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Offline RazaTD

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Simple Experiments
« on: February 18, 2021, 04:48:04 AM »
I want to know what is the simplest experiment that one can do in their neighborhood or community without expensive  equipment or a lot of commitment. Is there something so simple that everyone can do and that strongly distinguishes whether reality is a Flat Earth or Globe Earth?

I am pretty sure it depends on the location too whether you live in a urban, suburban, or a rural area. Or even you live near mountains or beach etc.

But is there any experiment that comes closest to being extremely accessible and strong in conclusion?
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Offline iamcpc

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2021, 03:39:40 PM »
I want to know what is the simplest experiment that one can do in their neighborhood or community without expensive  equipment or a lot of commitment. Is there something so simple that everyone can do and that strongly distinguishes whether reality is a Flat Earth or Globe Earth?

I am pretty sure it depends on the location too whether you live in a urban, suburban, or a rural area. Or even you live near mountains or beach etc.

But is there any experiment that comes closest to being extremely accessible and strong in conclusion?



There are many experiments but the problem is that someone who believes the earth is round states that the results of the experiment shows the earth is round usually have a good rebuttal from the FE community.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2021, 02:04:43 AM »
The Moon Tilt Illusion is a good one to look at in depth, and is easily accessible - https://wiki.tfes.org/Moon_Tilt_Illusion

Although RE claims to have answers for this, those answers really don't work.

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Offline JSS

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2021, 03:04:28 AM »
The Moon Tilt Illusion is a good one to look at in depth, and is easily accessible - https://wiki.tfes.org/Moon_Tilt_Illusion

Although RE claims to have answers for this, those answers really don't work.

The answer is that it's an illusion and not real. This is easily shown with a piece of string to show that the shadow actually is aligned with the Sun. It just looks like it's not to the naked eye, thus the illusion. Anyone can do this themselves and I highly suggest trying it.

This isn't even a RE vs FE issue, it's a simple matter of optics. 

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2021, 03:07:53 AM »
The string discussion is addressed in the link, which you do not even attempt a response to.

Your "it's an illusion" explanation does not explain anything at all and is an example of your failure to explain this.

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Offline JSS

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2021, 03:25:26 AM »
The string discussion is addressed in the link, which you do not even attempt a response to.

Your "it's an illusion" explanation does not explain anything at all and is an example of your failure to explain this.

That's because the Wiki's explanation makes no sense and is not understanding how the string is used.  To use the example in the Wiki, if you hold the string so it follows the trunk of the tree, it will not hit the cabin, because the tree isn't pointing at the cabin.

But when you hold the string between the Sun and Moon, you can see the shadow on the Moon does line up with the string.

You really should try this for yourself so you understand how it works before dismissing it.


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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2021, 03:38:23 AM »
I have tried it. It's insufficient. Here is the section from the Wiki:

Quote
Along the same lines as the above, we are given reference to "string experiments" in which the direction of the Moon's illuminated portion is able to be connected to the sun with a string.



Credit: Bobby Shafto

It has been argued that the string experiment shows that the bodies do actually point at each other. An illusion of some type is occurring and the string experiment "breaks the illusion," demonstrating that the illuminated portion of the Moon is actually pointing at the Sun. If it was not pointing at the Sun then it would not be possible to hold a straight piece of string along that path.

As a reply to this, consider the following scenario:

    You are laying down on the ground on your back, facing upwards, and at the edges of your vision see the top of a pine tree on one side of your vision, and the top of a cabin on the other. You take out a string and connect them together across your vision. Have you proved that the tree is pointing at the cabin?

If you are laying down on the ground on your back and see the Moon pointing upwards on one side of your vision and see the Sun setting at the horizon on the other, a string connecting the two will no more prove that the Moon is pointing at the Sun than it would prove that a tree is pointing at a cabin. When you lay on your back you can see 190 degrees of space1. Just because an object at one side might be pointing "up" at another object at the other side, it doesn't mean that they are pointing at each other.

When wrapped around the observer, this panoramic view of the moon tilt illusion:



Turns into this:



Art Credit: Todd Lockwood

In the above example both the Moon and airplane are on opposite sides of the Sun near point B. The Sun is on the horizon at point A. The Moon and airplane are not actually pointing at the Sun. The string merely connects them two dimensionally across a 'sphere of vision' exactly like the tree-cabin example.

If the airplane was actually pointing at the Sun in the above example, then when looking at the airplane face on, with the Sun on the horizon to your back, you should see the airplane pointed at you and tilted downwards towards the opposite horizon behind you. The same would also apply for the Moon. If the Moon were pointing at the Sun then when you face the Moon its illumined portion should point downwards at the Sun at the horizon behind you, just as an airplane would. Thus, we see that this assertion that the string experiment demonstrates that an illusion is occurring and that bodies are pointing at each other is erroneous. The string experiment may suggest that object positions and straight line paths behave as if they are curving on a dome of some manner, which may provide us with a clue in deciphering the nature of our world, but it does not demonstrate absolute directions of bodies.

A fish-bowl type simulation of the Moon Tilt Illusion can be seen in University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Moon Phases and the Horizon Diagram (.swf Archive) - "Provides a method of learning the correlation between the phase of the moon, the time of day, and the position of the moon in the sky."



Footnotes

1 "our eyes sit in the front of our head, allowing us to see about 60 percent of world in front of us with both eyes, at the compromise that we can only see at maximum about 190 degrees around us (Block 1969; Wolfe 2006)" – Human Spatial Navigation, 2018, p.73

If we take the last image we see that there is only one path where the string connects to the Sun, by connecting it across the observer's vision.

If you face the Moon dead on where the Moon is in the center of your vison and hold out a string at arms length it will NOT connect to the sun (Red).

It only connects to the sun if you connect it across your vision (Teal).



And going back to the Tree-Cabin example in the Wiki, if you are laying down on the ground and see the top of a pine tree on one side of your vision and the top of a cabin on the other, connecting them together with a string across your sphere of vision does NOT prove that the tree is pointing at the cabin.

« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 04:57:54 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2021, 04:20:43 AM »
Two pencils intersecting a transparent plane:



Going beneath the plane and looking up at the pencils I see:



I can connect a string! The pencils must be pointing at each other.  ::)

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Offline AATW

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2021, 11:04:13 AM »
I can connect a string! The pencils must be pointing at each other.  ::)

That's a false equivalence, as is the tree, cabin example. The sun doesn't "point" at anything, it is simply a light source which radiates light in all directions.

The moon, in RET, is being illuminated by the sun. And light travels in straight lines - for the purposes of this conversation, there are Relativistic and refraction effects which mean that's not 100% true, but in the context of light from the sun hitting the moon it is true.

If light travels in straight lines AND if the sun is illuminating the moon then when you see the moon the line perpendicular to the terminator on the moon must point at the sun:



When you see the moon tilt illusion it looks like that isn't the case, but the piece of string demonstrates that it is and it's simply an optical illusion.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 12:05:46 PM by AllAroundTheWorld »
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

SteelyBob

Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2021, 12:04:20 PM »

I can connect a string! The pencils must be pointing at each other.  ::)

...is the incorrect thing to conclude from your thought experiment. As AATW says, spheres can't point. What you have proved, however, is that the pencils are orientated east-west on your gridded plane as illustrated. If you want to get from one to the other, you travel east or west respectively. In the same way, by connecting the moon to the sun with a piece of string you have established the direction from one to the other. And if that direction in consistent with the side of the moon that appears to be illuminated, which it always is - go outside and try it sometime - then you have taken the mystery out of the illusion.

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Offline JSS

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2021, 12:45:20 PM »
I have tried it. It's insufficient. Here is the section from the Wiki:

And going back to the Tree-Cabin example in the Wiki, if you are laying down on the ground and see the top of a pine tree on one side of your vision and the top of a cabin on the other, connecting them together with a string across your sphere of vision does NOT prove that the tree is pointing at the cabin.

I'm sorry you were unable to perform on understand the moon-tilt illusion demonstration correctly, but let me try and explain it again.

I think some of the confusion is due to the TFES Wiki badly misunderstanding the illusion. Here is a quote.

Quote
Some attribute this phenomenon to 'perspective', while astronomers tell us that there is a 'celestial sphere' which the celestial bodies glide upon at different angles, and upon which straight lines become curved. We are given a series of analogies and explanations separate from, and incompatible with, the Round Earth Theory.

I am not sure where any of that came from, this is not how the moon-tilt illusion is explained. The entire Wiki page seems to be a straw-man argument as I've never seen a 'series of explanations' to such a simple optical illusion.

The simple explanation is that wide angle images either from a camera or the human eye will result in a distorted image. Adding a reference when taking the photo or looking with your eye, usually a string running perpendicular to the Moon's terminator will show it is actually lined up correctly.

Let me take some pictures to illustrate because this really is a simple concept.  Now, you might look at the first image and wonder why light is curving.  The shadow clearly doesn't line up with the light source! How confusing, how could this be? But it's just an illusion as the second image shows. This is simply how light works. The shadow isn't bent in that top image, the image is.

Just to make clear, the only change between the two images was framing the image at the top of the sensor vs the center.  Nothing else moved, the light and shadow is always going in a straight line. It's just showing what happens when an image is projected onto a plane, like a camera sensor or our retina.

As you can see, there is no need to invoke celestial spheres, things gliding, bendy light, or complicated perspective equations.  It's just distortion that any camera or eye will cause. That's all.


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Offline AATW

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2021, 12:53:34 PM »
More good work, JSS.
I'd also be interested to know how this illusion, which as the name suggests is nothing more than an optical illusion, albeit an interesting one, is a "prediction" of EA as the Wiki claims.

I'd like to see a proper diagram which demonstrates this, the Wiki has one but the light in the diagram bends downwards which is the opposite of the EA claim so I don't understand how this illusion is a prediction of EA.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2021, 05:10:36 PM »
The string experiment is unable to distinguish whether something is pointing at something else.



From a ground level angle:



We can connect a string between them. The Purple Cone must be pointing at the Sun. ::)

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Offline AATW

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2021, 05:14:57 PM »
The string experiment is unable to distinguish whether something is pointing at something else.
As has already been explained, the sun doesn't point at anything.
If there is clear line of sight between the sun and an object then the sun will illuminate that object.
And you can tell from which direction an object is being illuminated - if the object is not fully illuminated from your perspective then a line perpendicular to the terminator should point at the light source.
When the optical illusion occurs it appears that this is not the case. The string experiment demonstrates that this is merely an illusion.

Can you explain with a diagram how this effect is explained and predicted by EA?
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2021, 05:15:47 PM »
The string experiment doesnt determine of something is 'pointing' at something.

Lucky the sun emits light in all directions. The string experiment demonstrates that the two objects can be connected by a straight line

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #15 on: February 19, 2021, 05:44:17 PM »
Quote from: JSS
The simple explanation is that wide angle images either from a camera or the human eye will result in a distorted image.

This is a third explanation for the Moon Tilt Illusion. But this argument is so bad that the Wiki does not bother to address it.

"Wide Angle" does not mandate distortion. Human vision is wide angle and rectilinear, meaning that straight lines stay straight. There are also many wide angle lenses which are rectilinear and can keep straight lines straight.

If human vision had enough distortion to cause the apparent direction of the Moon to point in a significantly different direction than the Sun then the Moon would be pointing in different directions depending on where it is in your field of vision. It does not point in different directions depending on how we look at it. Therefore we can take this "explanation" and toss it in the garbage.

Quote from: JSS
I am not sure where any of that came from, this is not how the moon-tilt illusion is explained.

Anyone familiar with the previous discussions on this knows that this wrong. There are multiple explanations given for this. MetaBunk and VSauce use the perspective explanation, Professor Myers in the Wiki link insists that Astronomers use a celestial sphere. Now you bring in a third explanation involving warped distortion in our vision, as the "official" explanation, without any reference or  support whatsoever.

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Offline JSS

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #16 on: February 19, 2021, 06:21:13 PM »
"Wide Angle" does not mandate distortion. Human vision is wide angle and rectilinear, meaning that straight lines stay straight. There are also many wide angle lenses which are rectilinear and can keep straight lines straight.

Tom, that is showing your complete ignorance on how cameras and human vision works.  This is totally wrong, and goes against everything we know about human vision, which is a lot. 

Lines do NOT stay straight when projected onto the retina. How can they, you are mapping a three dimensional world onto a flat surface, it just does not work. You are completely off base here. The brain has to post-process the image and straighten out curved lines so they seem straight to us.

You keep using the word rectilinear as if it's magic, but do not apparently understand what it means. You can not have a wide angle lens without distortion at the edges, you need to do more research before saying such things.

Please show your sources that human eyes have no distortion with straight lines.  It's a simple sensor and a lens, this will cause distortion, this is a simple fact no matter if you understand it or not.

As for 'all the different explanations' that is just your not understanding the basic concept they are all trying to explain.  I'll show you again, try and look and understand this picture and not just complain it's not exactly the same as you saw in a YouTube video by VSauce.  You didn't understand that one, so I am trying to simplify it enough.

Actually look at this picture this time please, do you not see the EXACT same effect as the moon-tilt illusion pictures?  It's literally the same thing.

« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 07:28:57 PM by JSS »

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #17 on: February 19, 2021, 07:26:03 PM »
Quote from: JSS
Tom, that is showing your complete ignorance on how cameras and human vision works.  This is totally wrong, and goes against everything we know about human vision, which is a lot.

Lines do NOT stay straight when projected onto the retina. How can they, you are mapping a three dimensional world onto a flat surface, it just does not work. You are completely off base here. The brain has to post-process the image and straighten out curved lines so they seem straight to us.

Wrong. Please, just stop posting. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. The retina is not flat. The retina is a concave surface.



Quote from: JSS
You keep using the word rectilinear as if it's magic, but do not apparently understand what it means. You can not have a wide angle lens without distortion at the edges, you need to do more research before saying such things.

It's the word of a rando forum poster here who is continuously wrong versus the word of a camera manufacturer who says that they can make wide angle lenses which keeps straight lines straight.

http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/d/d0d8a9c8-5572-e6b4-318c-51f70cb6620e.pdf



Quote from: JSS
Please show your sources that human eyes have no distortion with straight lines.  It's a simple sensor and a lens, this will cause distortion, this is a simple fact no matter if you understand it or not.

Oh, now you're asking for evidence that we see straight as straight? How about you post your evidence that we see straight lines as curves? Euclidean Geometry assumes that our vision is rectilinear and undistorted.

https://www.ptgui.com/man/projections.html

"Rectilinear ('flat'): This is the projection of the panoramic sphere onto a flat surface. It is the projection our eyes are used to, the projection of a normal camera. Rectilinear projection has the unique property of preserving all straight lines: any line that is straight in real world, is displayed as a straight line in the panorama. This makes it a suitable projection for architectural panoramas."

Borrow Lenses - https://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/rectilinear-fisheye-wide-angle-lens/

"The majority of lenses made are rectilinear. They most accurately reflect the way that we view the world with our eyes."

On optics - https://www.basicknowledge101.com/subjects/sight.html

"Distortion in optics is a deviation from rectilinear projection; a projection in which straight lines in a scene remain straight in an image. It is a form of optical aberration."
« Last Edit: February 19, 2021, 09:06:35 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline AATW

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #18 on: February 19, 2021, 07:30:37 PM »
Note how Tom is once again trying to change the subject.
He has failed to address his misunderstanding that the sun “points” anywhere and failed to explain how the illusion is a prediction of EA as the Wiki claims.

I continue to await his diagram that explains this.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline JSS

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Re: Simple Experiments
« Reply #19 on: February 19, 2021, 07:44:20 PM »
Quote
Tom, that is showing your complete ignorance on how cameras and human vision works.  This is totally wrong, and goes against everything we know about human vision, which is a lot.

Lines do NOT stay straight when projected onto the retina. How can they, you are mapping a three dimensional world onto a flat surface, it just does not work. You are completely off base here. The brain has to post-process the image and straighten out curved lines so they seem straight to us.

Wrong. Please, just stop posting. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. The retina is not flat. The retina is a concave surface.

I really wish you would take your own advice.  ::) Any projection from three dimensional space onto a two dimensional surface is going to cause distortion, this is what happens on the eye. You can't project the surface of a sphere onto a plane without distorting it, it's just geometrically impossible. Please ask any high school math teacher and they can explain it to you.

It's the word of a rando forum poster here who is continuously wrong versus the word of a camera manufacturer who says that they can make wide angle lenses which keeps straight lines straight.

http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/d/d0d8a9c8-5572-e6b4-318c-51f70cb6620e.pdf

Read your own sources, you keep posting ones that contradict yourself.  From that PDF...

"Howerver, a circular object like a ball or person's head, located near the edge of the frame will appear to be somewhat enlarged and will have an oval shape."

So much for your claim that this lens has no distortions.  Really, you are using an ADVERTISEMENT for a product as your source?  You are literally using what a marketing department wrote and taking it as scientific fact as if they aren't going to simplify and exaggerate their product's abilities. Come on, Tom.

There is also this.

"Neither fisheye nor rectilinear extreme wide angle lenses represent reality in quite the way we see it"

Once more you are ignoring my very simple image so you can try and derail the thread with trips down your rabbit holes.

I'll ask a second time since you completely ignored it again, do you not see the similarity to the moon-tilt illusion image from your own Wiki?  It's exactly what is going on, and is obvious.