21

Flat Earth Theory / UA is redundant in FET

« on: December 08, 2017, 12:09:46 PM »

Celestial Gravitation (CG) is invoked in FET to explain tides and other observed deviations from the uniform force proposed by UA.

CG is observed to act upon terrestrial matter, and the distribution of 'celestial matter' is declared to be unknown. Consequently it is impossible to rule out scenarios where CG is wholly responsible for objects falling to earth when unsupported.

No demonstration of matter undergoing UA can be presented. Rather, we are asked to believe that somewhere below us, some 'special' matter is being subjected to UA, and everything else is being pushed ahead of it. This is inference from a hypothesis, not observation. In contrast, we can see the effects of CG directly, in the same way that we can see the way magnets behave.

I submit therefore that UA is an unnecessary and unjustified complication of FET, perpetuated solely based on its attraction (sorry) as a mechanism requiring a flat earth.

22

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: December 07, 2017, 10:40:24 AM »

They would act the same way in theory, sure, but when we weigh the evidence there is still more evidence for the mechanism of an upwardly accelerating earth than the mechanisms of puller particles/bendy space. We have direct observational evidence for the mechanism of an upwardly moving earth, even if the deeper power source behind it remains unknown, but NO evidence at all for the other mechanisms, let alone their power sources.

Quite the reverse. 'Celestial gravity' (Mechanism? Pully particles, perhaps? Bendy space? You show me yours, and so forth) is observable via changes of direction of celestial bodies and tides, and measurable, according to FET, even at ground level as variations in UA. Meanwhile you cannot show me anything that exhibits UA. The challenge still stands: you claim 'the earth' is accelerating upwards.  - well, show me a piece of 'the earth' that exhibits that behaviour. If all you can show me are things that don't accelerate upwards, you can hardly claim empiricism.

It's unfortunate to see CuriousSquirrel remind us that Celestial gravitation != gravity, because I really like the thinking above.

Am I the only person who thinks it's a serious stretch of credulity to think that earth is special? That the laws of nature are different here? That gravity does not work here? I really don't want (but do feel duty bound) to accept what CuriousSquirrel said. Can a Flat Earth believer resolve this?

If someone could demonstrate matter undergoing UA, then there would be some justification for formulating an asymmetrical model of gravity. As things stand, though, UA is just wishful thinking. Tom claims that when he steps off a chair, he 'sees' the earth rising to meet him. Yet every single thing he is looking at, if lifted and released, demonstrates the exact opposite tendency.

It's the dog-and-duck routine all over again: we can observe the influence of an invisible force pulling matter around, a force that can influence matter on earth. But is that force responsible for unifying us with the ground? Oh, no no no. It's an absurd leap to suppose that the quacking sounds we can hear are all coming from ducks.

IIRC, Tom himself has said that the precise distribution of 'celestial matter', and thus its influence upon us and the earth's accessible surface, is unknown. To state that the observed behaviour of terrestrial matter cannot be induced by celestial gravity alone is, in direct contradiction of the above, to make a definitive statement excluding distributions that would produce these effects. Again: where is the empiricism?

The clincher, for me, is that even in FET there is no need - other than the pursuit of sophistry - to propose UA. 'Celestial gravitation' is just as good an explanation for why we stick to a disc as UA, and the only reason Tom won't agree to that statement is that UA only works on a flat earth, whereas gravitation could work on anything. He doesn't want to start down that slippery slope.

23

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: December 06, 2017, 10:43:25 PM »

My thinking as regards UA runs along these lines:

My first stumbling block is that nobody can show me a piece of the earth that's willing to exhibit it. Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch suits my mood here perfectly: empirically speaking, it's not a cheese shop.

The second is 'celestial gravity', which is a mysterious invisible something that can evidently pull huge, extremely massive things around in all directions...
...and is allegedly responsible for tides and surface variations in measurements of UA...
...so it acts on regular matter too...
...and between regular matter, as experiments with big balls of lead confirm.

It strikes me as inescapable that even if we begin by assuming the existence of UA, we would also need to account for the 'celestial gravity' the earth's disc exerts upon us. Though not as massive as a spherical form, a disc of rock and metal many miles in thickness would exert a distinct pull - an increasingly lateral pull as one moves away from the pole.

No such tug can be detected. But a tug we know there must be, and the only direction in which it can hide is the one we've reserved for UA.

So the earth's 'celestial gravity' is, without exception anywhere on earth, pulling us in the same direction as UA's 'push'.

Huh.

Now, in truth, there are a few different volumetric distributions of matter that yield a gravitational pull at 90 degrees to the surface (ignoring minor local deformations like hills or waves, obviously) at every relevant point - one being a kind of shallow dome - but none of them are flat. That's a huge problem because as we've already established, UA and the earth's celestial gravity are acting in the same direction. And if the earth isn't flat, then the only value for UA that doesn't tear the earth apart in moments is 'zero'.

24

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Unsure how to explain this gif

« on: December 05, 2017, 01:15:07 PM »

its just because of how the flat earth spins through space, take any plane and try this out. this gif doesn't occur because the earth is supposedly round, it occurs because of the rotation of the flat earth.

It could happen if the flat plane were wobbling, but this creates a big issue. Universal acceleration would be affected as some parts of the plane would accelerate more or less rapidly due to this wobble. This would result in detectable anomalies. UA locks you in to a flat Earth this is stable in its orientation, so no, this is not possible on a flat Earth.

What kind of wobbling are we talking about here? I can't conceive of any form of 'wobble' that would result in circular star trails.

25

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Unsure how to explain this gif

« on: December 05, 2017, 11:57:29 AM »

Nice gif! As John Quinton says, however: it would be possible to see something like that on a flat earth, if it were flipping over and over.

The problem this does create for FET is a little more nuanced:

It demonstrates that the stars are very, very distant compared to the size of the earth, because there is no visible change of perspective as the earth rotates (equivalently: star trails are circular and concentric).

But if stars are very, very distant compared to the size of the earth, and the earth is flat, then a star that is overhead in one place should also be more or less exactly overhead everywhere else at the same time. In particular, the pole star (which lies at almost the exact centre of star-trail photos in the northern latitudes) would have to appear at the same angle above the horizon everywhere on earth, which it manifestly does not.

The fact that equatorial mounts for telescopes a) do their job and b) need to be adjusted based on latitude is an equivalent proof. You point one axis of rotation at the pole star, and can then track any other star by aiming at it and then rotating the telescope around that one axis to correct for its apparent motion. This works anywhere on earth - but at different latitudes, the angle between 'vertical' and the axis of apparent circular rotation of the stars is different. Since the stars themselves can't be tipping over as you move around (other people would surely notice and comment on it), and the only other variable is the direction of 'vertical', it follows that 'vertical' is changing as you move around the earth.

26

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: December 01, 2017, 09:58:52 AM »

You could interpret the scenario either way; but you are still comparing the concepts of upward acceleration, which is possible with known physics, to a mysterious force of nature, which requires new physics.

For someone who likes the idea of a flat earth, you do seem to prefer your logic circular

Tell you what: you show me a piece of matter that exhibits these 'known physics' of upward acceleration. I mean, if 'the earth' is doing it, then presumably you can find a piece of the earth somewhere which, when lifted off the ground, doesn't get caught up by the rest.

Meanwhile, I'll track down a magnet. Ready? Go!

There's also the tiny wrinkle that the earth is demonstrably spherical (I refer you to my earlier experiment), and thus can't be accelerating in all directions at once.

27

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: November 30, 2017, 08:45:12 PM »

Personally, I'm constantly aware of the matter of my body trying to accelerate downwards.  I have to exert muscular energy to overcome the tendency of my arms to dangle at my sides as I type this. If I jump, the natural tendency of my body to try to move downwards quickly overwhelms my efforts.

If I step off a chair or a wall, I feel a different sensation - but to call that sensation 'inert' is to prejudge the issue. If I put my hands into tepid water I sense neither hot nor cold, but it would be overreaching to assert that the temperature of that water must be some kind of objective, special 'zero degrees' value from which all others diverge.

Better to say that if I step off a chair or a wall I observe my body doing what I've sensed it trying to do all along: move downwards, and the sensation I feel is merely the absence of conflict between desire and accomplishment.

28

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: November 30, 2017, 10:30:07 AM »

The oddest part of all this, for me, is that FETs are ostensibly predicated on our 'experience' that the world is flat. Yet the first thing they do - the only thing they do - is start making excuses for why our experiences don't match what you would expect on a flat earth.

"Based on my common-sense experience, that animal over there is a dog."

"But it walks like a duck."

"Dogs have never been proven not to walk like ducks."

"And quacks like a duck."

"How sounds work close up is no evidence of how they might work at a distance."

"And looks, frankly, like a duck. See? Now it's flying away."

"That's just a trick of perspective."

29

Flat Earth Theory / Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: November 25, 2017, 08:25:42 PM »

Occam's Razor is a philosophical principle that may be stated in several different ways, perhaps most straightforwardly as 'the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true'

Over the years I've personally converged on a rule of thumb that smacks of Occam's Razor, but which isn't quite captured by the original. I can't believe it's a novel principle, so if anyone recognises it, shout out

First attempt at expressing it: "The explanation that is least capable of explaining anything else is the most likely to be true."

My personal poster-child for this principle is evolution. I find the fact of evolution (the truth of common descent with modification, as distinct from any particular theory describing the mechanisms by which it happened) overwhelmingly compelling precisely because its explanatory powers are so limited. Only things that self-replicate with potential for modification can evolve. Everything must be a modification of that which came before - even more specifically: the embryonic development of everything must be a course-change of embryonic development that came before.

The fact that all life ticks these incredibly specific, limiting boxes - with the shared ancestry and course-changes visible in its DNA - is what seals the deal for me. Anyone who comes at me brandishing Intelligent Design, telling me that it's a better explanation because an intelligent designer is more capable than no designer, is completely missing the point as far as I'm concerned. An intelligent designer could have done anything. Frankly, Minecraft is a better designed habitat for humans than reality is. Positing an intelligent designer merely begs the question: why would he limit himself in these precise ways?

I'm posting this here because Flat Earth Theory rings all the same alarm bells in my head as Intelligent Design. I don't reject FET because it requires deformations of perspective, curved rays of light, non-euclidean space, or whatever. I don't even reject it because it requires an implausible worldwide conspiracy involving corporations acting against their own financial self-interest. No: I reject FET because these deformations of perspective, curved rays of light, and non-euclidean spaces by an incredible and inexplicable coincidence just happen to make it look exactly as though the world is a ball, and make the conspiracies possible.

Think about it: if we asked someone to create a universe based on the general statement "Ok, the world is flat, and rays of light curve sharply over short distances, and space is profoundly non-euclidean" we would in 99.999999999% of cases see a total mess when we looked up at the sky, or into the middle distance. Stars and the sun and the moon warping and shifting. Objects bending and squashing as we moved towards or away from them. And in those 99.999999999% of cases, nobody would even think of claiming the world was a ball, let alone foster a worldwide conspiracy to that effect.

That's why the conspiracy theories are bullshit: because they require the universe to be in on the con. I can step outside my back door on any clear night, point my camera at Polaris and take a long exposure picture that confirms RET. Why the hell would that be the case if the world were flat? What are the chances of everything being fucked in the exact way and exact degree necessary to mislead me?

30

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 22, 2017, 12:18:57 PM »

The actual paths of these objects from a side view is immaterial. Your side view model is just a theoretical construct based on Euclidean space for how things *should* be positioned based on some continuous trigonometry rules.

Actually, the side view models you are looking at here are composed of pixels. They are a representation of a discrete space - so why can't you draw one - just one, not two from two different perspectives - that represents what you say is actually happening? Or are you saying there IS no objective reality?

Here's what I'd like to know:

You say a perfect straight-line bullet fired perfectly horizontally at the setting sun would hit it. And I agree that it would, eventually, if we discount all other relative motion that's going on.

I can't see how that happens in your version of reality, though.

Let's suppose this perfect straight-line bullet is slow enough to follow in a helicopter. So we stand on a cliff, aim perfectly horizontally at the setting sun bisecting the horizon across the ocean, and pull the trigger. Then we get in the chopper and follow it. We take a radio with us, and an observer back on the cliff confirms that we are converging perfectly on the horizon, heading straight for the sun. We fly and fly and the bullet just keeps going, a couple of hundred feet above the waves. We catch up with the sun (which we've paused for the duration of this experiment), and it passes 3000 miles overhead.

Why didn't the bullet hit the sun? We aimed right at it and fired in a perfectly straight line, and our observer on the radio told us we were heading straight for the sun - but somehow we've managed to 'hit' the bottom couple of hundred feet of 3000 miles of empty air that we couldn't even see when we took the shot!

Let's say we try again, and this time we aim up a couple of degrees, just to make absolutely sure. We follow the bullet again, and it does get higher this time, but it still passes almost 3000 miles below the sun.

To me, it seems inarguable that if we want to hit a sun that is in reality 6000 miles away and 3000 miles in the air over (approximately) flat ground we must fire it at an angle to the ground that will cause it to rise 3000 miles over the course of 6000 travelled horizontally. And if that's the case, then that's the same angle the sun must appear to us in the sky. Doesn't that make sense to you?

31

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 20, 2017, 11:17:32 PM »

You are assuming that space is Euclidean.

In Euclidean Space it would be impossible for anything to appear at the horizon, since it would be an infinite distance away. Since things appear at the horizon in the Flat Earth model, space must not be Euclidean.

Non-Euclidean space doesn't rescue your model; sorry.

What you seem to be hoping for is this:



The warping of space in the right hand image makes the sun appear on the horizon to the observer. Yay!

But there's a fatal problem: the ray of light in the right hand image is not straight. It looks straight to us, because I've visually overlaid a euclidean straight line on a warped, non-euclidean space. But it's the floor that's actually 'straight' in the right hand image: it's following a straight line within the warped space. The light ray in the right hand image, on the other hand, is travelling in a weird curve, physically changing direction to counter the curvature of space.

To illustrate that, here's what happens if I apply a reverse transformation to visually cancel out the warping of space (sorry it's a bit rough):



As you can see, the light ray is not travelling in a straight line, but following a long swooping curve, changing direction for no reason.

Now, there is an alternative transformation I could apply, based on the assumption that space in the right hand image is not just bent but also pinched, so that both the floor and the light ray are actually straight and parallel. But that doesn't help us either. Why? Because if the floor and the light ray are straight and parallel, then that is also the path our eye would follow if we walked towards the sun. We would become shorter as we entered the pinch, and taller as we came out the other side, and eventually end up standing staring at the sun floating at head height in front of us. Just as catastrophic is the fact that the same space would need to be warped differently for each observer.

32

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 20, 2017, 04:31:38 PM »

I think I sort of understand what Tom's saying. Remember: according to his rules of perspective (which are not mathematically defined) the sun visually reaches the horizon when it's 'sunset distance' away from the us laterally. Never mind how; it just does.

By the same rules, an observer on the sun would also see us on the horizon.

Here's where the magic happens:

In Tom's model, the horizon is considered a true perspective vanishing point: the ground and all lines parallel to it meet at that point. So if the observer on the sun were to switch the sun off and shine a laser pointer in our direction, parallel to the ground, it could hit us because we are on the horizon. And to us it would appear to come from the horizon because it's parallel to the ground, and again, all lines parallel to the ground converge to the horizon.

The big obvious flaw is that it's impossible to draw a single side-on diagram representing what Tom claims is happening in the real world, because it hinges on a kind of gentleman's agreement between two points of view. Obviously, if an observer on the sun 3000 miles in the air really did shine a laser pointer parallel to the flat ground, that laser beam would, by the definition of 'parallel', stay 3000 miles above the ground forever, and never reach our eyes standing far below. But if we avoid asking 'what would happen' and ask instead 'what would the observer on the sun see?' (Tom's answer: the beam converge perfectly with the horizon), it suddenly seems possible for that beam to hit us in the eyes.

Hence the aversion to abstract theories or use of trigonometry: those are tools for modelling what actually happens rather than dealing purely with what we imagine we would think we saw.

As I dealt with above, however, Tom's claims about what we would 'think we saw' are provably incorrect. His model requires parallel lines viewed in perspective to intersect over a finite distance. The thought experiment with the many sets of parallel train tracks proves that this cannot and does not happen, removing even the possibility that we would 'think we saw' his flat earth model working.

33

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 20, 2017, 01:09:16 AM »

Our experience is that the distance to the horizon is finite, that the perspective lines intersect a finite distance away.

Yes and no in that order The former is empirical, while the latter is your interpretation of the sun dipping below the horizon, and easily recognised as impossible via a simple thought-experiment:

Imagine you are standing on some train tracks stretching to the horizon across flat ground. Your assertion is that the horizon is a finite distance away and that the train-tracks genuinely visually intersect : literally zero visual distance between them regardless of how powerful a pair of binoculars we use to inspect them. Let's assume that's true.

Now let's add some tracks parallel to the set we're standing on. Let's add hundreds, thousands of them, all parallel. According to your rules of perspective, they all intersect at the same point on the horizon.

Now let's imagine we have a friend, who starts out standing right in front of us and walks away in a perfectly straight line diagonally across the tracks. We watch him go, getting smaller and smaller, heading for the horizon.

Now, we know from your perspective rules that all these parallel tracks touch the horizon at the exact same point. So we know it doesn't matter which set of tracks he's standing on at the time: when he leaves our sight it must be at the vanishing point of our own set of tracks. So we watch and we wait, confidently expecting his receding figure to start converging towards the singularity on the horizon.

But it doesn't happen. His figure gets smaller and smaller and passes out of sight over the horizon a full 45 degrees away from our vanishing point. How is that possible? He's only traveled a finite distance, only crossed a finite number of tracks - he's standing on a line that runs parallel to our own, and from your rules we know that they all converge to the same point on the horizon. Except the track he's standing on as he crosses the horizon clearly hasn't converged to the vanishing point of our tracks.

Let's say our friend crossed 1000 tracks on his journey to our horizon. We enlist the help of another friend and send her off at a shallower angle, so that she only crosses 500 tracks before reaching our horizon. But she doesn't converge to our vanishing point either. We send more and more friends at shallower and shallower angles crossing fewer and fewer tracks, but to no avail.

Uh oh; where did we go wrong?

The error is pretty obvious: given that the horizon itself does not have zero visual (horizontal) width, and there is only a finite amount of stuff/gaps to fill it with, stuff/gaps cannot possibly attain zero visual width at the horizon. And as our train tracks are made of just regular stuff and gaps, it follows that they cannot and do not attain zero visual width or separation at a horizon a finite distance away, regardless of which direction we imagine them being laid. Therefore, parallel lines viewed in perspective do not intersect over a finite distance. QED.

34

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 19, 2017, 11:25:18 AM »

I don't see why we should have to disprove perspective rules which were never proven to occur. If you are claiming that perspective operates on continuous rules, that is on you to show.

Not sure if this was a response to me? As I said: my experiment doesn't rely on any pre-established 'rules'. In it you establish to your own satisfaction that circles only appear circular when viewed on-axis, or from a position where the off-axis distance is small compared to the distance away. Since star-trails appear circular, we must therefore be viewing them from a position where the off-axis distance is small compared to the distance of the star. That being the case, on a flat earth Polaris would be directly or almost directly overhead everywhere on earth. Which it isn't. Ergo the earth cannot be flat.

35

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 18, 2017, 01:29:36 PM »

The answer to the above thought experiment is that you are adopting certain rules to perspective that have never really been demonstrated.

It's not a thought experiment. It's a practical, empirical, falsifiable experiment that you can perform yourself. I did not reference a single pre-existing 'rule of perspective'. Nor does one have to involve the horizon; the same experiment can be performed referencing only 'overhead'. If you would prefer I'll go back and make that change so you can stop worrying about planes approaching the horizon etc, which aren't relevant here.

The argument I'm making is straightforward:

1) Viewing circular shapes from significantly off-axis (ie, at a distance to the side that is not small compared to the distance away) makes them look elliptical.
2) Star trails are visually circular at all latitudes, therefore from 1) we cannot be viewing them from significantly off-axis.
3) If moving from the pole to the equator does not constitute moving 'significantly off-axis' then stars must be very distant - many times further away than the size of the earth.
4) If stars are many times further away than the size of the earth, and the earth is flat, then Polaris would necessarily be visible directly or almost directly overhead from everywhere on earth (in the same way as a streetlamp will remain overhead if you stand beneath it and move only a few inches to each side)
5) Polaris appears more than 45 degrees from overhead to most observers.
6) This is a contradiction; something in the above sequence must be incorrect. The only speculative element is the claim that the earth is flat, ergo that is necessarily the faulty claim.

Some ways you could falsify the experiment:

* You could demonstrate that the record does not appear visually elliptical when photographed from the same angle as Polaris appears to you in the sky.
* You could demonstrate that increasing the distance to the record whilst maintaining the same viewing angle causes the record to appear more and more circular:

* You could demonstrate that Polaris is in fact visible overhead or nearly overhead at low latitudes.

36

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 17, 2017, 11:42:17 AM »

There's an easy experiment anyone can do at or near their home to demonstrate to themselves that the earth is not flat.

You will need:

* A camera capable of long-exposure photography
* A tripod (or something to prop the camera on)
* A spirit-level
* A protractor, or some other way of measuring an angle
* A dark, clear night
* Something circular and of a good size, like a large plate or a record.

Point your camera directly at Polaris (or towards the south if you are in southern latitudes). Use the spirit level and the protractor to measure the angle above 'level' the camera is pointing. Note this value down. (NB: If you check on a map, you should see that the angle you measured corresponds fairly well to your latitude).

Now take a long-exposure photograph (or a sequence of long-exposure photographs and composite them) in order to capture star trails.

You will observe that the star trails are circular and concentric.

Now take your circular object (an LP record is ideal), place it on the floor, and take a photo of it from directly above (I'll call this 'on-axis'). You will observe that it appears visually circular.

Now move your camera off-axis, to the side, keeping the record centered in the viewfinder. You will observe the record no longer appears visually circular, but elliptical, and that this effect becomes more pronounced the further off-axis you move.

(Obviously it won't change colour. If it does, you have problems that extend beyond the scope of this experiment).

Bonus points: observe that not only does the record become visually elliptical, but its form is no longer visually concentric. This is difficult to see with the naked eye because our brains are accustomed to compensating for perspective. As you can see from the image below, however, a line drawn through the centre does not span the visually widest part of the record, and there are clearly more red pixels below the line than above it.


If you experiment with photographing the record from different heights and different distances off-axis, you'll notice that there is less distortion from moving (say) one foot off-axis when you are shooting from high up than if you move one foot off-axis shooting from lower down.

Recall the angle you measured when photographing Polaris. This time, aim the camera DOWN by that angle (since we're working on the floor. If you want to stick the record to the ceiling instead, knock yourself out. Not literally).

Without adjusting the angle of the camera, move the tripod or support so that the record is centred in the viewfinder. You have now created a simulation of what star trails close to Polaris would look like if you viewed them from a flat earth: elliptical and not visually concentric.

How the Round Earth model accounts for these observations while FE cannot.

Recall that deviations off-axis that are small relative to the height above the record do not induce significant distortion of the circular appearance of the record. The key word here is 'relative'. In order for star trails to appear circular where you live, it must therefore be the case that your distance from the pole is relatively tiny compared to the distance to the stars.

But if that is the case, then on a flat earth it would be impossible to go anywhere and see Polaris anything other than directly or almost directly overhead. You can check this yourself with your record: you'll find that you can't get anywhere near your measured angle of Polaris without seeing significant elliptical distortion.

So how does the Round Earth model accommodate this?

Quite straightforwardly: in the REM, the deviation of Polaris from directly overhead is not induced by lateral distance from the pole (movement away from the axis), but by the fact that what constitutes 'overhead' is different at different latitudes. All locations on earth are negligibly distant from the polar axis when compared to the distance of the stars.

What if the sky were a dome?

If the sky were a dome, we would still see elliptical distortion of star trails when shot from locations distant from the pole on a flat earth. The only difference is that they would deviate from being concentric in a different way.

Doesn't scale make a difference?

No. A 20cm circle viewed from a height of 1m and 1m off-axis (ie, from an angle of 45 degrees) is visually identical (in that it would exactly obscure) a 200m circle viewed from a height of 1000m and 1000m off-axis. The experiment with the record is a valid representation of what star trails would look like on a flat earth with Polaris at the angle you measured from the horizon.

If the earth orbits the sun, why doesn't THAT cause Polaris to deviate from over the pole?

It does - just not very much. Polaris is around 27 million times further away from earth than the earth is from the sun. Seeing the deviation of Polaris caused by the Earth's orbit is like trying to see something a kilometre away wobble by less than 1/13th of a millimetre - impossible with the naked eye, but detectable with the proper equipment. The deviation caused by the earth's rotation over the course of a day, however, is millions of times smaller than that and completely undetectable.

In any case, this doesn't matter as far as disproving the FE model is concerned. Circularity of star-trails at all latitudes implies that stars must be very, very distant compared to the viewer's distance from the pole. On a flat earth, this would mean Polaris would be directly or nearly directly overhead, everywhere on earth, which it manifestly is not.

37

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why are circular star trails claimed as evidence of a flat earth?

« on: November 15, 2017, 12:02:06 PM »

The fact that the centre gets lower in the sky as you move away from the poles proves that the Earth is round.

Sorry, yes: I should have included that; thought I had. It's the combination of the trails always being visually circular and the centre changing position at different latitudes that constitutes the proof.

38

Flat Earth Theory / Why are circular star trails claimed as evidence of a flat earth?

« on: November 15, 2017, 11:45:16 AM »

Hi I'd be interested to hear an explanation. I've seen variations on this claim a few times:

"Visually circular star trails visible at different latitudes prove the earth is flat, because on a globe earth star trails would only be circular when viewed from the pole."

This is a very odd claim to make since it's exactly backwards, akin to saying something isn't on fire because flames and smoke only come out of something that isn't on fire.

Looking forward to your replies.