Constant angular speed of the sun
« on: September 25, 2017, 12:08:15 AM »
Using an equatorial sundial you can demonstrate that the sun moves through 15 degrees every hour, no matter what time of day it is.
Example construction of such a sundial:


This has several implications, all of which are problematic for flat earth theory.

A) DISTANCE TO THE SUN
If you know the distance between two points at any given latitude between the two tropics (e.g, between say Ziguinchor, Senegal, and Gondar, Ethiopia at 12.6 degrees N - at most about 7400 km), you can calculate the exact distance to the sun. If you believe in longitude, you can just go by the angle difference in longitude. If you don't believe in longitude, you could send a team of two people, one to each location, and measure the exact time the sun passes over head as well as the angle the sun makes at the time the sun passes overhead the other location. Since that is exactly what longitude is, it will work out to the same value.

For this particular example, Google thinks you can drive from one to the other in about 7400km, and the longitude difference is 53.7 degrees. This means that at noon at Gondar the day the sun is directly overhead, the sun is at a 53.7 degree angle in Ziguinchor, and vice versa.

On a flat earth, this means you can draw a triangle where one leg is the line on the flat earth between the two locations, one leg is vertical from the location where the sun is directly overhead, and one leg is from the sun to the other location. This triangle would have angles of 53.7, 90, and 36.3 degrees. The length of the earth leg is at most the driving distance between the two cities, and the vertical distance from the earth to the sun at the location is the tangent of 36.3 degrees * at most 7400km, or about 3400 miles.

B) ANGULAR SIZE OF THE SUN
Because you now know how far the sun is from the earth, you can determine how much farther away the sun is at a time other than noon. In the above example, the sun would be 7400km/cos(36.3 degrees) at the location that is not directly under the sun, or about 5700 miles away. This is 1.7 times farther away than the sun is at noon, meaning that the angular size of the sun should be significantly smaller at the location where it is not noon.

However, the angular size of the sun is always about 1/2 of a degree, this means the sun's distance from you does not change significantly during the day, or the shape of the sun is weirdly shaped such that from different angles it appears larger. Such a weirdly shaped sun would be impossible to eclipse, for example.

C) PERSPECTIVE
Since the angular velocity of the sun is constant, in flat earth theory this means that the sun must be moving faster when it is farther away from you. However, if that were the case, people in different areas of the earth would see the sun moving more quickly overhead, because while it is 4 PM where you are, it's noon somewhere. Either the person where it is noon would see the sun moving faster, or you would see the sun moving slower.


Offline 3DGeek

  • *
  • Posts: 1024
  • Path of photon from sun location to eye at sunset?
    • View Profile
    • What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset
Re: Constant angular speed of the sun
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2017, 01:36:37 PM »

C) PERSPECTIVE
Since the angular velocity of the sun is constant, in flat earth theory this means that the sun must be moving faster when it is farther away from you. However, if that were the case, people in different areas of the earth would see the sun moving more quickly overhead, because while it is 4 PM where you are, it's noon somewhere. Either the person where it is noon would see the sun moving faster, or you would see the sun moving slower.

Ah - but Tom has "magic perspective" that does exactly whatever is needed to make you THINK the earth is round.  He'll probably be along here soon to tell you that...if he does, ask him to tell you what path the photons take to get from the sun to you eye at sunset.   He likes that question!  :-)

Hey Tom:  What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset?

Re: Constant angular speed of the sun
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2017, 05:46:05 AM »
Tom Bishop pointed out a rebuttal to this argument on another thread:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=7001.msg126699#msg126699

I'll happily discuss this here or there. My response on that thread:

To see if I understand properly, it sounds like you are saying that the change in angular velocity of an object as it passes has to do with the distance from the observer. This means that something farther away will have less change in angular velocity, until at some distance (say, 3000 miles), the change in angular velocity goes to zero. Is that correct?

Offline 3DGeek

  • *
  • Posts: 1024
  • Path of photon from sun location to eye at sunset?
    • View Profile
    • What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset
Re: Constant angular speed of the sun
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2017, 02:14:29 PM »
Tom Bishop pointed out a rebuttal to this argument on another thread:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=7001.msg126699#msg126699

I'll happily discuss this here or there. My response on that thread:

To see if I understand properly, it sounds like you are saying that the change in angular velocity of an object as it passes has to do with the distance from the observer. This means that something farther away will have less change in angular velocity, until at some distance (say, 3000 miles), the change in angular velocity goes to zero. Is that correct?

Just go read my post at the TOP of that thread.   I debunk everything in that video that Tom clings to.  He either doesn't understand my argument or it ignoring it because he knows that it destroys his pet theory.

What the angular velocity of the sun argument shows is that:

A) If the sun is moving at uniform speed across a flat plane parallel to the Earth's (flat) surface - then it's angular velocity (degrees per second) should decrease as it heads off into the distance.

B) If the Earth is round, then the angular velocity should be 360 degrees per 24 hours no matter what.

When we do the experiment, the answer is a constant 15 degrees per hour...which "proves" 'B' - the round earth.

So Tom will probably counter with two arguments:

1) That in FET, the sun doesn't move in a straight line at constant speed, it has to travel in some complicated double-spiral loop-the-loop thing (carefully not specified in any detail) to reproduce the progression of "noon-time" across the planet over each day and each season.   So the assertion of the sun moving at constant linear velocity isn't claimed by the FE'ers so (A) does not apply.

2) That in FET, in order for there to be sunsets, there is some funky rule of perspective that makes it look like the sun is someplace other than where it physically.   This is a bizarre claim that does not fit with his claim that light travels in straight lines...and doesn't work for a dozen other reasons.

If you were placing the burden of proof on the FE'ers (which would be the intellectually correct thing to do) - then they'd have to prove that the combination of (1) and (2) somehow - as if by magic - produced an absolutely constant 15 degrees per hour *apparent* angular velocity.

Personally - I cannot believe that the complicated motion required for (1) combined with (2) would produce anything remotely like a constant rate of passage.

But since the FE'ers are pathetic debaters - and will NOT step up to the plate with definite claims about how (1) and (2) work - you have a hard time proving that this magical coincidence doesn't happen.

We could possibly figure out what the passage of the sun has to be by tracking the geographical locations of where the sun being vertically overhead are for every hour throughout a year - then plot that on one of their maps to figure out how it moves.

But the slippery FE'ers have recently started to claim that they simply don't know what a map of the flat earth looks like(!!) so you can't pin them down that way either.

The smarter people among them clearly understand that if they set out their theory TOO carefully, it can be debunked more easily than if it's all vague and squishy...so any time there is solid math to go on...poof! it all goes away.

There are pages of math on the Wiki - most of which have now fallen from favor.   (Note: "The Bishop Equation" and "The Bishop Constant"...now denied by even Mr Bishop - but still prominently displayed on the Wiki!)


Hey Tom:  What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset?