81

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Where does the Earth's energy come from? (genuine question)

« on: June 06, 2021, 05:24:21 PM »

I don't know the exact process the Sun may use external hydrogen to fuel its inner fusion reactions.   

But yes, with an internal hydrogen store, then sun needs to be big!  But if the sun is extracting hydrogen from the atmosphere (which it has in abundance) then the sun can be small and localized.

There is NO hydrogren in the dry atmosphere. There is hydrogen locked up in H20 water vapor (humidity, clouds, water cycle) which is as low as 0% in deserts, 3% in tropical regions. It seems unlikely to me that the Sun is fueled by the humidity of the air.

82

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Where does the Earth's energy come from? (genuine question)

« on: May 30, 2021, 05:57:53 PM »

if the sun is much smaller than believed by modern science, then how can it produce enough energy for the earth, and is there another energy source that I’ve missed?

The simplest answer is that it is unknown.  Once the fusion mythology, which is no more sound (indeed, profoundly stupid) than the "theory" of the giant ignited street lamp in the sky that preceded it, is done away with - there is no obvious potential explanation for the source of the power.  In any case, the output of the sun doesn't vary just because our mythology does. 

The very concept that the sun is the source of all power is most likely flawed, and a manifestation of basic primative sun/helios worship.

Why do you believe that fusion is mythological? We've already harnessed the power of fusion - it's the acting force behind thermonuclear bombs. I think it's crazy if you don't believe in nuclear weapons.

83

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What happens when I fly west on the wiki map?

« on: May 26, 2021, 06:59:29 PM »

Suppose you are in an airplane flying at 50,000 feet at the equator on a clear night. The plane has a compass, a gyrocompass, gps, inertial navigation, and a device on each side for determining the direction of a star. You line up carefully so my direction is 270, the compass and gyrocompass say you are going west, and you sight on the north star out one side window and the southern cross from the other side at 90 degrees from your direction of travel (they will be visible just above the horizon). After 15 hours at 500 mph, 7500 mi west of your starting point.

Where will I be if:

I keep the southern cross at 90 degrees and ignore everything else?
I keep the north star at 90 degrees and ignore everything else?
If the southern cross and north star and southern cross are both kept at 90 degrees?

We know the north star is directly over the north pole. Where is the southern cross? Is it directly south of my starting point?

Now let;s try 2 planes flying opposite directions, one at 90 (directly east), the other at 270 (directly west). Both planes will be able to keep the north star at 90 degrees, but what happens to the southern cross? can they both keep it at 90 degrees as they travel? At 15,000 miles distance between the planes, what will be the angles of the north star and southern cross?

A diagram of where the two planes are and where the southern cross is would be nice.

RET predicts that both planes can keep north star and southern cross at 90 degrees, compass, gyro, inertial, and gps will all match up. What does FET predict?

RET makes no predictions about planes flying at 50,000 feet.

No one here will ever be in a plane flying at 50,000 feet.

What is the matter with you?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/22/virgin-galactic-completes-third-spaceflight-of-vss-unity.html

Virgin Galactic just a few days ago took a plane to 293,000 feet, went as high as 44,000 feet before it was released by the parent plane.



It's going to be expensive at first, it will cost $200,000 to fly this journey - but if they can scale and get costs down to the $50,000 dollar range it will be perfectly feasible for any of us to experience flying up to ~300,000 feet. That makes 50,000 feet look like a chump.

LOL!

How long as this scam been peddled?

You actually believe this is gonna happen?

Holy crap.

What do you mean believe it's gonna happen? It already happened, this is like their third successful flight. As far as space programs go Virgin Galactic is an itty bitty baby, with no useful application beyond being an expensive roller coaster ride.

They just strapped a rocket booster to a glider, that barely dips it's toes into space, what's the conspiracy there? I'd love to hear your theory.

For people with so much disdain for corporations and governments, it's ironic how much flat earthers believe them to have godlike hyper competence that allows them to perpetuate a multigenerational hoax. The government couldn't even stop rioters from breaking into the White House. You would be disappointed to learn that NASA is just a bunch of underpaid nerds who care more about anime and video games than taking over the world.

84

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What happens when I fly west on the wiki map?

« on: May 26, 2021, 05:57:33 PM »

Suppose you are in an airplane flying at 50,000 feet at the equator on a clear night. The plane has a compass, a gyrocompass, gps, inertial navigation, and a device on each side for determining the direction of a star. You line up carefully so my direction is 270, the compass and gyrocompass say you are going west, and you sight on the north star out one side window and the southern cross from the other side at 90 degrees from your direction of travel (they will be visible just above the horizon). After 15 hours at 500 mph, 7500 mi west of your starting point.

Where will I be if:

I keep the southern cross at 90 degrees and ignore everything else?
I keep the north star at 90 degrees and ignore everything else?
If the southern cross and north star and southern cross are both kept at 90 degrees?

We know the north star is directly over the north pole. Where is the southern cross? Is it directly south of my starting point?

Now let;s try 2 planes flying opposite directions, one at 90 (directly east), the other at 270 (directly west). Both planes will be able to keep the north star at 90 degrees, but what happens to the southern cross? can they both keep it at 90 degrees as they travel? At 15,000 miles distance between the planes, what will be the angles of the north star and southern cross?

A diagram of where the two planes are and where the southern cross is would be nice.

RET predicts that both planes can keep north star and southern cross at 90 degrees, compass, gyro, inertial, and gps will all match up. What does FET predict?

RET makes no predictions about planes flying at 50,000 feet.

No one here will ever be in a plane flying at 50,000 feet.

What is the matter with you?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/22/virgin-galactic-completes-third-spaceflight-of-vss-unity.html

Virgin Galactic just a few days ago took a plane to 293,000 feet, went as high as 44,000 feet before it was released by the parent plane.



It's going to be expensive at first, it will cost $200,000 to fly this journey - but if they can scale and get costs down to the $50,000 dollar range it will be perfectly feasible for any of us to experience flying up to ~300,000 feet. That makes 50,000 feet look like a chump.

85

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Help me understand how light rays travel

« on: May 23, 2021, 08:18:33 PM »

Everyone likes to talk about how light works above the surface of the water, but I don't think I've ever seen someone bring up the behavior of light under the water.

One of the coolest things I've ever done is cenote diving in Mexico. The best part of the whole experience, is that you get spectacular sun rays through the cracks and crevices to the surface above.

This quite aptly disproves the diagram here (https://i.imgur.com/mOPRvya.png) and the possibility that light is refracted horizontally as it approaches the surface of the Earth. Which makes sense - the water level is kind of an arbitrary line, there's nothing special about it, and diving under water proves that light continues to travel in a straight line path regardless of whether you're above or below the water level.

86

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: In Flat Earth Model, How do Migratory Birds Navigate

« on: May 18, 2021, 04:48:36 AM »

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13290

This is some fascinating research that proves in an elegant way that birds use electomagnetism to orient themselves in the direction they are supposed to migrate.

These birds kept in an urban lab would just bounce around in random directions, confused, but when taken to the countryside, the birds would know which way to orient themselves. They hypothesized that the electromagnetic 'noise' permeating the urban lab was responsible for disrupting the birds' ability to orient themselves in the direction of migration.

Fun fact, a compass will still work inside a Faraday cage. So, they covered the urban birds' cages with a Faraday cage to block any outside electromagnetic interference and lo and behold, the birds' ability to orient in the direction of migration was returned. Even though the exact bio-magnetic mechanisms are not fully understood, the experiment proves that birds' navigational abilities are due to their ability to sense electromagnetism.

87

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Islam and Flat Earth

« on: May 18, 2021, 04:29:22 AM »

Regardless of what might get taught in Islamic schools by teachers, the Islamic governments seem to be heavily invested in space programs of their own.

Saudi Arabia's Space Commission: https://saudispace.gov.sa/en/home/ Notably, two years ago the Saudi Arabsat television satellite was the payload aboard a SpaceX launch.



Iranian Space Agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Space_Agency Ironic considering the Revolutionary Guard claims to uphold hardline Islamic values by force, but also say that they have no comprehensive defense plan unless they have a presence in space.

88

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why?

« on: May 11, 2021, 10:31:32 PM »

Considering the Chinese have already begun constructing their own Space Station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station) and the Russians have already put a space station into orbit between 1986-2001 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir) the explanation for the conspiracy is going to need much more elaboration. Because the notion of American dominance of space is ridiculous when we aren't dominating space by one bit. 

Let’s say the earth is flat, why would nasa hide the truth

Read this page:
https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Conspiracy

Key quote:
"The purpose of NASA is to fake the concept of space travel to further America's militaristic dominance of space. That was the purpose of NASA's creation from the very start: To put ICBMs and other weapons into space (or at least appear to)."

Also - how can one exert military dominance over space when space is a faked concept?

89

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Help me understand how light rays travel

« on: May 06, 2021, 02:30:13 PM »

It is because of ocean waves that the distant views get block. On lakes you should be able to see far distances.

Standing on one end of Lake Ontario you can see Toronto the other side. I believe this photo is taken from New York based on the angle.

Where did half the city go? Lake Ontario typically only has waves under 5 feet, up to 10-20 when it's stormy, so waves can't explain why the bottom half of the city skyline is missing from view.

90

Flat Earth Community / Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth

« on: May 01, 2021, 06:48:22 PM »

Google Trends is a good way of gauging interest in a subject.

Substantiate this statement, ideally keeping in mind that it's been made and refuted multiple times before, and the real correlation with Google Trends has already been documented. (i.e. please provide a new argument which sufficiently overturns the understood cause, and don't waste our time with the ones already dealt with)

I don't understand your question but there's a strong correlation between general interest in a subject and Google Trends results.

It is not a perfect but it tracks public interest in a subject in ways that we expect it to. For example, Trends for Donald Trump predictably blow up in a way that's consistent with his political career. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Donald%20Trump Not remarkable until June 2015 when he started his run for President. By contrast, here's Hillary Clinton (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Hillary%20Clinton) which also shows an expected result. Interest spike during her run for President but dies down shortly afterwards, because she isn't the President.

Google Trends even shows predictable seasonal changes in interest, for example, here's Hayfever (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=hayfever) and predictably the search interest rises in the summer months, decreases in the winter months, quite consistently year over year. Conversely, here's results for Influenza (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=influenza) which likewise spike each winter season, and die down in the summer months, which is consistent with the flu's seasonal pattern.

This should be solid enough evidence to support the notion that Google Trends is a good indicator of general public interest of relevancy in some thing. Therefore, my earlier statement that Flat Earth has seen a marked change in search interest since 2015 is solid, and Google search interest demonstrably correlates with general interest in a subject.

91

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How to make an FE map with accurate distances

« on: May 01, 2021, 06:31:54 PM »

In most human groups and individuals, there is a combination of reasons, and they vary. It is exciting to be a "brave new warrior of truth", or throw a rock at uppity people who think they are so smart. In some cases, just to have some friends and be somebody.

Whatever the reason, I am amazed at how obvious the motivated reasoning is and that it is impossible to get them to see themselves doing it. It does not bode well for the human race that people decide something and will grossly dismiss contrary evidence and conjure up impossible things to explain, all while a perfectly good explanation exists, confirmed daily in thousands of ways. To the point of ridiculous, unless you have a tribe to agree, then it's us against them, and logic, consistency, and rational thought are all impediments to winning.

The faith based system of thinking (decide first, then see only supporting evidence) is the same for FE, Q, stopthesteal, Trump, religion, etc) is a dangerous thing with modern tech. Internet and atomic bomb should not be accessible to tribal faith based people. Faith based concrete reasoning people want to win, abstract thinkers want to cooperate.

In any case, you can't win an argument with a faith based person. They have already decided. The rest is just bla bla bla. The sport of it for me is to force them into a ridiculous position, but they see it coming and just stop replying, change the subject, etc. The anger comes when you expect them to be reasonable and they aren't.

It is exactly the same as trying to convince an anti-vaxxer that they are wrong. Or a Christian or Muslim or Jew that they are wrong. The more you try to convince them that their world view is incorrect it will be interpreted as an attack on their freedom of belief. This causes a psychological reactance / backfire effect where they believe in the thing more strongly, as it reinforces their perception of freedom of belief that they feel has become restricted. It is the same psychological effect that makes reverse psychology work, and why teenagers go out of their way to do the things they perceive as prohibited.

Any non-reactant Flat Earthers would not be Flat Earthers for very long given that it is so easily disproven, so there are only highly reactant Flat Earthers.

92

Flat Earth Community / Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth

« on: May 01, 2021, 04:42:03 PM »

Google Trends is a good way of gauging interest in a subject. How much people Google Search a topic is a decent indicator of interest.





Flat Earth has definitely gathered more interest. Some time in early 2015 google search interest in FE really took off, and has died down a little bit since then, but remains higher than pre-2015 levels. Search interest for FE is greatest in NZ, USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa. The New Zealand result is probably inaccurate because the first result for 'Flat Earth New Zealand' is for the tour company that does the famous Lord of the Rings tours.

For the most part, Flat Earth was side-by-side with other Earth-based conspiracy theories like Hollow Earth (on the graph for reference) but while Hollow Earth has remained unpopular, Flat Earth has definitely taken on a life of its own post-2015.

One region where Flat Earth has become extremely popular is in the Phillipines. Doing some digging, it seems that the Christian religious establishment and President Duterte and his allies are very much behind the promotion of Flat Earth belief among Filipinos, Duterte is using FE belief x Christian fundamentalism to discredit his opposition, a strong strategy given the Philippines is one of the most Christian countries in the world.

93

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How to make an FE map with accurate distances

« on: April 29, 2021, 03:37:03 PM »

Strikes me that FE is more political/tribal than scientific. The only certain claim all FEs will support is "not FE". They disagree with each other or don't know, nothing is certain, except one thing, "not RE". They respect and demand consideration for multiple FE models cheerfully, except for RE. They support each other while making contradictory cla9ims. I don't think this is about scientific exploration of the shape of the earth, it seems to me to be a pointless "us vs them" conflict.

This forum is based upon the Bedford's canal experiment and its supposed flatness (for REs it's due to refraction). In general, FEs look at the sea and somehow discard the idea that the horizon ends abruptly because there's a frontal curvature, in favour of an undefined, as you say, "not-roundness". Given these cognitive premises, their problem is no more proving flatness, but if you'd explore the wiki you'd see that they are trying to unify many possible FE models. These models are very different, but there could be a disambiguation if pairwise distances among cities was taken into account, as you say. So, the question of distance is of the utmost importance for FEs themselves, in order to unify their models.

My theory of Flat Earth(ers) is that it is a psychological reactance. It is not a structured belief system, or a science, or a cult or anything like that. It's an emergent response to a society that ridicules flat earth theories because they are incompatible with nearly all fields of modern science. We live in a society where we aggressively attack people who are scientifically wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)

"Reactance can occur when someone is heavily pressured to accept a certain view or attitude. Reactance can cause the person to adopt or strengthen a view or attitude that is contrary to what was intended, and also increases resistance to persuasion."

This is essentially what Flat Earthers experience every day. Our society most definitely places great pressure on Flat Earthers to change their views. Where 'Round Earth' normies think they are doing FErs a favour by rescuing them from a deep pit of ignorance, many will instead interpret this as suppression of their right to believe in something, and therefore a threat to their perceived freedom, creating a backfire effect that strengthens their views and makes it impossible to persuade them otherwise.

94

Flat Earth Theory / Re: what is your weight?

« on: April 23, 2021, 10:51:36 PM »

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2014/01/07/do-i-weigh-less-on-the-equator-than-at-the-north-pole/
https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/why-dont-we-weigh-more-at-the-poles-than-we-do-at-the-equator/

Yes, you weigh less on the equator than at the North or South Pole, but the difference is small. Note that your body itself does not change. Rather it is the force of gravity and other forces that change as you approach the poles.

You weigh about 1% less at the equator than at the poles. If you weigh 200 pounds (90.7 kg) at the North Pole, you will weigh 198 pounds (89.8 kg) at the equator.

95

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Simple Experiments

« on: April 23, 2021, 04:18:58 PM »

Gravity is not a force, and we've known that ever since we graduated from Newtonian physics.

Gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity not as a force, but as a consequence of masses moving along geodesic lines in a curved spacetime caused by the uneven distribution of mass.

There is no difference between floating in space, or falling from a building, both are inertial frames of reference taking a straight-line path on its geodesic through spacetime. This is a great video, I think everyone here should watch it.

96

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Moonlanding cam

« on: April 22, 2021, 05:56:10 PM »

 a

97

Flat Earth Theory / Re: My Happiest Thought

« on: April 20, 2021, 09:33:50 AM »

Say I create an equation showing that it takes longer to walk around a football field than to walk across it. You then come along and use my equation and claim that the time delay was a result of "spacetime distortion".

Obviously we have one explanation which can actually fundamentally explain a situation, and another explanation which uses stolen equations and which invokes an explanation in a hidden untestable layer of reality.

Why should the untestable "spacetime distortion" explanation be given any credence?

Spacetime distortion is not only testable but the phenomenon is practically applied every day, in correcting GPS satellites desynchronizing of time caused by relativistic effects. 'Untestable' is a blatant lie, it is both testable, observable, and applied in day-to-day life.

The warping of spacetime literally causes errors in GPS positioning due to clocks ticking slower due to the warping of spacetime. Flat Earth doesn't have an explanation for time dilation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System#Relativity

98

Flat Earth Community / Re: Great pics of ISS

« on: April 20, 2021, 09:24:03 AM »

But I was promised balloons keeping the ISS afloat?

99

Flat Earth Theory / Re: My Happiest Thought

« on: April 09, 2021, 12:42:23 AM »

I believe that gravity is actually the warping of spacetime by large masses such as the Earth and the Sun. As John Wheeler puts it, "Space-time tells matter how to move; matter tells space-time how to curve." Using the example below, an inertial observer passing through the object warping spacetime experiences a straight-line path (straight at first, but then straight down towards the center of the mass) it's just that spacetime itself is warped.



This video explains everything much better than I can, it is fantastic and explains things in a way that can be understood by even children. It goes into a lot of stuff that Flat Earthers might find intriguing to learn about, and he uses the exact same analogy of an accelerating rocketship example that is thrown around in this thread. It is only 17 minutes long, trust me it's worth the time.

100

Flat Earth Theory / Re: About the conspiracy

« on: April 05, 2021, 08:58:38 PM »

By Tom's logic, because we are currently unable to computationally and mathematically simulate the nature of human consciousness, consciousness is not real?

But, to determine that the Earth is a sphere, and to accurately compute the circumference of the earth, you need only simple tools and extremely simple math, to deduce a solution. So easy in fact that it was done over 2200 years ago. I would encourage Flat Earthers to conduct the same experiment Eratosthenes did in 200 BC.