4221

Flat Earth Theory / Re: On a globe Earth the horizon should not curve

« on: April 07, 2018, 04:45:18 PM »

I see Tom was peddling this lie ten years ago

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=25083.0

Weird.

Anyway...original post. Had to think about this but I think that's correct. If we were on a globe (  ) then although, as we have shown recently, the horizon dips you are, from your perspective, "on top" of the ball so it should dip equally in all directions and thus the horizon would be a circle. By coincidence this is what is observed when you're out at sea.

4222

Flat Earth Theory / Re: On a globe Earth the horizon should not curve

« on: April 07, 2018, 04:22:27 PM »

...  the Nile should dip but it falls only a foot. This is proof earth is not a globe.

Various sources I've looked suggest the elevation at its headwaters and tributaries is over 1000 metres (above sea level)

What's the source for "only a foot" ?

I've seen this "only a foot" thing too. Seems to be a flat our lie so I don't know why it keeps getting repeated:



Source:
http://www.warrencountyschools.org/userfiles/3338/Classes/91227/Ch.%2019%20readings.doc

4223

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is the diameter/radius of the Earth? How wide is it, essentially?

« on: April 07, 2018, 08:38:42 AM »

I find it hard to believe people would think earth is hollow, yet there are people who believe it. I don't brand them trolls or try to make out like they are crackpots though, because they are entitled to their (incorrect) beliefs

Why are we "entitled" to incorrect beliefs? If I chose to believe that grass was made of beef and thus all cows were cannibals would you defend my right to believe that? I hope not because it would be ridiculous! Facts are facts and our opinions don't change them!

Because nobody can tell you what to believe, that's why we are 'entitled'. People choose to research things and come to their own conclusions, it's not for someone else to tell them they should believe their opinions instead, and brand them trolls if they don't.

There is a difference between, say, believing that The Spice Girls are the greatest musical group in history and believing that the earth is flat.
It may be your opinion about the Spice Girls, I may disagree, we can discuss it but we both are entitled to an opinion about that. It is subjective.

The shape of the earth is not subjective, it is not a matter of opinion. It is what it is.
As a species we figured out that the earth is a globe thousands of years ago.
Generation after generation of scientists have reaffirmed this. We have a coherent model which matches and explains observations.
There are some debates in science, this is not one of them.

And in the last century we finally had the technology to see it for ourselves.
We now have loads of satellites in space which can take photos of the earth. We have GPS and satellite TV which demonstrably works.
We have sent quite a lot of people in space who have seen the earth as it is for themselves.
High altitude pilots can also observe the curve.

As Ricky Gervais laments in his Humanity show, it used to be "my opinion is as good as your opinion", now it seems to be "my opinion is as good as your fact".
This is obviously not true. The earth is a globe. That is not my opinion. Yes, you are entitled to a different opinion just like you're free to believe in fairies at the bottom of your garden and that the moon is made of cheese, but you ARE wrong and have been proven wrong.
If you want to put your fingers in your ears and go "la la la, can't hear you" and ignore the mountain of evidence proving you wrong then there's nothing I can do about that, but don't go around pretending that this is just a matter of opinion and that all opinions about this are equally valid.

4224

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 06, 2018, 03:34:59 PM »

If perspective puts the sun at the horizon, then the photons are illuminating the observer and sticks from 90 degrees, and will therefore create long shadows.

Cool. Can you show a diagram indicating how photons can travel in a straight line from a sun 3000 miles above the plane of the earth and arrive at my eye horizontally so the sun appears on the horizon and casts long shadows.
Thanks.

There are diagrams of the sun intersecting with the horizon in the p-brane video.

OK. But it only appears to because of perspective, yes? In reality it is 3000 miles above the plane of the surface.
I'm struggling to understand how a ray of light from 3000 miles above the earth can travel in a straight line and end up coming at me horizontally and therefore parallel to the ground, which it has to in order to cast the long shadows.
To understand why this is impossible you only need to think what parallel means, if I shoot a missile at the sun at sunset, the bullet is 4 foot off the ground and I fire it perfectly parallel to the ground, where the sun appears to be, then (assuming the missile doesn't lose any height) the missile will stay 4 feet off the ground.
How then can it hit an object 3000 miles high?

Some diagrams would be helpful to help me understand. Thanks.

4225

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Radii of Certain Circles of Latitude

« on: April 06, 2018, 09:29:19 AM »

The horizon "attempts" to stay with eye level.
Lamps on the horizon are "looking up" at your hand.
Do you actually think the horizon and lamps are sentient? The way you use language is very strange.

It's almost impressive how you manage to claim victory in debates where you have clearly shown to be wrong.
Rowbothamesque. I guess if he was living today he'd be an Internet Troll too.

I've been up tall buildings. I've been on planes. I know that you are not looking down at a significant angle to see the horizon when you're up high. The reason for that is the earth is really big. In my diagrams obviously I significantly exaggerated the curve of the earth to demonstrate the effect but I showed that whether you're on a flat earth or globe the horizon level is BELOW eye level.



Even on a flat earth the horizon would be below eye level as you can see in the diagram.
It's a triangle.
The vertical side is from the ground to your eye.
The base is from you to as far as you can see - which we agree is a finite distance.
The hypotenuse is from your eye to that point as far as you can see.
So there HAS to be an angle downwards and that angle gets bigger with altitude.
And no, I haven't "accounted for perspective". I don't need to. That is not how perspective works, you've repeatedly shown you don't understand perspective.

The angle the horizon is below eye level increases with altitude. I showed you a graph which plots horizon angle dip against altitude:

https://www.metabunk.org/a-diy-theodolite-for-measuring-the-dip-of-the-horizon.t8617/

Even at the height of a commercial airline the dip angle is only about 3.5 degrees. So it is hard to discern, but it can be measured and you were shown a video of an experiment you could do to check this. It is telling that you have so far refused to even though it would cost you virtually nothing.

Your claim was that the horizon is AT eye level. Your evidence for this was a quote from someone which said it remained "practically" at eye level - which is true it does, but practically at and exactly at are not the same thing. Your other evidence was some drone footage. Even in that footage you CAN see some horizon drop.
Here are two stills from the video, one when it's low, the other when it's high. I've drawn a line across the two frames and you can clearly see that there HAS been some drop in the horizon height.
 


That empirical enough for you?

4226

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat Earth Math, and what you should see, shall the Earth be round

« on: April 05, 2018, 09:57:59 PM »

That link is giving me a 404.
Compelling evidence as always.

4227

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Radii of Certain Circles of Latitude

« on: April 05, 2018, 09:56:47 PM »

Is something as simple as measuring the angle of the sun from different locations at different times to start producing a model of the shape of the earth beyond your ability?

We dispute your ideas about how perspective works.

Really? But in this diagram from your Wiki you take no account of perspective.
Correctly, as it happens, so when it suits your argument you do understand how perspective works in the real world:



If you're going to use that argument and that diagram explaining that argument then you can do the experiment which has been suggested to you.

You are not helping when you keep coming up with tests that depend on those Ancient Greek assumptions. You are not working with me, you are working against me. That's where the problem is.

You made a claim the other day about the horizon always being at eye level. A claim which is not true.
The best you could come up with as evidence was a video from a drone which you admitted was not stabilised and thus useless to testing that claim.
You were shown a video of an experiment which clearly showed your claim to be incorrect, an experiment you could repeat at minimal cost.
That test is nothing to do with perspective. It's a simple thing you could do to test part of your theory.

You are making all kinds of assertions based on Rowbotham's writings.
You claim to be an empiricist but you have taken no empirical measurements on anything.

4228

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 05, 2018, 06:13:33 PM »

If perspective puts the sun at the horizon, then the photons are illuminating the observer and sticks from 90 degrees, and will therefore create long shadows.

Cool. Can you show a diagram indicating how photons can travel in a straight line from a sun 3000 miles above the plane of the earth and arrive at my eye horizontally so the sun appears on the horizon and casts long shadows.
Thanks.

4229

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 05, 2018, 08:26:55 AM »

Read Earth Not a Globe for the mechanism of the sun's descent. Youtube author p-brane describes the same mechanism here:

I've dealt with this in this thread, which you ignored.

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8672.msg140039;topicseen#msg140039

One key thing to note from my post in that thread is how you use perspective here (wrongly) to explain sunset but ignore it when reinterpreting the stick experiment to show a close sun.
You can't have it both ways.

I've suggested a simple experiment you could do in your home which would cost approximately 0$ - so all of your annual budget, but I'm sure you'll agree that it will be worth it - to verify what I've said about shadows. You ignored that too. I've also suggested an experiment you could do to verify the distance to the sun and you've ignored that too. This is a key part of your theory, if the sun is distant then it would show your interpretation of the stick experiment wrong, it's strange then that you refuse to do any empirical experiments to test that.

4230

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 04, 2018, 08:22:13 PM »

In order for you to be a flat earther you have to think that a flat earth model is possible.
I do not, so I can't make you one.
You as a society are claiming it is possible, the onus is on you to make one.

It's weird that you say above that you don't have a model - that's what I thought a lot of your Wiki was.

I don't understand how you can say that you don't know how many poles there are and that not bother you.

If there's one pole and Antarctica is a wall of ice then there is no way to explain 24 hour sun in Antarctica - something which has been testified to by many people, something you can easily find video of on YouTube. Heck, you can even GO TO ANTARCTICA if you have the money.

If there are two poles and the sun somehow changes from circling one to the other then I can't think of any way that could explain sunlight patterns anywhere else.

When massive gaping flaws are pointed out it would be rational to consider whether the premise of a flat earth is correct given how many empirical observations (something you say is important to you) show it to be impossible.

4231

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 04, 2018, 08:02:12 PM »

You are the one who is interested in it. You make some kind of model. You make some theories.

Wait...you want me to make a model of a flat earth which matches observations...even though that has been shown to be impossible...
It's impossible because the earth is a globe, not flat.
What a strange thing to request.

You're the guys (pretending to) believe in a flat earth.
When you're shown how many ways your current model is wrong and bears no resemblance to reality the onus is on you to either:
1) Alter your model
2) Admit that you're wrong

Your Wiki says:
"A fundamental tenant to the Zetetic philosophy is to search, or examine; to proceed only by inquiry; to take nothing for granted, but to trace phenomena to their immediate and demonstrable causes"

I don't see any searching, examining or inquiring going on.

4232

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 04, 2018, 07:39:08 PM »

We study what we think is interesting, on our own time, if we even want to study anything at all. This is a leisure activity.

Apologies for the double post but really? You (say you) think that the earth is flat - something which flies in the face of all scientific knowledge and would mean a massive global conspiracy to hide the truth and you don't think this is important? If you had any proof of this, any experiments which actually stood up to scrutiny then this would be revolutionary, it would literally change the world. It's weird that you're not trying a little harder to find some proof to present.

4233

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Universal-ish Acceleration

« on: April 04, 2018, 07:02:49 PM »

Gravity is real, even Dr Rowbotham didn't disprove it. But the way it works, the earth is flat so instead of pulling down from a 'core', it pulls downwards all along the underside of the planet, proving that earth cannot be a globe.

Why doesn't it make all the planets and sun and moon fall on us then?

4234

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth Chart,

« on: April 04, 2018, 07:00:31 PM »

This is literally just a few people talking about it for a brief time every day on their spare time. That’s the flat earth movement.

You should put that on your home page 

No one is demanding that you do any specific research. I have suggested some things you could do, others have too.
If you don't follow up on any of those then so be it but it's hard to take seriously someone writing a chapter on "the importance of Empiricism" who seems to refuse to do any empirical measurements at all.
We have free, global communications these days. All you'd need to do is get some people to take some observations and measurements of the sun in different places, if the sun is circling (it isn't) a flat plane (it isn't) then that would start to give you some idea of where places are.
If you could form a flat earth model which in any way matched observations then maybe it would be taken more seriously and wouldn't just  be "just a few people talking about it for a brief time every day on their spare time."

4235

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Radii of Certain Circles of Latitude

« on: April 04, 2018, 05:23:13 PM »

If you are looking for a well funded and organized organization that studies the shape of the earth you will be disapointed. I think you do not realize that this entire thing is based on a few people who individually contribute their time to think about it on what little free time they have away from their work.

But even when you're shown simple experiments which would cost you do virtually nothing to do you refuse to do them.
Stop making excuses. There's plenty you could be doing. What ARE you doing to test your models and theories?

4236

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Soundly Proving the Curvature of the Earth at Lake Pontchartrain

« on: April 04, 2018, 11:59:25 AM »

Treep, the sinking ship effect is covered in ENaG. Please familiarise yourself with the theory you're trying to satirise.

It is, but his explanation isn't borne out by reality. He mixes up a ship which is a long way away and you can't distinguish a dark hull from a dark sea (yes, that can be seen by optical zoom but it isn't "restored", it wasn't hidden in the first place) and a ship which is actually going over the curve of the earth and only the top can be seen (no amount of zoom will restore it, you can find plenty of photos and video which clearly demonstrate this effect.

On a flat earth as a ship sails away you should be able to see all of it at all times:



But don't worry, there is a shape of earth which could actually explain why a ship disappears hull first...



Ta-daa!

I know there is some muttering about "waves", I've dealt with that in another thread.

4237

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: April 04, 2018, 11:42:58 AM »

Come (3), every satellite dish in the land points South, without exception. Even those on the south coast of the land.

Point of note; If this was being done from land-based transmitters, then it's clearly not being done from the existing transmitter network that took decades to build across the land. Satellite TV was, in practical terms, available overnight from the launch date, with no apparent construction of a new transmitter network, and, in marked contrast to the previous systems, no need to point dishes at either high ground, nor at the nearest local transmitter.   

And just to reiterate, on a recent trip to Sri Lanka which is significantly closer to the equator than the UK I noticed that the satellite dishes were pointed up at a significantly steeper angle than those in the UK. They're pointing at something. The something is in the sky. Anyone who has knocked their dish will know how precisely they have to be aimed.
So there is something up there...

4238

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Moon and Moon Landing.

« on: April 03, 2018, 08:22:29 PM »

FFS! It pretty much was a regular flag. The only difference is it was fixed to a rod along the top so it stayed upright rather than hanging limp as it would have done otherwise because of the lack of atmosphere.

4239

Flat Earth Community / Re: Convex Earth Documentary

« on: April 03, 2018, 01:18:23 PM »

The Flat Earth movement does produce "simple experiments" of the kind with zero budget. Have you seen Youtube lately?

There's all kinds of crazy stuff on YouTube. How am I to know which experiments you would stand behind so I can comment?
Do you have an official YouTube channel? If so then please post the link and I'll have a look.
In the thread in which we were discussing horizon dip the video you produced had no measurements, it was by your own admission not stabilised video, it was completely useless in terms of determining whether you claim that the horizon is always at eye level is true.
(Spoiler alert: it isn't true, and wouldn't been true even if we were living on a flat earth. I've already produced a diagram explaining why)
If that's your idea of a controlled experiment then I can understand why you're getting things so wrong. As someone else said, it's as valid as measuring wind speed by wetting your finger in the air and holding it up to the wind - fine for determining the difference between "gosh, it's very windy" and "it's very calm", utterly useless for a precise measurement which is what is needed when the horizon dip angle is only 1 or 2 degrees at normal heights.

Why are you here if this is nonsense? Do you also have a presence on unicorn websites telling people that unicorns are not real?

You're the guys trying to publicise the "truth" of the flat earth and seeking publicity. That is what has brought you to my attention.
I lurked here for a while, amused and bemused at the stupidity of some of the arguments you and other flat earthers were making.
In the end I decided to dive in and join in the discussion rather than shaking my head from the sidelines.
I'm mostly here for my own entertainment, I suspect you are too and I'm not convinced you really believe a lot of this stuff.
But also if there are other lurkers out there who are on the fence and I and other round earthers can show how detached from reality you are there I think there's some value in that, I do think the truth is important.

4240

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Waves, Dimes and Elephants.

« on: April 03, 2018, 11:45:16 AM »

TBF the two claims are effectively equivalent.

They're similar but not equivalent. The FE claim is that the horizon is always at eye level.
It isn't, the dip to the horizon is measurable at different altitudes and changes with altitude.
The confusion here is that even at 10000 feet the angle of dip is less than 2 degrees because the earth is so big.
So it is hard to discern but it can be measured.
An experiment to do so has been shown, for people who claim to be empiricists they are amazingly reluctant to do any experimentation.