1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: IR Video from FL300 -> 500 mile visibility?

« on: September 08, 2018, 04:18:39 PM »

Bobby S:

If I'm capturing this all correctly, then what you have for a flat earth is an upward refraction phenomenon that gives the earth a more 'spherical' appearance, as if distant objects are declined in elevation and/or your observation altitude is lower than actual.

yes, that's exactly right Bobby.  Keep watching my videos cause I've done extensive research on atmospheric refraction.

If refraction's a reality, then it applies in analyzing and assessing both flat and spherical models.

yes, a proper understanding of atmospheric refraction is key, so we have to understand which way the atmosphere really bends light (and under what atmospheric conditions, etc.)   


Flat earth advocates might ignore refraction (when it actually helps the theory) and assume straight line propagation when it supports their observations, but light bending is definitely needed when it comes to explaining why we have night time on a flat plane. 

The first question anybody asks of the flat earth theory, how can I have night time on a flat plane surface? 

That was my first question. 

Not to get into too many detail at this point, but we notice that at about -1.9 deg elevation from 31000 feet, we begin to see darkness with some atmospheric layering of sorts.  This is similar to looking into a pool of water and when the incident angle gets to a certain critical angle, total reflection occurs, and we can't see inside the water. ( or can't see outside when we're underwater scuba diving.) 

Now that's the some thing here with the atmosphere, when the viewing angle is very shallow,  the atmospheric layering with the different variations and index of refraction begins to refract light upwards and it appears to reflect the darkness of space.  However, the mountain peaks rise somewhat above the warmer and moist atmospheric layers that exhibit more drastic light bending, and the propagation path between airplane and mountain peak is a bit more homogeneous with less light curving, thus the mountains peaks are framed against what looks to be blackness of space (albeit with some light horizontal banding visible due to atmospheric layering perhaps)

Now here is a fun calculation we can do:

let's calculate the altitude of the sun above the flat plane, if daylight is governed by atmospheric refraction at shallow angles:   at ground level we would expect the angle to be larger than the 1.9 degrees we observe from 31 000 feet, say maybe an angle of 3.0 deg. 


than distance from us to where its evening (or morning) is  D = pi/2*3959 = 6218 miles   (assuming we're at the equator and sun is overhead)


h_sun_3deg = 6218 x tan(3.0) = 325 miles.

at 5 deg it would be:

h_sun_5deg = 6218 x tan(5.0) = 544 miles.

Now if there are high altitude light bending phenomena, in the ionosphere etc.. that angle could be a lot more drastic, placing the sun even higher.    How the sun and moon stay up there above the plane of the earth is yet another issue, (weather it's a real object or an image, yet another debatable subject)   keep watching my videos. 

Anyway, this flat earth is damn fascinating, I'll tell you that right now.  whether the models are accurate or have shortcomings, is another issue. 

-JT

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: IR Video from FL300 -> 500 mile visibility?

« on: September 07, 2018, 08:03:40 AM »

Guys,

Here's a graphic to better explain the perspective. (see below)


Question:    In CASE 2,   can I tell the absolute height of the lower mountain at 300 mi, based on a vertical scale derived from it's two peaks AT THAT DISTANCE, and knowing my observational height?   

Answer:   Yes


Note:  I tried to keep the mountains proportional, i.e., the one at 400 miles is half the one at 200 mile, and the one at 1000 mile half the one at 500 mile.


So even though the same size mountains appear smaller proportional to their distance from the observer, we can still tell their absolute height relative to each other if the observation angle is shallow, albeit with some slight error. 

Bobby, do you now comprehend why this observation is so astonishing?


-JT

[edit:  your previous analysis with the red and yellow towers seems correct, except you forgot about the atmospheric refraction I mentioned in my previous post]

3

Flat Earth Theory / Re: IR Video from FL300 -> 500 mile visibility?

« on: September 07, 2018, 05:40:02 AM »

yes, Tom got it

Our eyes are at 6'6" in height. Michael Jordan is an unknown distance away, but is height is known: 6'6". The top of Michael Jordan's head is lined up with our eye level.

We have an object in the foreground, in front of Michael Jordan, which is also an unknown distance away, that just happen to reach a height of 6 feet, with a ruler painted upon it that shows us what 6 inches looks like. We can use that ruler to draw an imaginary line 6 inches above the height of that foreground object. Should not that line line up with the top of Michael Jordan's head? Our eye level is still at 6'6", after all.

Bobby, you are correct with your diagram as well, if there were no atmospheric bending and the propagation medium homogeneous. 

Regarding your statement here:

I understand that, and with that you built a scale of vertical distance, but it's scaled for a distance of 200 miles away. Your scale would show where the summit of a 13,900' mountain that was at around 200 miles, not one that's 480 miles away. What I can't figure out is how you determine from that scale to say a 14,000' peak 480 miles away is aligned to the right height. You need to work out that angular dimensions to scale the linear measurements at 200 miles with those at 480 miles away.

Note I did not say anything about size, just that the mountains appear to be at the "correct elevation for a shallow observation angle."    The mountains do appear smaller and shrunken, but just happen to be at the correct elevation for a shallow observation angle, that's all.   This tells us the propagation path is almost parallel to the ground from the distant mountain peak.

Remember, propagation in a stratified medium is a bit different then in a homogeneous medium.

Without getting into too many details on electromagnetic wavefronts and propagation through stratified or inhomogeneous mediums, just take a look at this graphic for a simple visual explanation.  Also remember Huygens principle which states that every point on a wavefront is a source of wavelets.

-JT

4

Flat Earth Theory / Re: IR Video from FL300 -> 500 mile visibility?

« on: September 06, 2018, 04:02:32 AM »

Hello gentlemen, 

I dropped by to see the discussion, isn't this stuff exciting?


So, how did I create that scale?  (I thought its obvious but maybe not)

I took the difference in height between the two peaks of Humphrey's Mtn, and created the scale based on that difference.  (I got the elevations from Google Maps with Terrain data turned on.  It's fairly accurate, but do consider that there is a slight downward looking angle of about 0.9 deg to Humphrey's Peak, per flat surface assumption) 

Shockingly, the snow covered mountain peaks in the distance seem to come up to the correct elevation for a shallow angle of observation.   

The actual angle to the distant Colorado Mountains (flat earth surface assumption) is equal to  atan( (31000 - 14000)/(5280*500mi) ) = 0.37 deg     

I assume the mountains are about 14000 ft high (judging by the cluster of Mountain peaks seen and checking with Google Maps terrain data), and the observation distance is about 480 mi.   Humphrey's Peak is at about 200 miles away, and the size of the snow capped Colorado Mountains, relative to Humphrey's peak seem to be about the right size per the laws of perspective. (i.e if twice the distance away, it should be half as small)

By chance, or can we say providence, this turned out to be an excellent experiment, because two tall mountain peaks, that rise high above the more dense part off the atmosphere with its associated distortion, have lined up at that particular instant and we can judge their heights relative to each other.   Shocking isn't it!   I'm still reeling from this realization.

-JT

5

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE YouTuber Unwittingly Provides RE Evidence

« on: August 30, 2018, 04:35:23 AM »

Bobby,

great to see another RF engineer searching for truth, or are you here just to debate?   (which would be ok as a pastime I guess)



You may relate to this:  I analyzed data from radar warning receiver payloads a while back and that's when we noticed detections out to twice the distance to horizon calculated from our altitude, then one day a mind blowing 5x to 6x the distance.  Highly Anomalous all right, almost out to 1500 miles if my memory serves me right.   Simply astounding!    I feel like RWRs are the best tools for flat earth research, because the signals only incur a 2 way path loss, so high power radar sets out in the distance can be picked up at incredible distances.   

After that a fellow engineer sent me a paper from Sandia Labs written by Armin W Doerry that is excellent at highlighting our confusion, the first sentence in the abstract caught my attention.  see image and link below:  I thought, somebody knows something here, just like I do!

That's when I realized what were doing wrong as scientists, physicists, engineers, and mathematicians,  nobody in their right mind would say the earth is flat, we settled that long ago, so we assume it must be curved electromagnetic wave propagation, so we create elaborate mathematical models and curve fit to the observed data. 

But wait a second, what if that is a wrong assumption?   Just because we can curve fit to some concocted mathematical model, it doesn't make our model's assumptions necessarily correct. I can assume a different curvature and a different model and curve fit data just fine.

anyway,  getting back to the infrared images, it appears after a few reviews you're now understanding my analysis images and what I'm saying.  Keep pondering and thinking and it will become even more obvious.  My understanding of atmospheric refraction might seem "curious" to you at first, but it's right there in the image, starring us in the face. 

v/r

-JT

6

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE YouTuber Unwittingly Provides RE Evidence

« on: August 29, 2018, 08:58:04 AM »

analysis showing why scales don't correspond.

7

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE YouTuber Unwittingly Provides RE Evidence

« on: August 29, 2018, 08:44:15 AM »

I redid the graphic I had in my video, to clearly show the foreground hills blocking the view of the mountain, in case that wasn't clear in my video.  I did say the hills across the water would be blocking it.   

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE YouTuber Unwittingly Provides RE Evidence

« on: August 29, 2018, 08:37:02 AM »

this is a street view picture of the Le Meridien Delphi Hotel from the north east, and a person is standing on the balcony for height reference.  I gave this person about 5' 6", its an approximation obviously.  seems the floors are spaced at about 12' like I said in my video.  People comment how high the ceilings are at this hotel.

9

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE YouTuber Unwittingly Provides RE Evidence

« on: August 29, 2018, 08:25:21 AM »

Bobby I saw your comment at youtube and came here.



Here's three images to help you. (following this post, in separate posts)  Take a look at these images, read carefully what I've annotated and the rationale. Here's some main points I want to impress upon you two:


1) my scale is quite accurate considering the atmospheric distortion, see person on balcony analysis.

2), angular scales based on objects closer to observer are less prone to refraction effects which accumulate over long distances.  So I chose the one based on the Le Meridien Delphina in the vertical direction. (one can do a horizontal scale as well, see later comment)

3)  the steeper the observation angle the less prone to refraction. peaks of mountains are the best target for observations, as I said in my video.

4) due to the nonlinear behavior of refraction, which changes with elevation angle, the image of distant mountains get's stretched and also it appears as if the "curvature" is hiding objects, but it's not the curvature its the non linear bending, because the peaks come out at the correct height !

5) measuring horizontal distances between buildings produce yet a third scale, which is more accurate, but I choose the vertical one based on the Le Meridien Delphina hotel because the propagation over water (approx 12 miles) introduces yet more compression to the image, and the horizontal scale will lead you astray! 

6) I have yet a forth scale based on my image sensor size, pixel count, focal length, etc.. but that's reserved for my book 

7) don't use the curvature calculator to figure out how much the hills in the foreground are hiding, Tom seems to be making that mistake as well as you Bobby.  It's simple trigonometry.  Now obviously the analysis is based on straight line propagation which we know apriory is not the case.  But for the foreground scenery it is quite accurate.  I apologize for my crude image in the video, I said the hills across the "bay" hide the mountain but the graphic was misleading.  The tangential point is to the msl level at a distance of about 15 miles, just 3 more miles inland then the shoreline on the other side, so we can't say the water curvature hides any of the land mass in the foreground.  Above this tangential line the mountain would still be visible if there were no obstructions above this line (red dotted line tangent to MSL), but obviously there's hills in the foreground!  Now use simple trigonometry and see how much 0.01 rad hide at a distance of 117 miles.  (since the angle is so small we don't need trigonometry, just multiply the angle in radians times the distance to get the arc length which is pretty damn close to the height calculated based on trig.)

Bottom line folks, the mountain should not be visible, but not only do we see it, it's visible at the correct angular elevation!

What are the chances refraction just happens to do that?  none really, its peoples erroneous understanding of refraction that confuses them.   The refraction downward assumed by almost everybody who defends the globe is ASTRONOMICAL refraction, astronomers observe stars and planets SPEED up as they get closer to horizon and can calculate this accurately.  At zero elevation it's about 0.5 degrees, the diameter of the sun.   But ATMOSPHERIC refraction is a whole new ball game.  There's temperature gradients, various water vapor distributions, etc., not the same thing as astronomical refraction.   

So atmospheric distortions get in the way of the flat earth phenomena, but when the atmosphere effects are understood and removed, we are left with the naked truth, that there is a damn strong flat earth phenomena!   It is real, observable, and measurable!   I encourage everybody to subscribe to my youtube channel, "JTolan Media1"  I have some dynamite information coming, you don't want to miss it.

Anyway, hope this helps you in your quest for TRUTH!

v/r

-JT