[3DGeek]

The required amount of cable was of course calculated using Round Earth data - probably with a small margin for error - but the actual miles of the stuff that were manufactured must have been measured out in the factory.

What we KNOW is how much they manufactured.

Really? How do you KNOW that?

That's how much they MANUFACTURED - they may have needed less than that - but for 100% sure, they didn't have on yard more than that.  Hence the distance is the MAXIMUM that it could have been.

Do you have a source on that? Do you own the manufacturing company?

Whatever they did, a cable of no more than that length ended up stretching from one side of the atlantic to the other.

I was reading about transatlantic cables in conjunction with a project I was doing...I *think* it was described in "Wiring the World: The Social and Cultural Creation of Global Telegraph Networks" (Columbia Studies in International and Global History) by Simone M. Müller ... but it might have been "A Thread Across the Ocean" - sorry, don't have that one on my bookshelf anymore.

I think both books are on Amazon if you want to get into it further.  Wikipedia probably has something to back this up with the usual small mountain of references.

Please provide a source that shows that the cable perfectly matched the Round Earth distance, and not any more and not any less. You seem so forgetful in citing your sources when you make your numerous claims.

I didn't say they matched any LESS - only MORE.  You can read the Wikipedia article or buy the books - or just call me a liar without checking...your choice.

[3DGeek]

Setting cable lengths and our abilities to search the internet aside....

Does anyone have anything else to add to the flight time map discussion?

• We have established that care needs to be taken when comparing short flights to long flights because a larger percentage of the flight is take up in ascending and descending from cruising altitude and speed.
• We have established that the purpose of the project is not to calculate distances, but to layout the general size and relative location of continents
• We have established that the margin of error is not great enough to change a flat earth into a globe or to change a globe into a flat earth.

You should certainly avoid using short flights - but for longer flights, the additional takeoff/landing times don't affect the result by much.  You're not going to need short-distance flights (under a couple of hours of flight time) anyway - you're constructing a map of the world, not of a single country.

I'm quite sure that even with HUGE errors (like 20%) you'd be able to show that there is no way to flatten out the results.

But I'm sorry to say that the Flat Earthers simply won't accept your results - they're just going to carp on and on about how we don't know DISTANCES - and their poor little brains aren't sharp enough to understand that what you're doing is sufficient proof.

The only things they trust for distances are things like car odometers (and I bet they'd discount those if we found a proof involving them!).

[TomInAustin]

Setting cable lengths and our abilities to search the internet aside....

Does anyone have anything else to add to the flight time map discussion?

• We have established that care needs to be taken when comparing short flights to long flights because a larger percentage of the flight is take up in ascending and descending from cruising altitude and speed.
• We have established that the purpose of the project is not to calculate distances, but to layout the general size and relative location of continents
• We have established that the margin of error is not great enough to change a flat earth into a globe or to change a globe into a flat earth.

I think its a good idea.   Use major cities as points.   It should give us a rough shape.   

[altman42]

-math snipped for brevity of reply-

I get where you're coming from here, but once again: Distance is not being calculated here. We're not looking for an incredibly accurate map.
These are the parameters/assumptions:

1) Flight times between two locations are the same within a reasonable margin of error so long as it's the same model plane.
3) Planes will always attempt to fly the shortest distance between two points.
4) Flight times in one direction can be combined with flight times in the other direction for an average flight time within a reasonable margin of error.
5) Flight times can thus be used as a reasonable approximation for distance, and should reveal the shape of the Earth if plotted out.
6) Flight times should not be skewed enough to make a flat Earth appear round, nor a round Earth appear flat.

Now, we'll see how well 1 and 4 turn out for margins of error, but I see nothing wrong with the rest of these otherwise. Once again, no distance in miles or kilometers is being calculated, nor is there an attempt to calculate said distances being made. This is about plotting air flight times onto a map, and seeing what shape the flight times dictate the map to be.

Point 1- We don't have the model of plane.
Point 3- This is flat out wrong.  Like the assumption that planes ALWAYS fly their cruising speeds.  This is wrong because planes can't fly the shortest distance between 2 points.  There are federally mandated rules on flight paths.  This is so planes don't hit each other.

Also, planes fly curved paths.  Even if you pretend the earth is flat, its still a curved path.

Point 4- I know from experience 4 is untrue.  I fly back and forth between CLT and DFW very often.  I know that the flight from CLT to DFW is always 20 minutes shorter than the flight there.  I have taken this trip many many times.

Point 5- If you have your stated acceptable error of 40% you can't make a map of shit.  Period.

Point 6- people on this site always lose sight of scale.  They think that a spherical earth must mean a small earth and a flat earth means the same.  An 8 hour flight is ~1500 -2400 miles.  Diameter of a spherical earth is listed as 8,000 miles- or 24,800 miles in circumference.  This means that the distance if the earth was flat, vs. if the earth was round would be only about  7%, WAY below the error you "allow".

This is besides the fact that any distance this way is still the same. This is perhaps the very MOST IMPORTANT fact. Imagine an ant on a beach ball.  If the Ant walks 8 inches on the beach ball or 8 inches on the sidewalk, he still walks.... wait for it... 8 inches!

So this is pointless anyway.

[altman42]

Setting cable lengths and our abilities to search the internet aside....

Does anyone have anything else to add to the flight time map discussion?

• We have established that care needs to be taken when comparing short flights to long flights because a larger percentage of the flight is take up in ascending and descending from cruising altitude and speed.
• We have established that the purpose of the project is not to calculate distances, but to layout the general size and relative location of continents
• We have established that the margin of error is not great enough to change a flat earth into a globe or to change a globe into a flat earth.

You should certainly avoid using short flights - but for longer flights, the additional takeoff/landing times don't affect the result by much.  You're not going to need short-distance flights (under a couple of hours of flight time) anyway - you're constructing a map of the world, not of a single country.

I'm quite sure that even with HUGE errors (like 20%) you'd be able to show that there is no way to flatten out the results.

But I'm sorry to say that the Flat Earthers simply won't accept your results - they're just going to carp on and on about how we don't know DISTANCES - and their poor little brains aren't sharp enough to understand that what you're doing is sufficient proof.

The only things they trust for distances are things like car odometers (and I bet they'd discount those if we found a proof involving them!).

Well not so much- If you are accepting errors as high as they have stated- you could flatten anything out.

Its why you can draw North America on a cartesian projection and basically get away with it. 

If you allow 20-40% error- well thats well above a cartesian error except at the very very highest latitudes.  The math was tongue in cheek to show the absurdity of trying to make a valid measurement when you make assumptions on 95% of the dependent variables.  Especially when you start with fundamentally faulty beliefs.  I am not even getting into the shape of the world.  I am talking about basic assumptions that all planes are the same, they fly the exact same speed, along the exact same path, at the same altitude, in perfectly straight lines, and that error, if it did exist, could just get averaged away (instead of magnified, like it would here- by giving a false sense of accuracy).  When even 30 seconds on google would prove it otherwise.  But then again, you wouldn't expect much math or science here...  Which is why this is so fun.  Fact free zone!

[Curious Squirrel]

-math snipped for brevity of reply-

I get where you're coming from here, but once again: Distance is not being calculated here. We're not looking for an incredibly accurate map.
These are the parameters/assumptions:

1) Flight times between two locations are the same within a reasonable margin of error so long as it's the same model plane.
3) Planes will always attempt to fly the shortest distance between two points.
4) Flight times in one direction can be combined with flight times in the other direction for an average flight time within a reasonable margin of error.
5) Flight times can thus be used as a reasonable approximation for distance, and should reveal the shape of the Earth if plotted out.
6) Flight times should not be skewed enough to make a flat Earth appear round, nor a round Earth appear flat.

Now, we'll see how well 1 and 4 turn out for margins of error, but I see nothing wrong with the rest of these otherwise. Once again, no distance in miles or kilometers is being calculated, nor is there an attempt to calculate said distances being made. This is about plotting air flight times onto a map, and seeing what shape the flight times dictate the map to be.

Point 1- We don't have the model of plane.
Point 3- This is flat out wrong.  Like the assumption that planes ALWAYS fly their cruising speeds.  This is wrong because planes can't fly the shortest distance between 2 points.  There are federally mandated rules on flight paths.  This is so planes don't hit each other.

Also, planes fly curved paths.  Even if you pretend the earth is flat, its still a curved path.

Point 4- I know from experience 4 is untrue.  I fly back and forth between CLT and DFW very often.  I know that the flight from CLT to DFW is always 20 minutes shorter than the flight there.  I have taken this trip many many times.

Point 5- If you have your stated acceptable error of 40% you can't make a map of shit.  Period.

Point 6- people on this site always lose sight of scale.  They think that a spherical earth must mean a small earth and a flat earth means the same.  An 8 hour flight is ~1500 -2400 miles.  Diameter of a spherical earth is listed as 8,000 miles- or 24,800 miles in circumference.  This means that the distance if the earth was flat, vs. if the earth was round would be only about  7%, WAY below the error you "allow".

This is besides the fact that any distance this way is still the same. This is perhaps the very MOST IMPORTANT fact. Imagine an ant on a beach ball.  If the Ant walks 8 inches on the beach ball or 8 inches on the sidewalk, he still walks.... wait for it... 8 inches!

So this is pointless anyway.

1) That would be because he hasn't presented anything yet. I was stating paramaters for this to be legitimate.
3) Note the word 'attempt' here please. When possible planes are flying the shortest route they can.
4) Umm, how does this disprove the idea an average of direction A + direction B is a decent approximation of time taken if the Earth didn't move? Sounds more like a proof to me.
5) We have no idea what his actual error will be.
6) You will have locations that can add up like that, correct. But depending on the FE map there will be two points that are farther away from one another than they are on a globe. Always. This is what will force the shape of the map.
6b) Take that up with Tom. He's the reason we're looking for ways that don't use 'round Earth distances' and can be used without having to find an actual distance in any way. I happen to agree with this point, but we're not making this for me.

[Ga_x2]

There's also another thing to keep in mind: some of the distances in any flat earth map are going to be 2-3 times bigger than what we would expect. No error bar in these flight times can make up for the fact that in the bipolar map, to fly from Tokyo to los Angeles you'd have to cross all Asia, Europe, the Atlantic ocean and North America or that in the unipolar map to go from Sidney to Rio De Janeiro you'd have to cross all Asia, the Antarctic and all North and central America. A 40% error is peanuts, compared to this...

[JHelzer]

Well not so much- If you are accepting errors as high as they have stated- you could flatten anything out.

Its why you can draw North America on a cartesian projection and basically get away with it. 

If you allow 20-40% error- well thats well above a cartesian error except at the very very highest latitudes.  The math was tongue in cheek to show the absurdity of trying to make a valid measurement when you make assumptions on 95% of the dependent variables.  Especially when you start with fundamentally faulty beliefs.  I am not even getting into the shape of the world.  I am talking about basic assumptions that all planes are the same, they fly the exact same speed, along the exact same path, at the same altitude, in perfectly straight lines, and that error, if it did exist, could just get averaged away (instead of magnified, like it would here- by giving a false sense of accuracy).  When even 30 seconds on google would prove it otherwise.  But then again, you wouldn't expect much math or science here...  Which is why this is so fun.  Fact free zone!

I feel like a kid who cleaned his room and then mom came and said, "You call this clean!?".  I just want to say, "You should have seen it before I started!"

There's also another thing to keep in mind: some of the distances in any flat earth map are going to be 2-3 times bigger than what we would expect. No error bar in these flight times can make up for the fact that in the bipolar map, to fly from Tokyo to los Angeles you'd have to cross all Asia, Europe, the Atlantic ocean and North America or that in the unipolar map to go from Sidney to Rio De Janeiro you'd have to cross all Asia, the Antarctic and all North and central America. A 40% error is peanuts, compared to this...

altman42,  Like Ga_x2 says in here, a 40% error is nothing compared to what the Flat Earth Society is claiming on their currently accepted maps.
You said yourself, that 20-40% error is well above a cartesian error except at the very very highest latitudes.  That is a HUGE except.
Again.  I am not trying to make an exact map.  It is not to be used for navigation.  I am not submitting it as a scientific proof.  I am just trying to draw the continents in their place on the Earth.  A 20-40% error will be acceptable for that goal.  My error will be more like 7%.

All,  please remember the original premise of this topic.  If the world really is flat, drawing it on a flat piece of paper will be easy.  Flat to Flat = easy.
This is the main point of the exercise, not the actual map.

[3DGeek]

The point to remember here is that the Flat Earther maps always seem to fall into the same hole:

In an effort not to freak people out with horribly distorted continents - they push all of the error into the oceans.

So while they might have gotten away with relatively smaller distortions spread all over the world, they end up with pretty good representations of the continents with GIGANTIC errors over the oceans.

If desperate, and there have to be other big errors, they adjust the projection so the southern hemisphere takes all of the hit and the north looks relatively OK.   This fits with the facts that most FE'ers are seemingly from Europe, the USA and Canada.

If there has to be an "Ice Wall" - we'll put it where not many people go!

You see similar things happening in their laws of physics - if there has to be a horrific error in how stars move - then we'll just shove it into the southern hemisphere and hope nobody notices.

Once you start noticing their northern-hemispheric bias, you see it everywhere.

The way to debunk tons of this stuff is to just use the magic words:  "So what happens in the South Pacific and Australia?...Because that's where the most egregious errors occur.

[JHelzer]

Like Ga_x2 says in here, a 40% error is nothing compared to what the Flat Earth Society is claiming on their currently accepted maps.

I just printed sized a southern hemisphere globe projection to the same proportion of the tfes.org example flat-earth map and printed them.
The distance from the Southern tip of South America to the Southern tip of Africa is 3.4cm on the globe map and 10.0cm on the FE map.
The distance from the Southern tip of South America to the Southern tip of Australia is 4.4cm on the globe map and 14cm on the FE map.
When I printed the Northern Hemisphere of the globe map in the same proportion, the distance from India to Panama was 8.1 on both maps.

That is a difference of 294% for SA - Africa and a 318% for SA - Australia.

Remember that this passes as the most accepted map of the flat earth.

[TomInAustin]

Like Ga_x2 says in here, a 40% error is nothing compared to what the Flat Earth Society is claiming on their currently accepted maps.

I just printed sized a southern hemisphere globe projection to the same proportion of the tfes.org example flat-earth map and printed them.
The distance from the Southern tip of South America to the Southern tip of Africa is 3.4cm on the globe map and 10.0cm on the FE map.
The distance from the Southern tip of South America to the Southern tip of Australia is 4.4cm on the globe map and 14cm on the FE map.
When I printed the Northern Hemisphere of the globe map in the same proportion, the distance from India to Panama was 8.1 on both maps.

That is a difference of 294% for SA - Africa and a 318% for SA - Australia.

Remember that this passes as the most accepted map of the flat earth.

This is why there will never be a flat map.  There is no possible way you can draw a map with actual distances, flight times etc where it works.   This is the Achilles Heel of FE and why Tom fights so hard with his derailing attempts.  He knows that once he agreed to any sane way to draw a map he would lose instantly.

[3DGeek]

Like Ga_x2 says in here, a 40% error is nothing compared to what the Flat Earth Society is claiming on their currently accepted maps.

I just printed sized a southern hemisphere globe projection to the same proportion of the tfes.org example flat-earth map and printed them.
The distance from the Southern tip of South America to the Southern tip of Africa is 3.4cm on the globe map and 10.0cm on the FE map.
The distance from the Southern tip of South America to the Southern tip of Australia is 4.4cm on the globe map and 14cm on the FE map.
When I printed the Northern Hemisphere of the globe map in the same proportion, the distance from India to Panama was 8.1 on both maps.

That is a difference of 294% for SA - Africa and a 318% for SA - Australia.

Remember that this passes as the most accepted map of the flat earth.

This is why there will never be a flat map.  There is no possible way you can draw a map with actual distances, flight times etc where it works.   This is the Achilles Heel of FE and why Tom fights so hard with his derailing attempts.  He knows that once he agreed to any sane way to draw a map he would lose instantly.

Yes, exactly:  "We refuse to produce a map of our own - AND we refuse to accept any measure of distance to allow you to produce one."

Even when I produced a measurement made by physically laying a cable of known length between two points, Tom won't accept it.

Same deal with the "where do the photons go?" question - he KNOWS that his pet theory can't survive any solid answer to that question - so he simply doesn't answer it.

<sigh>

[Rounder]

I have been working off and on for months gathering data to illustrate the quadrilateral problem (a lot more “off” than “on” to be honest).  I want to connect the dots from four or more faraway cities with reliable nonstop service.  I have identified several promising candidates (all maps below are using Web Mercator projection)

The first set is the “Santiago Quatro” of Santiago Chile (SCL), Auckland (AKL), Sydney (SYD), and Honolulu (HNL).  One weakness of this set: Aukland and Sydney aren’t that far apart on a global scale, with an average flight time of only two and a half hours.  This means this quad might not really prove much vis-a-vis the quadrilateral problem, but is nevertheless useful as a benchmark for east-west flight times across the South Pacific (AKL-SCL 10:30, SCL-AKL 12:30, SYD-SCL12:00, SCL-SYD 13:40).


But it turns out we can do better than sets of four!  On the east side of the South American continent we have the “São Paulo Cinco”, interconnecting the São Paulo airports (GRU and VCP) with Johannesburg (JNB), Dakar (DKR), Dubai (DXB), and New York (JFK).  This one is not ideal due to the odd fact that direct service between Dakar and São Paulo is westbound only, preventing us from averaging out the jet stream. 


Having reached Africa, we find a set of six to connect that continent to Europe, South America, and North America (the set above skipped Europe): the Atlantic Six.  This repeats the VCP-DKR-DXB triangle from the São Paulo Cinco and connects it to a third airport in Africa, Casablanca (CMN), plus Madrid (MAD) and Washington D.C. (DCA).  (Africa is difficult.  There are fewer airports, with fewer connections.  Accra (ACC) connects to Dakar, Dubai, and Jo'burg but not Casablanca; Lagos (LOS) connects to Dubai, Jo’burg, Casablanca but not Dakar; Jo’burg and Casablanca mutually connect to far-flung places like São Paulo, Istanbul, and the US but not across their own continent to each other.)


Continuing eastward we start getting into a better-connected part of the southern hemisphere, where we find a six city set anchored to the São Paulo Cinco by virtue of sharing the JNB-DXB route: the Indian Ocean Six.  The other four airports in the set are Mauritius (MTU), Perth (PER), Singapore (SIN), and Hong Kong (HKG).


Once again, we bring connections from the previous set into a new one: the Aussie Six connects three cities from the Indian Ocean Six (Perth, Singapore, and Hong Kong) to three cities we’ve used before but never together: Sydney, Auckland, and Dubai.


All this focus on southern airports is making the Northern Hemisphere start to feel left out, so let’s connect to it from Singapore via the Helsinki-pore Seven!  Yes, seven cities ALL connected to each other by nonstop passenger service: Singapore, Tokyo (NRT), Beijing (PEK), New Delhi (DEL), Helsinki (HEL), London (LHR), and Istanbul (IST).  Why not Constantinople?  Ask Intikam!


We now return to the Pacific, for some even bigger sets.  We start with another set of seven that pivots on Tokyo, adds three more Asian airports in Shanghai (PVG), Seoul (ICN), and Hong Kong (HKG), then reaches east to include Honolulu (HNL), Los Angeles (LAX) and surprisingly Dallas (DFW).  We then find that this core of seven forms the east-west base for two different sets of eight: the North Pacific Eight connects Anchorage (ANC) to all of the other seven, while the South Pacific Eight connects Sydney (SYD) to the other seven.



One final eight city set: the South America Eight.  This one takes the four best-connected airports I can find in South America, Santiago (SCL), Buenos Aires (EZE), São Paulo (GRU), and Bogota (BOG) and connects them to two North American airports in Mexico City (MEX) and New York (JFK), and two European ones in Madrid (MAD) and London (LHR).

[3DGeek]

I have been working off and on for months gathering data to illustrate the quadrilateral problem (a lot more “off” than “on” to be honest).  I want to connect the dots from four or more faraway cities with reliable nonstop service.  I have identified several promising candidates (all maps below are using Web Mercator projection)

The first set is the “Santiago Quatro” of Santiago Chile (SCL), Auckland (AKL), Sydney (SYD), and Honolulu (HNL).  One weakness of this set: Aukland and Sydney aren’t that far apart on a global scale, with an average flight time of only two and a half hours.  This means this quad might not really prove much vis-a-vis the quadrilateral problem, but is nevertheless useful as a benchmark for east-west flight times across the South Pacific (AKL-SCL 10:30, SCL-AKL 12:30, SYD-SCL12:00, SCL-SYD 13:40).


But it turns out we can do better than sets of four!  On the east side of the South American continent we have the “São Paulo Cinco”, interconnecting the São Paulo airports (GRU and VCP) with Johannesburg (JNB), Dakar (DKR), Dubai (DXB), and New York (JFK).  This one is not ideal due to the odd fact that direct service between Dakar and São Paulo is westbound only, preventing us from averaging out the jet stream. 


Having reached Africa, we find a set of six to connect that continent to Europe, South America, and North America (the set above skipped Europe): the Atlantic Six.  This repeats the VCP-DKR-DXB triangle from the São Paulo Cinco and connects it to a third airport in Africa, Casablanca (CMN), plus Madrid (MAD) and Washington D.C. (DCA).  (Africa is difficult.  There are fewer airports, with fewer connections.  Accra (ACC) connects to Dakar, Dubai, and Jo'burg but not Casablanca; Lagos (LOS) connects to Dubai, Jo’burg, Casablanca but not Dakar; Jo’burg and Casablanca mutually connect to far-flung places like São Paulo, Istanbul, and the US but not across their own continent to each other.)


Continuing eastward we start getting into a better-connected part of the southern hemisphere, where we find a six city set anchored to the São Paulo Cinco by virtue of sharing the JNB-DXB route: the Indian Ocean Six.  The other four airports in the set are Mauritius (MTU), Perth (PER), Singapore (SIN), and Hong Kong (HKG).


Once again, we bring connections from the previous set into a new one: the Aussie Six connects three cities from the Indian Ocean Six (Perth, Singapore, and Hong Kong) to three cities we’ve used before but never together: Sydney, Auckland, and Dubai.


All this focus on southern airports is making the Northern Hemisphere start to feel left out, so let’s connect to it from Singapore via the Helsinki-pore Seven!  Yes, seven cities ALL connected to each other by nonstop passenger service: Singapore, Tokyo (NRT), Beijing (PEK), New Delhi (DEL), Helsinki (HEL), London (LHR), and Istanbul (IST).  Why not Constantinople?  Ask Intikam!


We now return to the Pacific, for some even bigger sets.  We start with another set of seven that pivots on Tokyo, adds three more Asian airports in Shanghai (PVG), Seoul (ICN), and Hong Kong (HKG), then reaches east to include Honolulu (HNL), Los Angeles (LAX) and surprisingly Dallas (DFW).  We then find that this core of seven forms the east-west base for two different sets of eight: the North Pacific Eight connects Anchorage (ANC) to all of the other seven, while the South Pacific Eight connects Sydney (SYD) to the other seven.



One final eight city set: the South America Eight.  This one takes the four best-connected airports I can find in South America, Santiago (SCL), Buenos Aires (EZE), São Paulo (GRU), and Bogota (BOG) and connects them to two North American airports in Mexico City (MEX) and New York (JFK), and two European ones in Madrid (MAD) and London (LHR).

Awesome work!

Word of warning: Some of the routes around the southern parts of Asia and the middle east are inadmissible because they don't take the shortest routes.   Politics mean that (for example) flights from India don't fly over Pakistan and US flights don't enter Russian airspace.  So probably you're going to have to be a bit picky in those areas.

Your first image is also a poor choice for a quadrilateral of cities because Aukland (AKL) is too close to the SYD/SCL route to show a measurable error.

[Rounder]

Awesome work!

Word of warning: Some of the routes around the southern parts of Asia and the middle east are inadmissible because they don't take the shortest routes.   Politics mean that (for example) flights from India don't fly over Pakistan and US flights don't enter Russian airspace.  So probably you're going to have to be a bit picky in those areas.

Thanks!  Politics screws things up for ordinary people, go figure!  And even setting that aside, the whole eastern part of the Helsinki-pore Seven has to go around (not over)  the Himalayas.  That will introduce some extra length errors as well.

Your first image is also a poor choice for a quadrilateral of cities because Aukland (AKL) is too close to the SYD/SCL route to show a measurable error.

Yup, which I acknowledged.  It’s the only set I could find that reaches west from South America though.  Really wish there was a flight between SCL and HNL, that would give us some really good data!