[Action80]

Yeah, I have watched them. The camera panning is not anything like you describe it to be for one, and yes, you are labeling the horizon as the point where sky seems to meet surface. A lot of factors go into that particular point. No clue at all about surface conditions at the spot of the ship can be garnered by any observer from land.

[SteelyBob]

Yeah, I have watched them.

Good

The camera panning is not anything like you describe it to be for one

well, what does the camera do then? I thought that was a reasonable description - it clearly moves left and right, and horizon is visible throughout and, importantly, consistent - it doesn't change shape or angle.

you are labeling the horizon as the point where sky seems to meet surface.

well, yes, that's a pretty standard definition of the word 'horizon'. In the case of a relatively flat surface like the sea, lake or maybe a salt flat, then it is also a 'true horizon' in the sense that it isn't something like a mountain range, where there might be other objects in view were it not for the higher foreground. In a true horizon, it is the curvature of the earth, ie the viewer's sightline forming a tangent to the curve that causes the distinct line. That is modified somewhat by refraction, hence the viewable distance varying somewhat day-to-day, but the essential principle remains. You would clearly disagree with that, but your stubborn refusal to actual state what you think is happening at a true horizon is somewhat undermining your credibility.

A lot of factors go into that particular point.

Ok then - what factors, exactly?

No clue at all about surface conditions at the spot of the ship can be garnered by any observer from land.

Are you suggesting that, somehow, in the ship video we have discussed, that the sea conditions in the immediate vicinity of the ships might be so rough that half the ship is obscured from the viewer? All while not once changing the perfect horizontal line cutting across the ship? Or rocking the ship at all?

[Tumeni]

The waves and swells do not need to be 100 feet to commence obscuring portions of the ship that would be visible to an observer from shore.

.. but, as I said in my opening line of reply #22 - "you don't actually NEED to see the ship go over the horizon to see that the sea is Not Flat."

I'm not talking about anything obscuring the ship. I'm talking about the situation where the observer, at a height of 100m, observes the ship of 52m, and should, if the sea is flat, see clear water behind and beyond the topmost point of the ship, but does not. Indicating the sea cannot be flat.

With the observer at 100m, every sightline to the water is a downward one, and must pass through every height between 0 and 100 on the way. 90, 80, 70, down to zero, including 52m

If the ship is 52m high, and the observer looks down from 100m, the continuation of the sightline to 52m must continue to zero. IF the sea is flat.

[BillO]

I have no idea why any of you want to claim anyone here has written or claimed seas are flat. Seas are well noted for possessing waves and swells, frequently exceeding heights of 100 feet.

Action gets it wrong again and just makes shit up.  100 feet is the highest wave ever recorded, and that was the largest ever recorded tsunami and occurred in 1958 near Alaska.

Mid ocean waves during storms might reach 33-34 feet, normally they are 5-10 feet.  The earth's diameter is nearly 42 million feet.  So the big stormy mid ocean waves of 34 feet don't amount to a pinch of coon shit.  The ocean is smoother than anything you have ever seen.  Smoother than electropolished metal.

[Action80]

I have no idea why any of you want to claim anyone here has written or claimed seas are flat. Seas are well noted for possessing waves and swells, frequently exceeding heights of 100 feet.

Action gets it wrong again and just makes shit up.  100 feet is the highest wave ever recorded, and that was the largest ever recorded tsunami and occurred in 1958 near Alaska.

Mid ocean waves during storms might reach 33-34 feet, normally they are 5-10 feet.  The earth's diameter is nearly 42 million feet.  So the big stormy mid ocean waves of 34 feet don't amount to a pinch of coon shit.  The ocean is smoother than anything you have ever seen.  Smoother than electropolished metal.

The wave in Alaska (Lituya Bay, I believe) was over 1700 feet high.
I am not making anything up.

You are.

[Action80]

The waves and swells do not need to be 100 feet to commence obscuring portions of the ship that would be visible to an observer from shore.

.. but, as I said in my opening line of reply #22 - "you don't actually NEED to see the ship go over the horizon to see that the sea is Not Flat."

I'm not talking about anything obscuring the ship. I'm talking about the situation where the observer, at a height of 100m, observes the ship of 52m, and should, if the sea is flat, see clear water behind and beyond the topmost point of the ship, but does not. Indicating the sea cannot be flat.

With the observer at 100m, every sightline to the water is a downward one, and must pass through every height between 0 and 100 on the way. 90, 80, 70, down to zero, including 52m

If the ship is 52m high, and the observer looks down from 100m, the continuation of the sightline to 52m must continue to zero. IF the sea is flat.

Maybe I missed the picture.

Got one?

[Tumeni]

Maybe I missed the picture.  Got one?

It doesn't need to be a ship, either. Can do the same with lighthouses and islands. YouTuber Flatsa's video below shows the same geometric proof of Not Flat that my own video does. I won't post a link to my own, else Pete will slap me down for "spamming" my own. But here's his; the first minute or so shows that the seas around are Not Flat. See the comments at that video for my explanation.

[SteelyBob]

[
The wave in Alaska (Lituya Bay, I believe) was over 1700 feet high.
I am not making anything up.

You are.

A bit of a silly argument. Lituya Bay was a unique situation and, critically, was not open water, which is the situation we are discussing. The biggest wave ever was believed to have occurred off Portugal, and came in at 100 feet (visible by satellite, if any FE folks are interested!), but the biggest ever measured properly was more like 60 feet, and that was highly unusual. I went with info from this site, although Bill may well have something better:

https://www.livescience.com/tallest-wave-recorded-on-earth

The bottom line is that Bill is right - waves are typically very small compared to the height of large ships, so trying to invoke them somehow in explaining the obscuration of distant vessels is a pretty desperate argument.

I’ll ask again: what do you think the horizon actually is? What is causing it? If the earth is flat, why do we see a crisp line between sea and sky at a distance relatively close to us, compared to the size of the earth?

[Tron]

So far photographing objects in the distance are beginning to look unreliable as to whether its physical in nature or a refracted image.

Leaving waves and perspective aside, its clear that sometimes depending on the weather ships and other objects will sink beneath the horizon or in front of it as is the case with the Nat Geo experiment.
 Objects will also remain level with the horizon or even float above it as is the case with "Superior Mirages"!


https://www.oldsaltblog.com/2021/03/good-ship-fata-morgana-hovering-above-the-horizon/

When the air is hotter at the surface and cooler above it, it can bend images down and produce a sinking ship effect.  When the air is cool at the surface and gets hotter going up, then images can be bent upwards and appear to float above the horizon.

I suppose the real disagreement is about the nature and affects of refraction. 

[Action80]

[
The wave in Alaska (Lituya Bay, I believe) was over 1700 feet high.
I am not making anything up.

You are.

A bit of a silly argument. Lituya Bay was a unique situation and, critically, was not open water, which is the situation we are discussing. The biggest wave ever was believed to have occurred off Portugal, and came in at 100 feet (visible by satellite, if any FE folks are interested!), but the biggest ever measured properly was more like 60 feet, and that was highly unusual. I went with info from this site, although Bill may well have something better:

https://www.livescience.com/tallest-wave-recorded-on-earth

The bottom line is that Bill is right - waves are typically very small compared to the height of large ships, so trying to invoke them somehow in explaining the obscuration of distant vessels is a pretty desperate argument.

I’ll ask again: what do you think the horizon actually is? What is causing it? If the earth is flat, why do we see a crisp line between sea and sky at a distance relatively close to us, compared to the size of the earth?

The bottom line is that Bill is wrong, He claimed it was near Alaska, when it was Alaska, and he was wrong about the height.

You are wrong in writing that he was right because he obviously is not.

You are correct in stating it really has nothing to do with the current discussion and that is primarily why I never even mentioned Lituya Bay, to begin with.

The bottom line is you are writing as if there are thousands of boats at any given time wandering the oceans, with the primary purpose of measuring wave height.

Pro-tip, there are not.

Regardless, as any object moves further away it will become less visible and that has nothing to do with the shape of the earth.

The difference between water and sky is a very tricky thing to discern most of the time.

[Action80]

Maybe I missed the picture.  Got one?

It doesn't need to be a ship, either. Can do the same with lighthouses and islands. YouTuber Flatsa's video below shows the same geometric proof of Not Flat that my own video does. I won't post a link to my own, else Pete will slap me down for "spamming" my own. But here's his; the first minute or so shows that the seas around are Not Flat. See the comments at that video for my explanation.

So, you are just making a broad claim about an issue with no actual visual.

Thank you, but no thank you.

[AATW]

Regardless, as any object moves further away it will become less visible and that has nothing to do with the shape of the earth.

This is true, for two reasons.
1) Optical resolution, at some point you will no longer be able to discern an object. But so long as you have a clear line of sight to it you can zoom in with the right equipment to see it
2) Visibility. This varies from day to day, but there will be a distance at which visibility becomes an issue, in that case no amount of zooming in with optical equipment will render the object visible.

The difference between water and sky is a very tricky thing to discern most of the time.

It really isn't. Almost always there's a very clear line between them. Random picture from a recent holiday:



Is that clear enough for you? So here's the question - what causes that line? It can't be visibility, that wouldn't cause a sharp line between sea and sky. On a foggy day you don't get a sharp horizon, if the visibility is less than the distance to the horizon then it just fades out like in this picture:



And it's not optical resolution because
1) The sea is really big and
2) Zooming in doesn't reveal any more sea.

So what's with the sharp horizon line? RE's claim is that the earth is a globe and thus the sea curves away from you. That's why at some point you get a sharp line beyond which you can't see. That's also why the distance to the horizon increases with height, you can see further over the curve. What is your take on why these things occur?

[SteelyBob]

This is true, for two reasons.
1) Optical resolution, at some point you will no longer be able to discern an object. But so long as you have a clear line of sight to it you can zoom in with the right equipment to see it
2) Visibility. This varies from day to day, but there will be a distance at which visibility becomes an issue, in that case no amount of zooming in with optical equipment will render the object visible.

The difference between water and sky is a very tricky thing to discern most of the time.

It really isn't. Almost always there's a very clear line between them. Random picture from a recent holiday:



Is that clear enough for you? So here's the question - what causes that line? It can't be visibility, that wouldn't cause a sharp line between sea and sky. On a foggy day you don't get a sharp horizon, if the visibility is less than the distance to the horizon then it just fades out like in this picture:



And it's not optical resolution because
1) The sea is really big and
2) Zooming in doesn't reveal any more sea.

So what's with the sharp horizon line? RE's claim is that the earth is a globe and thus the sea curves away from you. That's why at some point you get a sharp line beyond which you can't see. That's also why the distance to the horizon increases with height, you can see further over the curve. What is your take on why these things occur?

Thanks - that pretty much exactly what I would have said.

Action80, again, I ask - what do you actually think the horizon is, and why is it there if the earth is flat?

[Action80]

Thanks - that pretty much exactly what I would have said.

Action80, again, I ask - what do you actually think the horizon is, and why is it there if the earth is flat?

The horizon is as far as you can see.

It is there, just the same as it would be there if I was in a known to be perfectly level, hallway say of 10 miles distance.

[SteelyBob]

The horizon is as far as you can see.

It is there, just the same as it would be there if I was in a known to be perfectly level, hallway say of 10 miles distance.

If it is as far as you can see, why can we see objects behind it? Why can I see the horizon, for example, in front of the lower half of a distant ship? Or the sun?

[Action80]

The horizon is as far as you can see.

It is there, just the same as it would be there if I was in a known to be perfectly level, hallway say of 10 miles distance.

If it is as far as you can see, why can we see objects behind it? Why can I see the horizon, for example, in front of the lower half of a distant ship? Or the sun?

Why does the ceiling in the hallway appear to start merging with the floor at a distance?

And as far as the ship video is concerned, how large a wake do you propose a cruise ship would make?

You are not going to detect any bobbing action on a ship that large from that far away, even if you are zoomed in.

The cruise ship video, in other words, is another lousy distraction inserted to deflect from an entirely different OP.

Typical tactics.

[AATW]

Why does the ceiling in the hallway appear to start merging with the floor at a distance?

It doesn't.
I mean, if you were in a long enough corridor then I guess at some distance you might not be able to make out the ceiling from the floor.
But you could zoom in with a decent camera and see clearly the gap between them.
But the horizon is a clearly defined line on a clear day and remains so no matter how much you zoom in.
It clearly isn't "as far as you can see". The horizon is only a few miles away if you're standing on the beach. You can clearly see the tops of ships further away than that behind it.
And you can clearly see distant land masses too, much further away than the horizon. But not all of them, some of them are hidden. What are they hidden behind?

[Tumeni]

So, you are just making a broad claim about an issue with no actual visual.

I provided you with a photo taken by myself and a video by another YouTuber.

What is there about these that leads you to say "no actual visual"? 

[SteelyBob]

Why does the ceiling in the hallway appear to start merging with the floor at a distance?

Because the angular distance between the ceiling and floor will, at some point for any human, reduce below the resolving power of the viewer's eyes - typically around an arc minute for somebody with good eyesight. If, however, you then picked up some binoculars and looked down the corridor, you would then be able to discern them as two separate things again.

That is the fundamental difference between your corridor scenario and what we see in examples such as the ships half-disappeared over the horizon - if we zoom in on the ships, we don't see anything different, just a zoomed in image of the half-disappeared ship. The horizon doesn't change - it is, to go back to your example, akin to the wall at the end of the corridor. You can zoom in on it, but you can't see behind it because it is in between you what lies behind. The horizon is the same - it is in between you and what lies behind - the lower half of the ships in the example video.

And as far as the ship video is concerned, how large a wake do you propose a cruise ship would make?

I don't propose...looking at images I'd suggest not much (in open seas) - 1m or so? I'm not an expert on boat wakes. What's your point?

You are not going to detect any bobbing action on a ship that large from that far away, even if you are zoomed in.

The cruise ship video, in other words, is another lousy distraction inserted to deflect from an entirely different OP.

Typical tactics.

Bobbing action? Are you saying that a ship bobbing around might be responsible for the lower part of it becoming progressively more obscured with increasing distance? That makes no sense at all.

As for deflection...not at all. I think we all agree that the NG video experiment is a shoddy piece of work. I was trying to steer us onto the central issue, which is, as far as I can tell, the fact that you have fundamentally different ideas about what the horizon actually is. I'm trying to get that from you, and I'm grateful for your answers so far.

[Tumeni]

So far photographing objects in the distance are beginning to look unreliable as to whether its physical in nature or a refracted image.

Leaving waves and perspective aside, its clear that sometimes depending on the weather ships and other objects will sink beneath the horizon or in front of it as is the case with the Nat Geo experiment.
 Objects will also remain level with the horizon or even float above it as is the case with "Superior Mirages"

That's fine. Just disregard all photos where the ship "appears to be floating", then. There's plenty more evidence available where they do not appear to be so.

I refer you back to my photo and the video I cited above. Does it look a like any of the ships or islands are floating?