percent of the flat earth community. Because of that making a map is impossible.

It's unfortunate that this is the case.  If most people in the flat earth community can't agree on one map, there's a serious flaw in the theory.  It's a map, which is fundamental in knowing where anything is in relation to another thing.  One big flaw in it might be because these maps just look like variations of flat projections of a globe, which produces inaccuracies.  The round earth has one very accurate map.  The globe.  I'm pretty sure that most people in the round earth community agree on it.