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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Revisiting Bedford Level Experiment
« on: January 07, 2020, 11:58:44 PM »But you do have two problems otherwise.
1. In the Wiki, it is stated that one of the reasons that ships vanish below the horizon, which is the same thing as this Bedford experiment, is refraction. You can have it both ways; either refraction interferes with the path of light in the flat earth model or it doesn’t.
Based on the wiki, the sinking ship effect may have many causes. I don't know if FEs consider one to be the most frequent, but in that case, I believe it would be the FE theory of Optical Resolution, which places the vanishing point of perspective at no more than 7 miles in front of you.
2. Whenever I have seen these “Rowbotham effects” demonstrated, it is pretty clear that the experimenter always puts the observation point and the target very close to the ground. (including Rowbotham). The reason seems pretty obvious when you are close to the ground, the thermal gradient is the highest and therefore the refraction is the highest and you get the illusion that the earth is curved more than it is. If you see others experiment, they always make sure to do it well above the surface, which minimises refraction and shows that the earth is curved.
The primary sin of these experiments is that they are visual. So considering that refraction creates optical illusions, they both don't prove anything either way. The OP stated we'd need a vacuum tube and laser, and I think he's right.