Max_Almond

Question about Mount Everest
« on: December 01, 2018, 01:09:45 PM »
The sun is higher than Mount Everest.
Mount Everest is higher than the mountains that surround it.
The sun is higher than the mountains around Mount Everest.

So, flat earthers, in this video, how do think a shadow gets cast onto Mount Everest?


https://media.istockphoto.com/videos/mt-everest-at-sunset-video-id539252432
« Last Edit: December 26, 2018, 10:13:33 PM by Max_Almond »

Offline edby

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2018, 01:25:15 PM »
The sun is higher than Mount Everest.
Mount Everest is higher than the mountains that surround it.
The sun is higher than the mountains around Mount Everest.

So in this video, how does a shadow get cast onto Mount Everest?


https://media.istockphoto.com/videos/mt-everest-at-sunset-video-id539252432


Aha. If light travels in straight lines, then (1) the edge of the shadow on Everest, (2) the tops of the mountains around Everest and (3) the sun, must all lie in a straight line.

But (4) when the edge of the shadow reaches the top of Everest, it follows from the above that the line in question must be angled downwards relative to the surface of the perfectly flat earth. However (6) most FE theory states that celestial bodies are always the same height.

Quite a conundrum, let me think about it.

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2018, 04:51:49 PM »
The sun is higher than Mount Everest.
Mount Everest is higher than the mountains that surround it.
The sun is higher than the mountains around Mount Everest.

So in this video, how does a shadow get cast onto Mount Everest?


https://media.istockphoto.com/videos/mt-everest-at-sunset-video-id539252432

This happens because as an object (like the sun) becomes more distant it drops in apparent height meaning the light that emanates from said object makes shallower and shallower angles relative to the ground until none of the light is able to be seen from the object at all.  This is all pretty simple stuff that logically follows from the basic FE explanation for sunrise/sunset as described in the Wiki.

Offline edby

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2018, 04:55:50 PM »
This happens because as an object (like the sun) becomes more distant it drops in apparent height meaning the light that emanates from said object makes shallower and shallower angles relative to the ground until none of the light is able to be seen from the object at all.  This is all pretty simple stuff that logically follows from the basic FE explanation for sunrise/sunset as described in the Wiki.
So the real height does not drop?

And yet you agree that when the edge of the shadow reaches the top of Everest, the line in question [top of Everest --- top of lower peaks --- sun] must be angled downwards relative to the surface of the perfectly flat earth?

Or do you think that the sunlight travels in a curved line?

Sometimes a picture is clearer.




« Last Edit: December 01, 2018, 05:11:04 PM by edby »

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Offline AATW

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2018, 08:00:58 PM »
This happens because as an object (like the sun) becomes more distant it drops in apparent height meaning the light that emanates from said object makes shallower and shallower angles relative to the ground until none of the light is able to be seen from the object at all.  This is all pretty simple stuff that logically follows from the basic FE explanation for sunrise/sunset as described in the Wiki.
It does follow from the FE sunrise explanation, but unfortunately that explanation is wrong. Tom tried to use this explanation in a previous thread about how clouds can be seen lit from below and how shadows are cast upwards by a sun apparently thousands of miles above the surface of the flat earth. This is the image we were talking about at the time



Tom said that it was perspective which caused this effect, the sun appeared lower in the sky because it was far away horizontally, it looked like it was below the mountain ergo the shadows were cast upwards. But that isn't how shadows work. The angle of a shadow does not depend on your perspective, it depends on the physical relationship between the light source and the object which the shadow is cast of. So a row of lamps may appear like this because of perspective:



But in reality each lamp is the same height. So if I look at the row of lamps and place my hand high enough with respect to my eyes that the lamp appears to be lower than my hand then the shadow my hand casts from the furthest lamp will still be in a downward direction because the light is physically above the level of my hand:



I did a quick experiment to show this. I used a lamp as the light source and a Rubik's cube as the object. You can see the top of the cube is illuminated because the light source is physically above the level of the cube:



If I change my perspective so the light source appears to be lower than the cube, the lower side of the cube is still in shadow:



The only way that shadows can be cast by the sun upwards, or objects shorter than Everest can cast shadows on to Everest if light travels in straight lines is that the sun must be physically lower than the level of the object it is casting the shadow of. Which is is with a globe earth, as the earth rotates the sun goes physically below the horizon.

The only other possibility I can think of is that light doesn't travel in straight lines, this is where EA wins as a flat earth theory. The sun would by physically higher than Everest and the mountains beside it but the light would be bending in such a way that the sun would appear to be below it and the light would be bending in such a way that shadows could be cast upwards. I've yet to see any experimental evidence that EA exists, but it would better as an explanation that perspective.
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"

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2018, 08:37:49 PM »

I did a quick experiment to show this. I used a lamp as the light source and a Rubik's cube as the object. You can see the top of the cube is illuminated because the light source is physically above the level of the cube:

The only way that shadows can be cast by the sun upwards, or objects shorter than Everest can cast shadows on to Everest if light travels in straight lines is that the sun must be physically lower than the level of the object it is casting the shadow of. Which is is with a globe earth, as the earth rotates the sun goes physically below the horizon.

The only other possibility I can think of is that light doesn't travel in straight lines, this is where EA wins as a flat earth theory. The sun would by physically higher than Everest and the mountains beside it but the light would be bending in such a way that the sun would appear to be below it and the light would be bending in such a way that shadows could be cast upwards. I've yet to see any experimental evidence that EA exists, but it would better as an explanation that perspective.


Your experiment is not analogous to what Flat Earthers hypothesize about sunsets/sunrises because in Flat Earth sunsets the change in the sun's apparent position in the vertical direction is caused by a change in the sun's actual position in the horizontal direction while the change in the apparent position of the light source in your picture is caused by a change in the position of the observer, not a change in the position of the light source, so it is inadequate to demonstrate your claim.

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Offline stack

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2018, 08:55:32 PM »

I did a quick experiment to show this. I used a lamp as the light source and a Rubik's cube as the object. You can see the top of the cube is illuminated because the light source is physically above the level of the cube:

The only way that shadows can be cast by the sun upwards, or objects shorter than Everest can cast shadows on to Everest if light travels in straight lines is that the sun must be physically lower than the level of the object it is casting the shadow of. Which is is with a globe earth, as the earth rotates the sun goes physically below the horizon.

The only other possibility I can think of is that light doesn't travel in straight lines, this is where EA wins as a flat earth theory. The sun would by physically higher than Everest and the mountains beside it but the light would be bending in such a way that the sun would appear to be below it and the light would be bending in such a way that shadows could be cast upwards. I've yet to see any experimental evidence that EA exists, but it would better as an explanation that perspective.


Your experiment is not analogous to what Flat Earthers hypothesize about sunsets/sunrises because in Flat Earth sunsets the change in the sun's apparent position in the vertical direction is caused by a change in the sun's actual position in the horizontal direction while the change in the apparent position of the light source in your picture is caused by a change in the position of the observer, not a change in the position of the light source, so it is inadequate to demonstrate your claim.

Regardless of the observer perspective, in FET the sun is above the clouds yet when "setting" it casts a shadow of the mountain up on to the underside of the clouds. Either the sun sets or the light is bent - It is not explained by FE law of perspective.

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Offline AATW

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2018, 09:03:29 PM »
The observer moving or the light source moving are equivalent. Both change the relative position of the light source and the observer.

I understand the FE claim about sunset, but photos like the above and the video of Mount Everest prove that the sun is PHYSICALLY below the level of the objects. A light source thousands of miles above a flat plane cannot cast shadows upwards. Again, the angle of a shadow is determined by the relationship of PHYSICAL positions of the light source and the object, not perspective. If you walk down the street at night you will notice your shadow changes direction as you walk past street lights. You are moving so the physical angle between you and the light changes so the shadow does.

So either the sun is physically below the level of the mountains (which it isn’t ever, according to FE theory), or light is bending so it appears to be. Again, that is the claim 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"

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2018, 09:29:18 PM »
The observer moving or the light source moving are equivalent. Both change the relative position of the light source and the observer.

They aren't equivalent in this case because your picture is caused by changing the horizontal position of the observer.  If the change in the apparent height of the light source in your picture were caused by increasing the horizontal distance between the camera and the light that would be equivalent.

Quote
I understand the FE claim about sunset, but photos like the above and the video of Mount Everest prove that the sun is PHYSICALLY below the level of the objects. A light source thousands of miles above a flat plane cannot cast shadows upwards. Again, the angle of a shadow is determined by the relationship of PHYSICAL positions of the light source and the object, not perspective. If you walk down the street at night you will notice your shadow changes direction as you walk past street lights. You are moving so the physical angle between you and the light changes so the shadow does.
And perspective is itself caused by the physical position of the light source and the object.  Imagine the clouds as "observers":  in that picture the sun is positioned in such a way that only the bottoms of the clouds are able to "see" the sun because it so far away from them and has thus appeared to sink into the horizon from their perspective.  However for the clouds that are situated in back of the mountain, the sun is so far away that their view of the sun is obstructed by the mountain.

Offline edby

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2018, 10:06:00 PM »
It was a mistake to bring perspective into the argument at all. The Everest picture is independent of perspective.

The question is whether the peak of Everest, the peak of the lower mountain, and the sun, lie in straight line. Shall we get back on topic?

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Offline AATW

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2018, 11:12:25 PM »
edby, the question was how the shadow gets cast on to Mount Everest. GJ is claiming perspective. I'm trying to explain why that is not the correct explanation.

They aren't equivalent in this case because your picture is caused by changing the horizontal position of the observer.
I think I'll concede this point. My experiment does demonstrate the principle I'm trying to explain but I'll agree it is not exactly equivalent, it's actually quite difficult to do an equivalent experiment as you generally need quite a large space.

Quote
perspective is itself caused by the physical position of the light source and the object.
perspective is caused by the physical position of the observer

Quote
Imagine the clouds as "observers":  in that picture the sun is positioned in such a way that only the bottoms of the clouds are able to "see" the sun because it so far away from them and has thus appeared to sink into the horizon from their perspective.  However for the clouds that are situated in back of the mountain, the sun is so far away that their view of the sun is obstructed by the mountain.

OK, this is where your understanding of perspective is all wrong. I'm terrible at drawing but I've had a go at a diagram:



In this diagram the sun is physically higher than the cloud but from the observer's perspective the sun will appear to be under the cloud. You can see that from the black lines. But because the sun is still physically above the cloud the shadow, represented roughly by the red line, will still be angled downwards. A shadow can only be angled upwards if the light source is physically below the object the shadow is being cast of.

In broef: shadow angle is determined by the relationship between the physical locations of light source and object. Perspective is not a factor. That cannot be the explanation for shadows being cast on Mount Everest. Bending of light could be, as could a globe earth model where the rotation of the earth means the sun does go physically below the horizon (technically the horizon rotates to occlude the sun, but let's not split hairs).
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 09:54:58 AM 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"

Offline edby

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2018, 11:29:29 PM »
edby, the question was how the shadow gets cast on to Mount Everest. GJ is claiming perspective. I'm trying to explain why that is not the correct explanation.
Actually you were the first person to mention perspective. So you are trying to anticipate an objection that was never made.

The proof underlying Max's simple observation is simple, and depends on geometry plus the assumption that light travels in straight lines.

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2018, 01:10:40 AM »
I'll refer you to Sandokhan's model of the sun so that you can understand how this can work on a Flat Earth.

EDIT:

I think I have an answer to your shadow conundrum.  I retract my concession, and I'll have my answer fleshed out in due time.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 01:24:38 AM by George Jetson »

Max_Almond

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2018, 07:13:26 AM »
This happens because as an object (like the sun) becomes more distant it drops in apparent height.

Not so on both counts. Whether an object drops in 'apparent height' depends on where the observer is, it's not a concrete law. And, in any case, "apparent height" is not "height". If you take a photo of me from a quarter of a mile away, it might appear than I'm only a few inches tall, but I assure you I'm not.

Trying to use that to explain this video is confusing perspective with reality (see Dougal and the cows for a good explanation of this).

Edby's diagram sums it up perfectly:



If anyone thinks it's possible for the Everest shadow video to work on a flat earth, I would suggest they either draw a profile diagram of how this would work, or better still, make a scale model. All they need is a light and two objects of different sizes.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 09:11:29 AM by Max_Almond »

Offline edby

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2018, 09:54:15 AM »
Right. The killer part of Max's example is the nearby mountains being lower than Everest. If the same height or higher, the Wiki argument works. But if lower, it's a matter of logic.

I.e. if A is higher than B, and ABC is a straight line, then C is lower than A and B.

No assumptions about 'perspective' required.

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Offline AATW

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #15 on: December 02, 2018, 10:16:44 AM »
edby, the question was how the shadow gets cast on to Mount Everest. GJ is claiming perspective. I'm trying to explain why that is not the correct explanation.
Actually you were the first person to mention perspective. So you are trying to anticipate an objection that was never made.
Fine. but GJ said this was explained by the Wiki page about this which says
"This phenomenon arises from the operation of a simple and everywhere visible law of perspective."
https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Setting_of_the_Sun

I messed up my post above, have corrected it now so the image shows.
An addendum for GJ's benefit is to think of it this way. In my diagram you as the observer see the sun below the cloud, but the cloud will still "see" the sun above itself, because it IS above itself. If an object is physically above you then it can't appear to be below you. As it gets further away horizontally it may appear to get lower but it will never appear below you because the angle above your eye level will always be greater than zero. You may well see the object appear to be below a closer object though which is physically lower than it as shown in my diagram.

EA does explain the shadows though, as the sun gets further away the light is bent more until it is travelling upwards and casts the shadows onto the taller Mount Everest. I'm surprised that the Sunset Wiki page hasn't been amended because the argument on it demonstrably doesn't work. There is a page about EA:

https://wiki.tfes.org/Electromagnetic_Accelerator

But it's all just stated and the equation given, no details of any actual evidence for EA existing or what experiments have been done to demonstrate the effect or derive the equation.
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"

Max_Almond

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #16 on: December 02, 2018, 10:40:52 AM »
Certainly won't disagree with you on any of that - but also can't help but feel that it's slightly complicating the issue.

Offline edby

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #17 on: December 02, 2018, 11:21:38 AM »
I still think that 'if A is higher than B, and ABC is a straight line, then C is lower than A and B' is a shorter, simpler, and logically valid argument. I may be wrong.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Electromagnetic_Accelerator
But it's all just stated and the equation given, no details of any actual evidence for EA existing or what experiments have been done to demonstrate the effect or derive the equation.
I think the evidence is that the earth is flat. If so, EA is the only assumption consistent with that evidence, ergo EA is correct. A lot of Flat Earth arguments proceed that way.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 11:24:32 AM by edby »

Offline JCM

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Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #18 on: December 02, 2018, 03:10:51 PM »
I still think that 'if A is higher than B, and ABC is a straight line, then C is lower than A and B' is a shorter, simpler, and logically valid argument. I may be wrong.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Electromagnetic_Accelerator
But it's all just stated and the equation given, no details of any actual evidence for EA existing or what experiments have been done to demonstrate the effect or derive the equation.
I think the evidence is that the earth is flat. If so, EA is the only assumption consistent with that evidence, ergo EA is correct. A lot of Flat Earth arguments proceed that way.

Sure, EAT could work..  if the sun was a spotlight and if light from that spotlight sun was bending upward due to EA if it existed.    Notice the multiple IFs, none of which are testably shown to exist.   

1. The sun is not a spotlight, its light comes from all sides of it, not just the bottom.  It is clearly rotating and spherical in nature with light generation at every point on its surface.  This fact alone negates any impact of EAT if it existed.

2. EAT is just a placeholder for something FE can’t explain.  It hasn’t been demonstrated by any experimental evidence. 

I would argue if EAT were real, then FEH is in worse shape since the sun is spherical and light goes everywhere in all directions.  Wouldn’t the light be curving in all directions as well? As they are attracted somehow somewhere?   Why are there even shadows?  The light from the sun would have some rays curving everywhere which would negate shadows.   Why would EAT only attract upwards away from the surface of the Earth?  And not just upwards, but perpendicularly upwards. What is so special about perfectly upwards from the surface of the Earth?
« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 03:20:56 PM by JCM »

Max_Almond

Re: Question about Mount Everest
« Reply #19 on: December 02, 2018, 05:03:04 PM »
Why do people keep talking about EAT? Has any flat earther proposed it as an explanation for this video?