1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: 11 hr direct flight from Auckland to buenos aires

« on: March 24, 2016, 07:24:19 PM »

TheTruthIsOnHere --- the point Rabinoz is trying to make is that, as best we can tell, many FE'ers genuinely think that, if you went up in a spaceship or something and looked down on the Earth, what you would see would look like the AEP map. The Earth would be a disk, with the "North Pole" at the center and Antarctica all around the edge (and possibly extending indefinitely outwards in all directions, according to some people). The whole argument here is exactly what you're saying -- that the only distances AEP accurately preserves are those from some point on Earth to the North Pole.

If you believe that the AEP isn't accurate for latitude, then what is? If the Earth is flat, there must be some way to draw a map of it, on a flat piece of paper, which accurately shows all distances between points. And if that's true, then that means globes don't accurately preserve distances between points on Earth (even though everyone acts under the assumption that they do and, under those assumptions, people navigate their way across the planet with perfect accuracy every day).

If you believe that the AEP doesn't accurately preserve latitude, then you believe that, if you were to go really high up in a balloon or spaceship and look down on the Earth, you would see something other than that picture. (In fact, if you believe that "latitude" and "longitude" as they are currently defined are useful and accurate measures, then you believe the world is round.)

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravitational Waves

« on: February 12, 2016, 05:40:57 PM »

Junker, can you stop being deliberately obtuse? You can't say things like "physics is my source", that's nonsensical. If you're going to make some sort of point, then just make your point instead of forcing the rest of us to drag it out of you. Your conduct is absolutely horrible for conducting productive conversations right now.

So you've made some distinction between "gravity" and "gravitation". Fine. Can you explain how that's relevant to the discovery of gravitational waves? If you're going to claim that gravitational waves haven't actually been discovered, can you provide a reason to believe that?

From the language in your first post, it seemed like you were implying that "gravitation" is real while "gravity" is not (because gravitons haven't been discovered or something? again, I'm being forced to guess because you haven't actually said anything meaningful yet). I would like to note that in conversations about this with other FE'ers, it seems that when they dismiss gravity, they deny the existence of an attractive force between massive object as well as whatever your other interpretation is supposed to mean.

3

Flat Earth Theory / Gravitational Waves

« on: February 11, 2016, 08:02:56 PM »

So the discovery of gravitational waves was confirmed today. You guys don't believe in gravity, so I was wondering what your thoughts were on this. Is this just totally fraudulent?

4

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: February 03, 2016, 01:53:10 AM »

SexWarrior, that is precisely the type of "proof" that the video I linked above shows to be false. Essentially, when you repeat that to infinity, you don't get a circle, you get an infinitely-sided polygon with really scrunched up sides. (I *think* Miles Mathis's proof of basically the same, but he does a whole lot more math to get there.)

This may seem too obvious to even state, but I'm going to anyway: if you do a bunch of math and you come up with the result pi=4, you're not talking about pi anymore -- you're talking about four. There's a chance that you've proven something interesting in the process, but if you make the statement "pi = 4" as anything more than an attention-grabber that you later clarify, you're being intentionally misleading at best or are downright lying at worst.

5

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: February 02, 2016, 03:14:29 AM »

Anyone who knows anything about math knows that it is possible to make a mathematical proof for many things. There are proofs that pi is transcendental, that pi is irrational, pi is rational, and so on.

oh my god this is so false it's incredible. There is no proof that pi is rational, because pi is irrational. I only gave the pi = 4 thing a cursory look because frankly that's all it deserves, but his "short version" looks awfully like the "proof" described in this lovely video. Basically, the figure Mathis creates "approaches the area of a circle without actually being a circle".

It looks like Mathis has done a lot of math to get to this result, much more than is described in the video, but ultimately even if he has come up with something interesting, calling it pi is just disingenuous. And I have no idea where you got the idea that mathematicians can prove that pi is rational. That is so utterly false I don't know where to begin -- at least if you're using the word "rational" in the way it's typically understood (and if you're not, that isn't something you can just brush off. If you're using words that have standard definitions in a nonstandard way and you aren't clear about that, it is your responsibility to make that clear, and if any misunderstandings arise, they are entirely your fault).

The principle of noncontradiction is not just the cornerstone of mathematics, it's the cornerstone of essentially all logic. Tons of mathematical proofs are done "by contradiction" -- you assume something, and if that assumption leads you to a result you know to be false (like 1 = 0), then your assumption must have been false. If two mathematical proofs produce contradictory results, one of them is wrong -- (at least) one of them is not actually a proof. That's it. End of story.

6

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: January 27, 2016, 04:03:53 AM »

One of the criticisms I saw on that page was that the Cavendish experiment was never performed out in the open, away from the potentially confounding effect of nearby walls. What do you think of the Schiehallion experiment then? It produced a similar result and is not subject to the same criticisms, as far as I can see.

7

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: January 27, 2016, 02:03:05 AM »

Yeah, the existence of dark energy. But I haven't seen even the barest attempt to make any sort of argument about why dark energy would cause UA. It's merely a scientific-sounding word masquerading as an explanation -- from the looks of it, someone sitting at their computer said, "hmm what plausible explanation might there be for UA? Dark matter? Well, they're both things we don't understand, so I can probably get away with saying this." That's a hypothesis at best, not a coherent theory.

Meanwhile, gravity is a well-tested theory, a fact that I've stated and that I've invited you to critique. You do an awfully bad job at responding to direct questions though, Junker, especially for a site administrator.

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: January 27, 2016, 01:45:23 AM »

As you both seem to know already, the precise mechanism for how gravity works is not perfectly well-understood. And I'll freely admit that I know nothing beyond the bare-bones basics of General Relativity, which treats gravity very differently than Newtonian mechanics does. But the fact is that postulating an attractive force between massive objects, as Isaac Newton did, has immense explanatory value. And then of course, there is the Cavendish experiment, as well as the Schiehallion experiment. These were both extremely carefully-prepared experiments whose results are consistent with Newtonian gravity.

And you guys have absolutely no grounding for this criticism, as you can't adequately explain UA except by saying "it's probably dark energy or something". At least the graviton, even though it has not been observed, fits into a well-established explanatory framework that has been rigorously tested in other respects.

9

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: January 26, 2016, 11:34:07 PM »

I don't think you really understand gravity if that's your best characterization of it

10

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat earth is more confusing than a round one.

« on: January 26, 2016, 06:23:23 PM »

I've seen people claim that the Cavendish experiment is bunk, but I haven't seen anything solid backing that up. Could you provide a link to something that deals with this issue?

11

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Conspiracy is Too Big

« on: January 25, 2016, 06:03:29 AM »

Okay, as I've said, I considered that a pretty insignificant point since practically all plane navigation involves GPS at this point. However, I will do my best not to conflate the terms from here on out.

Now that we've finally put that aside, I would like to ask you again if you still hold that pilots are often deceived by their computer navigation systems into taking different routes than they think they are taking -- specifically, I'm assuming that the navigation systems would have FE-based maps programmed into them, but would display alternate routes on a RE map so that the pilot doesn't catch on to the flatness of the Earth. A specific example of this might be a flight computer taking a pilot flying from Sydney to Santiago through the northern hemisphere (the shortest FE route, at least according to the most popular map) while making the pilot believe they are flying over the Pacific Ocean the whole time (the shortest RE route). If this is not a fair characterization of the way you think things work, please correct me.

If this is an accurate characterization of how you believe international air travel works, I would like to know how pilots don't catch on by just looking out their windows and seeing land when they should be seeing water (or vice versa). In the above scenario, this would happen all the time, there's no way around it.

To reiterate, the whole reason we got on this topic is because I am firmly on the belief that many airline pilots would have to be in on the FE conspiracy, and in particular all of those who even occasionally fly in the Southern Hemisphere (assuming the typical map). The above is the only remotely plausible way I could think of to attempt to deceive pilots into thinking the earth was round while they flew over a flat earth, and as I've argued, it appears rather far-fetched itself.

Bottom line: If we accept that pilots can often tell whether they're flying over land or not, then it seems to me they wouldn't be able to be tricked and would therefore have to be in on the conspiracy. This seems like something we should be able to agree on at this point.

12

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Conspiracy is Too Big

« on: January 24, 2016, 09:52:28 PM »

I've asked you this question at least three times, Junker. You keep avoiding it.

I would like to know why you said "yes" to one and "no" to the other. From the fact that you answered them differently, I could already tell that you saw these as very different questions, but I still do not see much meaningful difference between them. Hence, I am asking you to clarify why you answered them differently.

For the record, I didn't intend for there to be any real difference between the phrases "computer navigation system" and "GPS". Most plane navigation is heavily reliant on GPS, so I took the two to be more or less synonymous. That change of phrasing is essentially the only difference I can see between the first and second time I asked that, so I can only assume that it has something to do with the difference in your answer.

I asked you what I thought was the same exact question two different times. The first time you said yes, the second time you denied having said yes. I want to know whether you actually think GPS/other navigation systems actively deceive pilots and take them on different routes than they expect. If you don't think that, I want to understand what you actually meant earlier when it looked like you were saying exactly that.

13

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Conspiracy is Too Big

« on: January 24, 2016, 09:26:51 PM »

Junker! Glad to see you back in this thread, it just hasn't been the same since you started ignoring me. I'm still wondering about your apparent self-contradiction from earlier -- if you actually changed your mind on that issue, or if there's a way for you to reconcile the two different statements you made.

14

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Size of the Pacific Ocean

« on: January 23, 2016, 08:52:37 PM »

But so is the air at the surface, give or take some wind, and so are you.  If you jump up into the air, which should meet the definition of "...not touching the Earth at all for even a second..." you have jumped into a volume of air moving at the same speed as the ground you just left, and you yourself have the same 1000 miles per hour speed as the surface you just left.

This is slightly misleading -- even if there were no air, we still wouldn't be able to jump and see the Earth rotate beneath our feet. Again, it's easiest to illustrate this by thinking of someone inside a train moving at a constant speed of say, 60 mph, going past a station at full speed. Someone at the station would see you moving past them at 60 mph. If, during this time, you decided to jump, you would see yourself go straight up and straight down, exactly where you landed. But the person in the station would see you still moving forward at 60mph as you jumped, so you would appear to trace out a parabola as you moved. From their POV, you wouldn't land in the same place you jumped from. (If the train were to suddenly stop at the station while you were in mid-jump, then you would continue moving at 60 mph relative to the ground and the train, so you might collide forcefully with one of the walls.)

The same is true for the Earth. If you establish some coordinate grid where the position of the Sun is fixed, then you when you jump you would land at a different point than where you started -- but that's only because the whole Earth has shifted along with you. If you're familiar with vectors, you can imagine, just like in the train scenario, having a velocity vector of around 1000 mph pointing tangential to the Earth's surface, to which you're adding a tiny bit of upwards velocity. The net result is that the "x-component" of your velocity vector hasn't changed, so you won't move with respect to the Earth.

15

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Conspiracy is Too Big

« on: January 23, 2016, 04:57:28 PM »

Still wondering why Junker is refusing to answer a simple, direct question.

16

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Size of the Pacific Ocean

« on: January 23, 2016, 05:40:48 AM »

I can't show you proof -- that would require actually mapping the world with you, which neither of us is going to do. I can show you extremely strong evidence, though, which is that round-earth maps work , as I've said. We have vast amounts of international trade, all of which uses RE maps to get from one place to another, as well as various other professions that rely on accurate maps of the world.

I see absolutely no reason to entertain the idea that the continents are moving at a rate appreciate enough for us to notice on a practical level. If you're making that claim, contrary to the preponderance of evidence that I'm aware of, you're going to need to provide some actual support.

17

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Relative Flat Earth Theory - The Davis Model

« on: January 21, 2016, 11:30:02 AM »

Okay, so you're using the word "flat" in a way that is completely different from everyone else here, it seems.

Can you tell me why it would be useful to think of the earth in this way? As far as I can tell, you're not actually suggesting anything that's meaningfully different from the round-earth model.

18

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Relative Flat Earth Theory - The Davis Model

« on: January 21, 2016, 12:45:33 AM »

I'm not sure if I fully understand. If you got in a rocket, flew far away from the Earth, and looked back, what would you expect to see? Is it any different from the pictures we're used to seeing from NASA?

I think you might be misunderstanding exactly what the "curvature of spacetime" means, but it's equally likely that I'm just misunderstanding you, so I'll let you answer before saying anything more

19

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Conspiracy is Too Big

« on: January 20, 2016, 08:19:31 PM »

I've been very clear about what there is to answer: I would like to know why you said "yes" to one and "no" to the other. From the fact that you answered them differently, I could already tell that you saw these as very different questions, but I still do not see much meaningful difference between them. Hence, I am asking you to clarify why you answered them differently.

For the record, I didn't intend for there to be any real difference between the phrases "computer navigation system" and "GPS". Most plane navigation is heavily reliant on GPS, so I took the two to be more or less synonymous. That change of phrasing is essentially the only difference I can see between the first and second time I asked that, so I can only assume that it has something to do with the difference in your answer.

And, just to reiterate, the reason I think this is important is that I take your larger point to be that pilots need not be in on a conspiracy because they could be led by their navigation systems on different paths than they expect. I see this as unlikely, and have argued that since pilots are often able to see the ground and specific landmarks (such as coastlines, cities, ice, or just open ocean), they would certainly realize if their navigation systems were trying to deceive them. Therefore, they would have to be complicit in flying their planes on alternate, flat-Earth-friendly routes, and hence in on the conspiracy.

20

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Conspiracy is Too Big

« on: January 20, 2016, 07:29:53 PM »

Junker, are you able to answer my question? It's been well over a day and you've posted in response to other people in this thread, but you haven't addressed my most recent question. I feel like we're finally starting to get somewhere in this conversation, so it would be a shame if it just stopped in the middle here.