201

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Seeing the curvature of the Earth directly

« on: February 11, 2019, 04:51:03 PM »

Next time I'm going to photograph the horizon with some straight metal bars placed just above and just below it, which I figure is the best demonstration that barrel distortion isn't causing the curve.

Cheers.

Ack, that flashing is annoying 

But instead of using metal bars, how about a super tight string with a few helium balloons tied to it around the middle so we know it's not sagging down causing a false appearance of comparative curve?

Your metal bars might not be straight, or might be sagging under their own weight, causing a false appearance of upward earth curve.

202

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What's the best tool for measuring eye level?

« on: February 11, 2019, 04:43:02 PM »

First, I have a problem with the phrase "Limit of your vision" in regards to distance. Your eyes don't reach out and grope the distant scenery and come back with a report.
Your vision in fact is not a thing, it's what we call the ability of the eye to record optical light rays entering through the lens.

Limit of your vision was perhaps not the right wording. What I meant was the limit of visibility. You only get a clear, sharp horizon if visibility is greater than the distance to the edge of the globe earth - and that varies with altitude. This is why at high altitude the horizon may not be as clear, it's further to the horizon. At ground level the horizon is only a few miles so you can usually see it clearly but on a foggy say you get the same effect at ground level:



This is how I imagine the horizon would look like were the earth flat. Why would there be a sharp line? Why would the horizon be further away as your altitude increases? This makes perfect sense on a globe, altitude allows you to see further over the curve. On a flat earth though it shouldn't make any difference.

I'm confused about your thoughts on sunset, if the sun is really disappearing below the edge of the earth (I believe this is what some ancient civilisations believed) then surely it would be night everywhere. A reasonable belief in the ancient world where there was no quick long distance communication or transport, but now we know that when it's dark in London, England it's light in Sydney, Australia

You are correct though that a sun 3,000 miles above the plane of the earth would not set, there would be nothing to stop you seeing it at all times.

Ahh, ok, "Limit of visibility" -- I can definitely go with that.
There's definitely days when clouds, fog, smoke, or smog obscure our view of the sun when it is low on the horizon. Heh, there's even days when they obscure it when it's straight over head!

But hey, there are also days we can see bright lights from a long ways away. That's what I'm concerned with. The fact that some days are cloudy doesn't mean we can't talk about the clear days! Our vision may be obscured way shorter than 10,000 miles on some days, but on others we can see stuff very far away.

But yeah, we do have some issues to work through with the sun.

On one hand, when it sets on a clear evening, we get the effect where the sun vanishes bottom first like this:
so in that case, we do have a clear horizon line and we're obviously seeing something from a long ways away.
We can't hardly say that the sun is just going down to ground level 3000 miles away because then it'd be sitting in someone's back yard. It has to be farther. And yet it doesn't get much smaller when it sets so I'm not sure how to work that out.

In fact, a lot of people would swear that the sun and the moon look bigger when they are on the horizon, which is exactly the opposite of what we would expect because they should be farther then, not closer.
My belief on that though is that they actually have essentially the same angular size but that it's just an optical illusion that make them look bigger on the horizon because the brain compares them to the trees and stuff in front of them. One day I'll get out and take two photos on the same day at rise/set and straight up.

As I said, some things to work through there.

As to the horizon, granted it cannot always be seen, but on those days and situations where we can see a clear horizon line, then on a flat earth the horizon line should definitely rise to eyelevel. You should be able to look out and see the line at whatever your eyelevel is, even using a level to make sure you're looking straight out.
In actuality, if you're above sea level, the horizon would not be exactly straight out, but it's so close to straight out that your eye does not have the resolving power to discern that  few millionths of a degree.

Conversely, that's why it would be so easy for the globists -- if they could -- just go up a few hundred feet and sight to the horizon and measure the down tilt to confirm their beloved 8 inches per mile squared.

203

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Magnetic Field

« on: February 11, 2019, 03:57:50 PM »

While you are correct about the orientation of the magnetic poles of a speaker magnet, it is still literally a ring magnet. It has hole in the middle. All of them do. A ring magnet must have a hole. The earth does not have a hole in its middle that I know of. Unless perhaps its guarded by security guards hired by the UN.

The hole in the center of a ring magnet is irrelevant. The magnet could be made as one piece homogeneous magnet in the shape of a disk with one pole in the center and the other pole around the outside evenly distributed.
The little micro magnetic domains don't care what the ultimate shape of the magnet is.

In fact all kinds of patterns are put into rubber magnets - they use them in computer cooling fans, for shaft position encoders, and all sorts of stuff.

I have attached a picture of a speaker magnet for you. The thin gap where the speaker coil used to go in has been filled with epoxy, but otherwise for all practical purposes it's a flat surface with one pole in the center and the other pole evenly distributed around the outside.

While it is made from iron and a magnet, it could just as well have been made out of solid magnet - it's just that this was cheaper.

If I were to stick this onto a piece of tool steel, and take it off, the tool steel would remain faintly magnetized in the same pattern, and it would be a homogeneous single piece solid magnet with one pole in the center and the other pole evenly distributed around the outside.

Seriously, do a little research, please. This part of flat earth isn't an impossibility.

204

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: How is climate change affecting the Ice Wall?

« on: February 11, 2019, 05:19:28 AM »

Subject says it all. I cant seem to find much information about this.

Well, we're OK for a while now because the ice isn't melting as fast as some say.

As the ice wall melts, the ocean levels rise slightly. But when it melts through and gets a breach, we know that the water will all run off the earth and fall way way way down.
It's not gravity mind you, but it will accelerate downwards and half of the fishes will get lost in space.. you know, not outer space, but the under space. Whatever's under the flat earth.

And we know that air has an electric of magnetic pull downward too because the air pressure is less as you go up in a plane or on a mountain, so once the ice wall is breached, our air will spill over the edge too and half the birdies will also get lost in under-space.

And once a breach starts, first the cold water and air will escape but then the warm air and water from around the equator will work its way out and really melt the rest of the ice wall fast, and it'll all be over in days.

So it's a serious issue. That's the real reason they don't want people exploring Antarctica because  the warmth from their campfires and land rovers and stuff would melt the ice wall faster.

That's why Admiral Byrd always took loads of dry ice whenever he went. Unfortunately breathing all that carbon dioxide kind of made him a little goofy but there you have it.

205

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Project: 180 Degree Horizon Through Pipe

« on: February 11, 2019, 05:11:23 AM »

I gave Antonio's "horizon pipe" a try, albeit due to geographic constraints, I had to substitute a horizon in one direction with an equal-height land target sighting:



I could try again with a longer pipe and spirit level and better camera/video, but if that northeastern sighting target is not convincing enough, I'll have to find an alignment with a summit or peak of some kind.

But I'm not going to pursue this any further unless someone else does some work and shows me something to the contrary. We'll see if the YouTuber who issued this challenge to "globies" responds with his own demonstration of how the pipe does center on a horizon in both directions without adjustment. I've got too many other "experiments" that I want to finish up. My wife is already starting to get annoyed by this...what is this? A hobby?

The problem with your method is that NASA is fake.

206

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Seeing the curvature of the Earth directly

« on: February 11, 2019, 04:52:20 AM »

The earth is observably flat by default. The possibility of it being a big ball, or whatever you imagine it to be, needs to be proven. It simply doesn't matter if you scream "you can't see it because it's an illusion!!1"

The fact that when we look at the matter closer and we find contradicting observations into the distance which support sinking and non-sinking is pretty telling. The fact that we have seen multiple long term timelapse of the horizon which show that the light is constantly curving in the distance to make things appear to sink, and sometimes to unsink, is also telling. The fact that the famous sinking photos don't even match up with the stated curvature for the round earth, which we have looked at, is telling still.

There is no real evidence for the ball earth. Aristotile's proofs for a globe based on sinking ships and lunar eclipses are unsupportable.

Tom, Greetings.

What do you think about a theodolite? They seem really cool and people seem to mention them.
Could they be used to check the angular height of distant mountains, and confirm or deny a curve?

Basically it'd be a cinch. Just set up the theodolite and measure the angular height of a distant mountain of a known height and distance.
The theodolite gives you the angle above eyelevel in degrees, and you just feed that into tanget() and multiply that times the distance and that gives you the height.
Naturally you'd want to compensate for your observer elevation and perhaps for terrestrial atmospheric refraction which is supposed to be one degree for every 932 miles.

Would you consider this strong evidence either way?

207

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Seeing the curvature of the Earth directly

« on: February 11, 2019, 04:45:58 AM »

...
Another method would be to climb a hill of at least 500 feet overlooking the sea, take a photo of a nice clear horizon, and then when you get home stretch it vertically. Straight lines stay straight, while curved lines are exaggerated, like this:

Note: when taking photos like this, great care must be taken to ensure that barrel distortion is not creating or exaggerating the curve of the horizon. There are different ways this can be done.
pared with what these views would look like on a flat earth.

So about barrel distortion, it curves straight lines around the center of the picture.
So you'd want to take two photos - one with the horizon slightly above the center of the picture, and the other with it slightly below.

Stretch them both equally, and take note - if they both curve the same way, then it's curve of the horizon.
However, if one curves up and the other curves down, then you're mostly seeing barrel distortion.

In reality, even with a curved earth if such were the case, you would probably see a combination of curve plus barrel disortion, so the photo with the horizon above center would show more curve and the other would show less curve or straight, or a negative curve, but not as much of a curve as the above-center horizon photo.

That's what's tricky about gopro fighter jet flight videos - even the default lenses have some barrel distortion and you can see that the horizon bulges up if it's above center, and sags down (concave) when it's below center of picture. You'd have to freeze frame the video right when the horizon line was in center of the picture, and see if it showed curve at that point. But even then, many early gopros had rolling shutter which can create rolling wave patterns in the picture so even if you saw a curve in the center of the picture it could be from the vibration of the jet and the rolling shutter.

What you'd really want to do is go up to a high point, and stretch a thin black string super tight between two trees. Maybe tie a couple helium balloons to it for good measure so it can't sag down.
Then step back move your camera so the string lines up with the horizon, and take a picture. That way you're comparing the horizon to a known straight line before it enters the camera's optics and gets distorted. That way, if the optics curves the horizon, it'll also curve the string equally.

If that showed a curve, ok now you'd have my attention. Just make sure the string is super tight, because if it sags down it'll make the earth look like it's curved up.
That's why the helium balloons to guarantee that if the string is curved at all, it's up. Then if the earth curves above that,  we know we got something. But don't worry, nobody's tried this yet. When they do, we can see that it's as flat as a pancake. Flatter, actually. I plan to try it myself when the snow melts in the mountains.

208

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Magnetic Field

« on: February 11, 2019, 03:39:09 AM »

We all know that the Earth is magnetized and has a north and a south pole. (Haven't found anyone trying to debunk it here)
In the Flat Earth Society Wiki I came across a statement:

... snip ...

In conclusion with the physics familiar to mankind there is no way a flat disk can have a single north pole and then infinitely many south poles, all scattered around "the edge of the world". Magnets like this simply don't exist.

If you want to prove me wrong, please conduct a scientific experiment taken place in a controlled environment (e.g. a lab), just like the classical 2 sided magnet has been proved to exist and function.

Thank you!

(also you should check the wiki for grammar mistakes)

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here, but if I understand correctly, you've never seen a speaker magnet.
They seriously have a north pole in the center and a south pole around the out side. Or it could be south on the inside and north around the outside.

While speaker magnets are made from a normal two-pole sandwich oriented ring magnet, they have soft iron field forming pieces that form it into a magnet with one pole in the center and the other pole around the outside.

I think the problem you're having is that you don't realize that magnets are made up of zillions of tiny "magnetic domains" i.e. many tiny tiny micro magnets. Normally, these are all pointed every which way and cancel out each other.

But when a piece of metal is magnetized, these "magnetic domains" are lined up by a stronger magnetic field, and then they add together to form a magnetic field.

In fact, some magnets aren't even metal! They are small metal oxide magnetic dust particles mixed with either ceramic (AKA Ceramic magnet) or rubber (Flexible magnets) in which case it must be obvious that the small magnetic particles could be oriented in whatever direction to form whatever overall pole pattern you liked.

All permanent non-superconducting magnets are made up of numerous small magnetic domains *just like* if you were to get a lot of tiny magnets and arrange them to form one big magnet.

Thus is is not only possible but common for a magnet to have a single pole in the center and the opposite pole around the out side.

I hope that helps!

209

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What's the best tool for measuring eye level?

« on: February 11, 2019, 03:17:22 AM »

Theodolite? Water level? Spirit level?

I want to do an eye level test but I want it FE-approved.

Cheers.

A theodolite should be good - just make sure it's calibrated and everything. The bubble levels on them are often out of adjustment, so you must level it, turn 90, level it, then turn 90 more, and if the bubble says it's not level, then level it back to bring the bubble half way back to level. The idea is you get it so the bubble, even if off centered, reads the same all the way around. Then it's level. But if you don't know what's going on, it can be frustrating.
And the vertical zero-position can also be off, so when you sight in a vertical angle, you then write that down and rotate it 180 degrees, flip the viewfinder around, and sight it again, and average the two readings and that cancels out the vertical zero point error.
However, if both readings are the same then you don't have to worry about double-reading and averaging. But historically, surveyors always double read and averaged.
Other than that, they are very accurate compared to trying to use carpenters levels and stuff, you can literally measure the angular size of a fly across your living room with them. If the fly holds still.
You can find youtube videos on how to use them as well.
Keep the sun off the bubble levels while leveling -- if you slightly warm one end of the bubble level, the bubble goes to that end if it's level.

As far as water levels, that's about as good as it gets but there's a few gotchas to keep in mind.
If the tube is too small, capillary action can distort things - so use the same size/kind of tube, and make it at least half an inch.
The further between the end points, the better. 
Do not seal off the ends of the tube or vapor lock will prevent the water from seeking level.  You can connect them to eachother in a loop however.
You can dye the water red, but make sure it's mixed well or the water may be more dens in one end.
Make sure the water is all the same temperature, because warmer water is lighter and will rise higher in the column.
If there are bubbles in the water, wait till they stop rising. Rising bubbles will raise the water column with them. Bubbles stuck to the tube are OK.
If you use a flexible rubber tube, you can bring both ends together to check and verify that they are seeking the same level. Then move them 10 or more feet apart to check horizon.
Another possibility would be to build a "fish tank" out of plexiglass that was a couple inches wide and 4 inches deep and 48 inches long. Just prop it up and fill it with water half way!
You could even build two identical floating sight rings to look through - and again, swap ends if you suspected bias and see if the bias went to the other direction.
But a long tube is best because you can have the two vertical sections lined up and compare them to each other quite accurately by sighting past one onto the other and then onto the horizon.
If you wanted to get fancy, you could in fact put a Y in the line at one end so there was two vertical tubes on one end, so you could sight it like gun sights.

But pretty much if a large scale water level isn't good enough, nothing is going to be good enough.

210

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What's the best tool for measuring eye level?

« on: February 11, 2019, 02:49:29 AM »

The problem with that maths is you're assuming that we can see all the way to the edge which is obviously not true, it's impossible to see 10,000 miles through our atmosphere.
 
... snip ...

Is intended to show a flat earth horizon as the limit of your vision.

First, I have a problem with the phrase "Limit of your vision" in regards to distance. Your eyes don't reach out and grope the distant scenery and come back with a report.
Your vision in fact is not a thing, it's what we call the ability of the eye to record optical light rays entering through the lens.

Now, our eye does have a limit to angular resolution - but that is different than distance, although increase in distance does reduce the angular size of an object so it can affect the eye's resolving power.

But as far as distance, there is no limit to the distance the eye can see -- if the light source in question is powerful enough to reach all the way to our eye with enough remaining light for our eye to detect the light, then by George we can see that far! That's why we can see the sun just as it slides down outside the dome, even though it's 10,000 miles away. Conversely, if the light source is too dim, we may not be able to see it 3 feet away. But that doesn't mean we can't see past 3 feet.

While we cannot see the details of things like trees or mountains or whatever at 10,000 miles away, we can often see the sun set on the ocean, getting obscured bottom side first. If you're on a ship at sea and you look out with a telescope and there's half a sun showing, I guess it's intuitive that there's the horizon, or the edge. Obviously there's no land or ocean between you and the upper visible part of the sun, and yet there's a clean horizontal cutoff line below which you do not see the sun, so obviously something is blocking it, and I guess that would be the edge.

I know that some of us here don't believe that the sun sets but that it's always a few thousand miles up somewhere nearly over the "equatorial" path, but I'm struggling with that  because that does not provide any means for it to actually set on the horizon., for anyone, anywhere on the face of the earth. And it very clearly goes down to level and vanishes bottom end first. Math just doesn't allow it to be 3,000 miles up, and 10,000 miles away, and down on the horizon.

211

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What's the best tool for measuring eye level?

« on: February 11, 2019, 02:21:26 AM »

If the water level tools and other methods showed a consistent distance above the horizon, it would be undeniable.

In ENAG Rowbotham shows at least two methods where the horizon registers at eye level or very close to it.

I think I found one in the link you provided:

"Another proof will be found in the following experiment. Select any promontory, pier, lighthouse gallery, or small island, and, at a considerable altitude, place a smooth block of wood or stone of any magnitude; let this be "levelled." If, then, the observer will place his eye close to the block, and look along its surface towards the sea, he will find that the line of sight will touch the distant horizon."

The problem with sighting down a block of wood is that it forces a bias.
In order to really sight straight down, you would have to have half of your pupil obscured by the wood. But then you can't see the target very well, so you instinctively raise your eye up a half a pupils width so your eye can see clearly over the board -- but now the centerline of your eye is half a pupils width *above* the edge of the wood, thus allowing you to see below the other edge of the wood.

You need a method that removes the bias - for example, sight through a straight tube or straw that's taped to the top of the level block of wood. That way you naturally center your pupil, and you naturally look out the center of the other end of the straw.

212

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What's the best tool for measuring eye level?

« on: February 10, 2019, 09:18:58 PM »

.. Even if the earth were flat the horizon would be below eye level. The horizon would be a point on the earth, you'd still be looking down at it:

I agree that we don't have a problem saying that the horizon definitely should be below eyelevel with a flat earth.

I guess what I'm struggling with is "how far down" would the horizon be?

Obviously, if we were half a mile from the outside edge, sure, it'd be down a pretty good angle.

However, if we're near the center of the earth at 600ft above sea level, looking straight out towards the edge where the sky meets the water, it's maybe what, 10,000 miles to the edge?

We would be looking down about 0.0006 degrees from true level. If there was a 600 foot high mountain at the edge, then we'd be looking straight out level.

What I'm struggling with is that even a 600 foot high mountain at 10,000 miles away is still going to be too small to see. Something 10,000 miles away will appear in the same spot whether it's at sea level or 600 feet up. That's why we say that the horizon rises to the observer's eyelevel.

Even at sealevel, it's going to be only 0.0006 degrees down, and that is such a small angle from true level, that any attempts to sight out with a water level would make the horizon to appear right at eye level for all practical purposes.