21

Flat Earth Community / Re: Brainstorming Community Tests of FE

« on: August 09, 2020, 05:49:13 PM »

Aren't latitudes currently defined by the celestial bodies? Ignoring GPS and LORAN and such, how did people manually determine the latitude and longitude of a location? If San Francisco and Chicago saw the altitude of Polaris in the 1800's to determine their latitude, what makes you think that it would change now?

That's how it was always done, correct. However, if our own experiments were performed they might gain the trust of more sceptical members of the movement.

22

Flat Earth Community / Re: Brainstorming Community Tests of FE

« on: August 09, 2020, 01:52:12 PM »

Of course, the two measures of altitude/elevation of Polaris must be done on the same day of the year, if done separately, or by two measuring persons, at the same time.

The issue of whether observed latitude = Google latitude is a preliminary. Tests could be run across Europe and the US. If sufficient agreement is found, then the FE research team could agree to rely on the Google latitudes and then move to distances.

23

Flat Earth Community / Re: Brainstorming Community Tests of FE

« on: August 09, 2020, 09:03:41 AM »

Doing our own tests would be meaningless because anyone visiting the site would just scream ... HAS IT BEEN PEER VIEWED? 

Then get it peer reviewed. That would require a journal to submit to, but easy enough to set up a journal if you can get an editor and an editorial board composed of volunteers.

It is a bent system.

If I said "Round Earth is an oppressive thought system to bolster and foster white privilege at the expense of the BAME community" ... that one is going to get green lit. To get anything peer viewed I simply need to state either climate change is real, black people are oppressed, or homosexuality is the natural default and anything else is a perversion. You have to think about the absolute cock wombles who do the peer reviewing.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/15/17951492/grievance-studies-sokal-squared-hoax

You misunderstand. I suggest setting up a new FE journal whose purpose is to publish papers on FE research. Similar to the way that JB Rhine set up the journal of parapsychology https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/journal-parapsychology after finding there was no orthodox venue for such studies.

After all, if it is possible to support the FE hypothesis by means of rigorous experimentation and methodology documentation, it should be possible to publish the results in a journal specifically set up for the purpose. The journal could be hosted on this website. If the methodology was rigorous enough, then the subject would be taken seriously by established science.

24

Flat Earth Community / Re: Brainstorming Community Tests of FE

« on: August 09, 2020, 08:40:43 AM »

Doing our own tests would be meaningless because anyone visiting the site would just scream ... HAS IT BEEN PEER VIEWED? 

Then get it peer reviewed. That would require a journal to submit to, but easy enough to set up a journal if you can get an editor and an editorial board composed of volunteers.

25

Flat Earth Community / Re: Brainstorming Community Tests of FE

« on: August 09, 2020, 08:04:45 AM »

For UA, the best test that could be done would be to test the scale experiment in a vaccum chamber.

That would be an interesting test. Can you clarify what result would be consistent with UA? I.e. are you expecting that the observed freefall acceleration would be different at different latitudes, or the same?

What other possibilities are there for a test of FE?

A fairly cheap test would be to determine the length of a degree of latitude. I believe you are in California. Route 5 has a number of stretches which are nearly North-South. Then (i) check the driving distance between two points 111km apart and (ii) determine the altititude of Polaris at each point. Then see if if the difference is 1 degree, as RE models predict. Repeat the experiment across the continent with different volunteers. The only equipment required would be a sextant, about $100.

26

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Latitude and longitude - please enlighten me

« on: August 08, 2020, 01:00:48 PM »

The question I have is how can we determine if your position in relation to the north star is based on a flat earth and refraction or a globe earth and refraction to determine if the claims that it's based entirely on a globe earth are supported or refuted by the evidence. As of now I don't know.

The fact that the North star has a certain altitude is merely an observation. You measure it in angles. How would that tell you anything about the shape of the earth?

But add the fact that its angle changes by 1 degree for every 111km you travel towards it or away from it, may tell you something. Nothing is certain of course, but the very simplest theory to explain that observation is that the earth is (approximately) spherical. Doesn't mean that it is spherical, and absolutely nothing can prove it for certain. But that hypothesis is one very simple explanation.

27

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Latitude and longitude - please enlighten me

« on: August 07, 2020, 09:19:27 PM »

The central difficulty with longitude is that it's all about time and until the 18th C there wasn't a reliable way of keeping time accurately, by which time of course, a belief in a globe earth was pretty much universal. Having said that, unless time is somehow a concept which doesn't work on a flat earth, everything else about the method is observation of the heavens and observations are observations, the shape of the earth doesn't really affect the results.

Conceptually longitude is simple. Find the point at which the sun is highest, then look up the time at Greenwich. These days, simple. 200 years ago, not simple.

28

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 31, 2020, 10:19:15 AM »

... and, to get back to flight-related stuff, today's flight BAW6B, arrival LHR 13:35 on Friday 31st, is currently over open ocean, South of Greenland.

I shall keep an eye out for it as it comes in.

And to get right back to the OP, are such flights hoaxes? We have the data from FR24. The fact that I can see the planes coming in to LHR from my window, and that I can identify both the airline and the plane type (but not the flight number) suggest that the data is authentic. Further evidence could be obtained from the departure and arrival boards online.

Then there is the secondary question of whether we can infer flight distance from flight time, which requires assumptions about how fast planes fly.

We would then have to look for evidence including wind speed. See e.g. the wiki https://wiki.tfes.org/Issues_in_Flight_Analysis.

One experiment would be to find flights on the same route but travelling in opposite directions. If high wind speeds were causing discrepancies, then the effect should be equal and opposite.

Perhaps the subject for another thread.

29

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 31, 2020, 09:31:21 AM »

Right. But if that's how you're doing it you understand that degrees of latitude can only be a consistent distance apart using those observations if the earth is a globe? If it's flat then every degree south will get further and further apart.

Depends on the FE model you are using. On the AE map, I agree. There are other maps, according to the wiki.

[EDIT]Sorry, re-read your post. You are talking about distance between latitudes, yes? I agree.

30

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 31, 2020, 09:23:25 AM »

Latitude and longitude have no meaning on a Flat Earth. They are measured in degrees of angle; angular displacement between two straight-line vectors which meet at a point, with the angle being at that point.

Where do you define this point on a Flat Earth?

The coordinates are perfectly meaningful on a Flat Earth. We observe the altitude (in degrees) of polaris (or sigma octans) to find latitude, and the Greenwich time at which the sun is at its zenith (and multiply by 15) to find longitude. That gives us two coordinates, right?

31

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 31, 2020, 09:03:30 AM »

I have not seen evidence that Web Mercator (Web-based WGS84 used in Google/Bing Maps) is based on a sphere. Various statements suggest otherwise -  https://wiki.tfes.org/World_Geodetic_System_1984

From the 'Earth is not Round' article quoted: "Latitude and Longitude are useless for measuring distance and area because the unit of length, degrees, is not held constant for longitude, except along parallels -- individual perfectly east-west lines."

Well of course. Latitude and longitude are measures of location, not position. Points on a flat earth would have the same latitude and longitude as on a spherical earth.

The topic here is whether (1) the observations of flight time are a good proxy for flight distance, and (2) whether the distances inferred tell us anything about the shape of the earth.

The maps are flat because surveyors and mappers use plane surveying techniques.

"Geodetic Surveying is that branch of survey which deals with areas so extensive that it is necessary to take into consideration the true shape and dimensions of the earth". https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00050326.1935.10436447

In plane surveying, used for small areas, the shape of the earth is not a consideration because it makes very little difference.

Wikipedia: "Plane and geodetic surveying: Based on the considerations and true shape of the earth, surveying is broadly classified into two types.Plane surveying assumes the earth is flat. Curvature and spheroidal shape of the earth is neglected. In this type of surveying all triangles formed by joining survey lines are considered as plane triangles. It is employed for small survey works where errors due to the earth's shape are too small to matter.In geodetic surveying the curvature of the earth is taken into account while calculating reduced levels, angles, bearings and distances. This type of surveying is usually employed for large survey works. Survey works up to 100 square miles (260 square kilometers ) are treated as plane and beyond that are treated as geodetic. In geodetic surveying necessary corrections are applied to reduced levels, bearings and other observations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying#Plane_and_geodetic_surveying

32

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 30, 2020, 04:20:51 PM »

On this 'interactive scale' thing, consider a map that is so large that one mile on the earth's surface = 1 mile on the map's surface. You could lay the whole map on top of the world so that every point on the map would be on top of the corresponding point in the world. But then the scale would not be variable.

There would not be a scale.

Yes there would, it would be 1. But that is not my point. The scale would have to be 1 at every point, in order to preserve the 1:1 mapping from every point in the world to the corresponding point on the map.

Or to make the point in another way. (Suppose) I have a globe in my study, and I make a 1:1 map of it by wrapping a strong sheet around it. Can I then unwrap the sheet and lay it on the flat surface of my desk without tearing or cutting the sheet?

I think iamcpc's claim is that the Bing map with its variable scale can represent a surface which is perfectly flat. Although it's never been quite clear what his claim is.

33

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 30, 2020, 03:44:07 PM »

1. Does the planet that you live on have a South Pole?
2. Does the planet that you live on have a great ice wall encompassing the entire planet?

Yes to 1.

Do you agree that lines of longitude converge at the South Pole?

If you believe that the planet has a south pole then I would like to point out that only one of the flat earth models I have shown on this thread has a south pole.

So on the model which has a South pole, do lines of longitude converge at the South pole?

34

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 30, 2020, 11:36:19 AM »

1. Does the planet that you live on have a South Pole?
2. Does the planet that you live on have a great ice wall encompassing the entire planet?

Yes to 1.

Do you agree that lines of longitude converge at the South Pole?

This is why the more modern online maps have an interactive scale which changes depends on where you look and how far in you zoom.

On this 'interactive scale' thing, consider a map that is so large that one mile on the earth's surface = 1 mile on the map's surface. You could lay the whole map on top of the world so that every point on the map would be on top of the corresponding point in the world. But then the scale would not be variable.

If on the other hand this map had a variable scale, there would no longer be a 1:1 correspondence between points on the map, and points in the world. In which case, would the map accurately represent the surface it was intended to represent?

35

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 28, 2020, 05:18:45 PM »

Here is a model of the earth in which the earth is represented as a flat plane:
https://www.bing.com/maps

I will call this FE model 1

This model is the same as Google maps and does not represent the earth as a flat plane.

Rather, the model is a picture which is on a flat surface, but which represents something as not a plane.

36

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 28, 2020, 05:07:55 PM »

Sorry what models are you talking about?

The two different FE models shown on this thread.

Could you help us out and link to them please. I can't see anything immediately above.

So, we seem to be in agreement that on some days, this flight passes over Greeenland, and others it does not. Agreed?

Where does that leave us?

It leaves us that some days flights follow Great Circle routes, some days they do not.

37

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 28, 2020, 04:06:37 PM »

Quite agree that BAW6B (aircraft reg G-ZBKI) did not fly over Greenland on 26/27 July.  I don't think anyone claimed it did. 

Yes they did. They did it here:

[EDIT 2] And now, London time 12:28 (BST) BAW6B has neatly crossed the tip of Greenland and most of the North Atlantic, just approaching the coast of Ireland.  Scheduled to arrive at Heathrow 14:05. I live underneath the flight path so I will be able to see it come in.

Note the date of my post (24 July).

Now that I have answered your question, Can you answer mine? What is a flight that we can take in which the path that we fly would support one of the two presented FE models?

Sorry what models are you talking about?

38

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 28, 2020, 12:37:33 PM »

It just passed over Fulham - I tracked it over Wales and southern England, then saw it with my own eyes it for nearly a minute using binoculars. Clearly a BA plane, and clearly a Dreamliner.

39

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 28, 2020, 07:48:59 AM »

Why would it fly over Brazil? Why the route being different each day would imply it flew over Brazil even once? It doesn't mean it can be anything.

On that point, the 'measure distance' function on Google maps tells us the distance of different routes. Thus for the LA->London route

Over Greenland: 5,429km
Over Newfoundland: 5,568km
Over Florida: 6,547km

Over Brazil, probably much more. The difference between the Greenland and Newfoundland route is about 150km, which does not seem much. Between Greenland and Florida, more than a 1,000km.

 

40

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are flights from and to French Polynesia a hoax?

« on: July 27, 2020, 09:14:21 PM »

[..]
This really makes me question this website because it appears that the flight path changes after the plane lands. I wonder why that is?
[..]

To be clear, there are two websites. I used flightradar 24, but your website corroborates the information.

Don't know about flight paths changing after landing. Where is your evidence?