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Flat Earth Theory / Eclipse prediction

« on: January 21, 2024, 03:11:41 AM »

Astronomers have predicted, using RE theories, that a total solar eclipse will occur over the USA on 8 April this year. Their predictions are very detailed, giving the band of totality, the times when it will be visible across the country, where you can see a partial eclipse, etc. See, for example, these websites:

https://www.planetary.org/press-releases/total-solar-eclipse-countdown?autologin=true&s_src=downlink&s_subsrc=20240119
https://www.planetary.org/eclipse

Here are my questions:
  Does FE predict eclipses?
  What method does you use?
  Or do you predict that this eclipse will not happen?

Note: as for my other question, "I don't know" is an acceptable answer, obfuscation is not.

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Flat Earth Investigations / How does FE explain star trails?

« on: January 25, 2021, 05:52:14 AM »

Often you see long-exposure photos of stars, and how they circle around the celestial poles, such as this one:



This image is one of many on https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-are-star-trails

You can see that many of the stars clearly dip below the horizon. As far as I understand it, this would not be possible on a FE; the stars should dip down, but never go below the horizon. Of course this assumes the horizon is flat, such as the ocean on the right-hand side of this image.

Can one of the FEers explain this to me?

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Flat Earth Theory / What has the FE theory achieved?

« on: June 06, 2019, 10:16:26 AM »

This question is not about whether the earth is flat or not. Instead it is about which benefits us more: normal science, or flat earth science.

Modern science was started by Galileo and Newton, and has progressed steadily ever since. Along the line, science decided the shape of the earth, as well as of the rest of the universe. The various branches of science are all interrelated, i.e. they use each other’s ideas and methods. As a result, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is essential in modern medicine research. Quantum Physics and General Relativity are not only used to tell us the size and shape of the universe, they are also essential to the workings of your mobile phone. Hence, unless the universe is indeed 13.8 billion years old, with a 46 billion lightyear radius, your mobile phone would not work.

Science may not always get it right, but it corrects its mistakes. Think of phlogiston, N-rays, Piltdown man, cold fusion and many others. Because of this built-in error correction science progresses ever forward and always comes up with new things. Hence we have cars, aeroplanes, computers, mobile phones, stainless steel knives, fertilisers, etc. To put it in a nutshell, science improves the lives of people. Without the advances of science we would still be living the same way as we did 1000 years ago.

The flat earth theory has been around for the last 150 years or so, since Samuel Rowbotham. In that time quite a large number of people with different backgrounds have accepted it, for example the city of Zion under Voliva. Some of those people surely were scientists interested in improving people’s lives.

So my question is: what benefits has the flat earth theory brought to people? What important research could not have been achieved while believing in a round earth? Has anything important come out of flat earth research?

What benefits to society come from the flat earth theory?

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Flat Earth Theory / Why does the International Space Staion appear when NASA says it will?

« on: June 02, 2019, 06:02:43 AM »

As I understand it, according to FE all satellites are hoaxes perpetrated by NASA, other space organisations, governments, businesses like SpaceX and numerous scientists who rely on satellite observations for their work. Let's accept this as given.

I that case, what exactly am I seeing when I look up in the sky at night and see the International Space Station flying past?

Not only that, I can go to NASA's website https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/ and find out exactly when the ISS will be visible at my location. The same website also shows where the ISS is at any moment in time. Other websites like CalSky ( https://www.calsky.com/cs.cgi/Satellites/4? )show the location of the ISS with even more precision. This enables any photographer to set up a camera with a telelens and take a photo of the ISS as it flies across the face of the sun and the moon, for example https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/05-seconds-in-the-sun

That photo of the ISS with the sun was obviously taken during the day, when the ISS is invisible to the naked eye and so the photographer had to rely entirely on NASA's predictions. These predictions in turn rely entirely on Newton's fake law of gravitation.

And it is not just the ISS that is visible. Other satellites can be seen too, just not as easily as the ISS. The first ones that were easily visible with the naked eye were the Echo communications satellites of 1960 and 1964. These were large (30 m diameter) metallised balloons, designed to reflect radio signals back to earth.

Why is it that no such celestial objects were seen before the fake space race started? Certainly the ancient Greeks and Chinese would have been aware of something as easily visible as the ISS. Why did they not mention it? Did it appear in the sky by magic around 2000? It cannot be mistaken for a star or planet as satellites travel much faster across the sky. And why do the photos taken by ground-based photographers show it looking remarkably like a man-made object? Of course, as FE often points out, photos can be faked. So these photographers must be among the millions of people who are secretly conspiring to make us believe in RE.

But then, what do I see when I look up into the sky? Perhaps the ISS and other satellites are just balloons at high altitude? In that case, please explain how any balloon can travel around the world (or fly a circle around the "central" north pole) every 90 minutes. Explain why it is so totally un-affected by variations in wind that NASA can tell us precisely where it is at every second. If they are neither balloons nor spacecraft, just what kind of new-fangled celestial object am I seeing?

To rephrase my questions:

1. What is the ISS?
2. What keeps it up there?
3. What gives NASA the ability to predict precisely where it is at all times?
4. Why did nothing like it appear in the sky before we started the satellite hoax?
5. Why do photographs of it show it looking the way NASA claims it has been built?

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Flat Earth Theory / How does GPS work?

« on: May 30, 2019, 04:25:01 AM »

I assume we can start by agreeing that GPS does indeed work. Your mobile phone or sat nav system know exactly where you are on earth, at all times. It's good enough to use while driving a car, and it has even been used to land airliners. GPS works, regardless of where you are on earth. Personally I have used it in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Europe, South Africa, and several islands in the middle of the Pacific. I have heard from other who used it in other countries, and have never heard anyone mention any area in which it does not work.

In round earth theories, GPS uses a bunch of satellites, and your phone finds its position by checking the timing of signals from at least 3 of those satellites.

I understand that, according to FE, all satellites are hoaxes. There cannot be anything circling the earth, because the earth is flat. So here is my question:

In FE, what makes GPS work?

Does it use invisible balloons, in sufficient quantity that at least 3 are always visible regardless of where you are on earth? Does it use gigantic transmitters that beam signals around the earth?

Tom Bishop mentions LORAN/eLORAN as being "interoperable with GPS", but that does not explain how my phone, which does not receive LORAN signals, does its trick. In fact, the frequencies used by LORAN are too low for use in a phone - you could not fit a LORAN antenna inside a phone. Also, LORAN has a limited range, and it does not have the accuracy of GPS.

So just how does GPS work according to FE?

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Flat Earth Theory / How is it possible to see the sun rise or set?

« on: May 11, 2019, 10:54:04 PM »

I cannot figure out how the sun can rise or set with the version of a flat earth as accepted by this website (the standard monopole flat earth map, https://wiki.tfes.org/File:Map.png).

The maps on this website do not contain any dimensions. However, from what I have been able to gather, the earth is a flat circular disc with a diameter of approximately 20,000 km. I get to this number by assuming that the equator is 10,000 km from the North Pole, and the southern ice wall is the same distance from the equator. At least, that is how your published maps look.

I have also seen various figures for the altitude of the sun, ranging from 1,100 km (700 mi) to 6,400 km (4,000 mi). For the rest of this question I will assume 1,100 km as that is the best case for FE; any higher figure makes sunset even more impossible.

Now let us consider how the sun looks for someone at the North Pole. The furthest that the sun can possibly be away from the North Pole is 20,000 km, assuming it ever got near the southern ice wall. No FE maps show the sun that far south, but again, this is the best scenario for FE. Now, if the sun is 1,100 km high at a distance of 20,000 km, the angle between the horizon and the sun is given by simple trigonometry, as follows:

A = atan(1100/20000) = 3 degrees

If we assume the sun sits at an altitude of 6,400 km then we get

A = atan(6400/20000) = 18 degrees

In other words, even in the best (for FE) case, we can NEVER see the sun less than 3 degrees above the horizon. If the observer is farther south, or if we look at the sun at sunset instead of at midnight, the observer will be closer to the sun, and hence the sun will appear even higher above the horizon. For example, if the sun is 4,000 km high, and the observer is 4,000 km away from it (horizontally) at sunset, then the sun will "set" at an elevation of 45 degrees above the horizon.

Hence my question: please explain how we can ever see the sun sink below the horizon. If any of my numbers are wildly wrong, please feel free to show me the correct calculations.