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Topics - 3DGeek

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1
Flat Earth Theory / Using PVoutput to make an FE map.
« on: November 14, 2017, 02:56:23 PM »
The FE'ers claim that they don't know the actual map of their Flat Earth world.

Let's fix that for them!

As you may know, the PVoutput.org web site provides the amount of energy output for about a million solar power plants around the world...it provides it in real time - and historically.

This turns out to be a surprisingly useful resource.

One thing it tells us is the time at which each power plant starts generating power (usually a short time after sunrise) and when it stops (a short time before sunset).

In FET - and presuming that Tom's "magic perspective" works (*cough*) - we should be able to take advantage of this information to make a map.  Perhaps not a very precise map...but at least we'll know roughly where the continents lie...stuff like that.

Here are the steps:

1) Pick a time and day...any day.  Let's pick noon (GMT) on the spring equinox (March 20th).  It doesn't *have* to be the equinox - but it makes life easier.

2) Since we chose noon on the equinox - we know that the sun was vertically overhead on the equator and the zero meridian - just off the coast of Accra, Ghana in west Africa.

3) At that moment, we should be able to find the set of solar power plants that have *just* turned on - or *just* turned off.   I'm sure Tom will complain that we don't know for sure whether this was at the instant of sunrise/sunset - or a little before or a little after - but actually I don't care.  So long as it's about the same time before or after - I'm good with it.   These points of "equal solar azimuth" need a name - I'm going to invent one to save typing: "equisolar points" - locations where the sun is at some small angle relative to the horizon.

4) In FET, what makes the sun touch the horizon is a consequence of some screwed up notion of how perspective works.   Rather than argue about that - for the sake of this discussion - let's just accept Tom's explanation.

5) Since that's just a matter of distance from the sun - the equisolar points (power stations we found in step (3)) must lie on an approximate circle, roughly centered around Accra...all of them being at the same distance from the sun at that moment.

6) So now we have a kind of map - Accra in the middle - and a circle of equisolar points around it.   We don't yet know the radius of the circle - but that's OK.  We'll have a map, we can figure out what scale it's at later on.

7) OK - so let's repeat the process for noon at the autumn equinox...this time, in RET, the sun would be over a point somewhere South of "Baker Island" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  The "bipolar" FET map that is often posted has this location simultaneously on the left and right sides of the map?!?  But nobody knows whether this is the "right" map or not...so let's not worry about that.

8 ) Now we have another set of equisolar points that must lie on a circle centered on...someplace...wherever the sun is at that time.   Hmmm...need another new name "equisolar circle" - the circle of places where the sun is at that particular angle relative to the horizon.

9) Why stop there?  Let's find the equisolar circle for every hour of the day of the equinox - we'll have 24 approximate circles!  Let's number them according to the GMT time offset:  -11, -10...-2, -1, 0, 1, 2....10, 11, 12.   (12 and -12 are both midnight GMT...so they are the same).

Remember - the center of each circle was the place where the sun was overhead at noon that day...the points on the edge of the circle represent places where the sun had either just risen or is about to set.

So all we have to do to construct our FE map is to decide how these circles of known locations lie with respect to each other...if we can to THAT then we have an imprecise - but fairly reasonable map.   If we're "off" in our power-on/power-off times by (say) 15 minutes - then that location will be misplaced by as much as 250 miles - so this will be an admittedly imprecise map...but not disastrously so.  Certainly it'll show us where the continents are placed to within a precision of 250 miles...which is a hell of a lot better than "WE DON'T KNOW".  With a million power plants - we'll have a million locations - and that's enough to do some statistical sampling.

However, there is a problem.   Let's just think for a moment about these circles.  Remember that they are all taken at different times of the day or night?

They can't be concentric circles because that would mean that the sun stayed at zenith thoughout the day...and that, we know, never happens.

If they're not concentric - they can't not overlap at all...that would be insane.   So these equisolar circles MUST overlap.

Now that's an odd thought.  If they overlap - then at the point where they cross each other - the sun stayed at the same angle above the horizon for two or more hours!

How could that be?   Well, in RET - this happens at the North and South poles.   Recall that on the equinox days, the sun at the poles just skims the horizon - it's angle above/below the horizon doesn't change...which is what we said would happen.

This produces a rather beautiful RET map - imagine these circles all crossing at the poles - arranged like the segments of an orange...describing a sphere!  Wow!  We made an RET map from PVoutput data!

But we're unfortunately stuck in FET land.

So you have to have the circles intersecting in a couple of places.   In the unipolar map we only have one place that works - the North pole.  There isn't a south pole...this make it extremely difficult to make a map...in fact, it's impossible.

But in the bipolar map, we'd have to have circles that intersect the arctic and the antarctic.  They would have to get progressively larger:



Now - it would take some effort to do this in reality - but since we "really" know that these equisolar circles are really just lines of longitude - we can assume that the result will be that continents will get larger the further away they are from the prime meridian - which is going to turn out to completely FAIL to match real world distances over land - places where people can drive their cars and say "THIS MAP IS BULLSHIT".

But the process of constructing it is irrefutable...and in fact, we don't even need the PVoutput.org data to do it.  We can just ask, where are the places where Tom's Magic Perspective predicts that the sun will rise or set?   Those are still equisolar circles.

So using nothing but Magic Perspective - we arrive at a completely bullshit map.   Either magic perspective is wrong (in which case - no sunrises and sunsets) - or FET is wrong and the world is Round.

Come to think of it...the world must be round either way.

2
Flat Earth Theory / Does the moon also cast a "flashlight" beam?
« on: November 14, 2017, 01:30:43 PM »
We're told that the sun casts a "flashlight" beam onto the surface of the FE (although in the bipolar map - this cannot possibly be true).

What about the moon?   Moonlight also does not illuminate the world after the moon has crossed the horizon...so do we also have a "flashlight" moon?

Seems kinda logical...but it's not mentioned anyplace.   So if not - why not?

3
Flat Earth Theory / In the bipolar map - what is around the edge?
« on: November 14, 2017, 01:28:20 PM »
We're told that in the unipolar map - the edge of the habitable part of the world is an "ice wall" - which would also be the coast of antarctica.

What is the edge in the bipolar map?   Since it actually has to go through the equator line...an "ice wall" doesn't seem to cut it - and we have no evidence for it?

So what is claimed to be at the edge in that case?

4
Flat Earth Theory / The shape of the sun's spotlight.
« on: November 12, 2017, 02:50:17 PM »
We've all discussed here the issue of the sun being claimed to be a "spotlight"...per the Wiki.



But we know that can't be a true representation - the sun always illuminates 50% of the Earth's surface - and in that "unipolar" map - it would have to shine over a semi-circular shape in order to match what we see "in the real world".

We've also recently discussed the problem of how a "spotlight" sun can illuminate the moon and produce it's phases...and produce the phases of Venus and Mercury.  (The phases of Venus were discovered by Gallileo...so this isn't exactly new news!)

But what shape does the "spotlight" have to take on the "bipolar" map?



The map on the left is the "unipolar" map - which Tom Bishop claims was superseded in 1911 when the south pole was "discovered"...the map on the right is the one that replaced it (the "bipolar" map).

Tom (and others) have said that they don't know the actual shape of the FE map...but let's just suppose the map on the right is very roughly right...

Here is the area the sun must illuminate on the equinox at noon GMT:



...a sight to give any FE'er joy!   A nice circular flashlight sun on the equator and the prime meridian - lighting up both poles (just) and producing just the right sunrises and sunsets (well...assuming "magic perspective").

OK - so what does the sun illuminate 12 hours later?  Well - wherever it was day is now night - and wherever it was night is now day...so the flashlight sun is illuminating...oh...this isn't good:



Er...just like a flashlight!

But a couple of hours before - the sun was where that red dot is - heading west to make sunsets for the west coast of the USA.

Then, suddenly it "teleports" over to the opposite side of the world (or something like that) - and a few hours later:



And it's still illuminating the "west" side of the planet a bit...

This bipolar map is just insane...there is simply no way for the sun to stay overhead the equator without teleporting - and the "flashlight" effect has to be a circular beam of darkness when it's midnight on the prime meridian.

I don't think the people who came up with the bipolar map could have thought very carefully about this!

We could - with a little effort - track the actual illuminated places on the earth by simply looking at the PVoutput.org data for any given time of day and any given day of the year - so we can plot out the approximate shape of the "spotlight" for any time we choose just by looking at which solar panel plants are generating electricity.

I'm 100% certain we can invalidate ANY bipolar map by pushing the shape of the flashlight sun's beam into pretzels.



5
Flat Earth Theory / Disproof: Neither map explains the equinox.
« on: November 10, 2017, 05:07:20 AM »
[EDIT: I got "lines of longitude" mixed up with "lines of latitude"...all better now!]

There are two equinoxes per year - on March 20th and September 22nd...give or take a day because of leap years.

All places on the same line of longitude see the sun at it's highest point at noon on that day (unless they are in some crazy time-zone screwup).

At that moment, the sun is due north or south of the zenith of the sky depending on whether you are north or south of the equator.

This means that lines of longitude in FET must be straight north/south lines.

That disproves the "bipolar" map because it has curved lines of longitude.  On the equinox, some places on Earth would see the sun somewhat to the east or west of the zenith.

That leaves us with a unipolar map as the ONLY possible FE map.  It could be either the current (discredited) unipolar map - or it could be one with the south pole in the middle and an "ice wall" around the north pole.

Sadly, we know that the unipolar map can't be true because the Southern cross constellation can't be south of every place in the southern hemisphere at once...and a similar argument would apply with the "inverse unipolar" map and Polaris.

Hence the unipolar map can't be true either.

Since no bipolar map can have straight lines of longitude - and there are only two possible unipolar maps, neither of which work...it can only be that the world isn't flat.

(Probably Tom will tell us that magic perspective fixes this - light rays tying themselves into pretzels, yadda, yadda.)

6
Flat Earth Theory / Which hemisphere/hemiplane do you live in?
« on: October 17, 2017, 11:09:54 PM »
So where do people who come here live?

The question came up in a previous discussion and I thought a poll would be the best way to find out.

TIA.

7
A 12 year old, no longer needed, US Airforce Satellite called FalconSat3 has been donated to AARL - which is a group of amateur radio operators in the USA.

For the next 5 to 6 years (before it's orbit decays), it'll be possible for ham radio operators to talk to the satellite, query it's sensors and use it as a bullitin board system.

Why should TFES care about this?   Well, it'll pass overhead a large fraction of the earth (between 58 degrees North and 58 degrees South) and with just a ham radio, you can confirm for yourself that satellites actually exist by communicating with one directly - verifying it's motion by taking advantage of doppler shift - and confirming when it's overhead to people around the world to verify it's path.  Sadly, it doesn't have a camera.   I'm trying to figure out what other instruments it has on board that might be useful for confirming the shape of the Earth.

    http://www.arrl.org/news/falconsat-3-now-open-for-amateur-radio-use

The fact that the US AirForce is prepared to hand over this satellite to a bunch of civilian ham radio people strongly suggests that there isn't much of a cover up there about satellites and space flight.

8
Flat Earth Theory / Debunking "Altered perspective"
« on: September 19, 2017, 09:00:51 PM »
I'm not sure what the best title for this subject is...so I went with "altered perspective".

Tom keeps on waving this video at us - so this thread is an effort to explain (and debunk) that video.

The error it makes is to double-count the "perspective" effect.

I'm going to talk at the video at specific time points into it - so I suggest you open a second browser window with the video running in it and pause at the times I indicate to read my comments:



So listen through to around 1:50 and hit Pause.

The picture he's looking at shows that the further away the object gets, the smaller the angle to the ground it gets.  This is reasonable - light travels in straight lines.  If we extended the diagram off to the right with more and more equally spaced suns, the angle would get smaller and smaller - right?

At a billion miles, the angle would be a tiny fraction of a degree - at a trillion miles, still smaller - and at INFINITY the angle would be ZERO...or as close to zero as matters (the math term is "Infinitesimal" - one divided by infinity - not strictly zero - but essentially that).

This IS the standard law of perspective.   The further two parallel train tracks lead away from you, the narrower the perceived angle between them.  But even at a billion miles, they don't quite meet.  Only infinitely far from the eye to those train tracks come together.

OK - un-pause the video...stop it again at 2:07 or so.

He just said "So the drawing is not taking the visual perspective of the observer into account".

But that's not true...as the sun moves further away, the angle decreases until (at infinity) the angle is zero.   If this isn't "perspective"...then why is that angle decreasing?

OK - un-pause again...stop again at 2:43.

So he's just added a SECOND 'layer' of perspective.   The diagram (which for some reason he can't understand...just like Tom in fact) works perfectly well to reproduce what we see in the real world.  Adding ANOTHER layer of "perspective" is double-dipping!  Not allowed!

At 2:43, he's just added some suns moving downwards - but the sun isn't moving downwards in the real world - only in the eye of the viewer.   The original diagram is showing the path of the actual photons...the rays of light traveling from the sun to the viewer.

OK - so onwards to a picture of a wall...pause again at 3:27.

He's overlaid a side-on diagram onto a sloping wall...WTF?  How does that prove anything?  You can't just take a 2D side-on diagram and paste it onto a photograph taken at some random angle and demand that they line up perfectly!  What kind of a bullshit claim is *THAT*?

If he had blown up the diagram until it was about 20' long and 10' high, so the stick-figure's eye is level with the camera that took the photo - and pasted the giant diagram onto the wall...so both the diagram and the wall are at the same orientation...and THEN taken the photo...guess what would have happened?

Well...let's try that shall we?   It takes a bit of fancy 3D graphics work (that's what I do for a living)...but the result is this:



It's hard to reproduce the exact camera angle of the original photo - and the low-res diagram has blurred out horribly because it has to be stretched to match the perspective in the photo - but you can see that the stickman's eyeline matches the eyeline in the photo - and the sun gets closer to the horizon in the same way that the strips on the wall do.

It's not perfect...but you should be able to see what I mean.

So if you could match the camera angles in the diagram and the wall...the result would be perfect...and of course if you do the reverse - and photograph the wall side-on and lay it on top of the diagram, that would be perfect too.

So this stage in his "proof" doesn't prove a darned thing - other than that the guy who made the video is clueless.

Watch again until 3:30.

Now he's just made another mistake.  The green sun positions are equally spaced across the photograph - but that's not right.



Equally spaced things should get closer and closer together with perspective...right?

Look again at the original picture of that wall:


Notice that behind the horizontal strip, there are a bunch of vertical supports, which are clearly equally spaced by whoever hung that wall?   This is VERY convenient for our proof.  (Thanks video guy!)

Suppose I put a red dot over the intersection of each vertical support and the "eye line".


And above each one, I draw green dots for the position of the sun as 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm and 6pm...just like he tried to do.  I'm allowing the sun to move the distance between two support strips every hour - which (in the real world) is a constant speed:



What we see is that FAR from reaching the "horizon" at 6pm, the effect of perspective is shortening the *visual* distance between the consecutive sun positions...so although the sun is indeed lowering in the sky - it'll never reach it because it's moving smaller and smaller distances with each hour that passes. 

Another way to think about that is that perspective works in both the "X" and "Y" directions...but it also works in "Z":

Equally spaced pillars getting closer together as they get shorter.  The number of pillars needed before the height of the building is zero has to be infinite because every time you halve the height of the building, you double the number of columns you need:



This is WHY the FE sun can never set.

Finally. we can connect up some green lines from the eye to the sun - but the result is kinda messy:


The angle by which the sun drops towards the horizon decreases with each hour...so the sun can only reach the horizon after an INFINITE number of hours...which is to say "never".

The problem is that he's guilty of PRECISELY the thing that he falsely accuses the original diagram of.  He's using a 2D representation fo the sun on a 3D photograph of a real world thing.

You simply can't do that.

You can prove your point with a 2D diagram - or you can prove it with a 3D photographic visualization - but the instant you mix the two - you screwed up.

So the video is at best misleading.   Clearly the guy who made it DOESN'T understand the first thing about how perspective works.

OK - watch again until 4:50.

Notice how at around 4:50 he cheats and adds more lines at the top of the screen than there really are...naughty!  And carefully STOPS drawing the lines at the bottom of the screen when they are in danger of revealing his lies.  Misleading!  Those lines at the top of the screen that are almost vertical...those don't happen in the real world do they?

So the video whitters on and at 5:25, he's back with his incorrect diagram of the sun's motion.

And out at 5:46, he again accuses someone of using non perspective lines on a perspective drawing - while, ironically, his own screwup of PRECISELY THAT is in the background!  Love it!

This explanation gets to crazy levels of insanity by 6:36 in the video as he overlays his 2D side-view drawing onto a perspective drawing and tries to extract information from that!

So...RE-BUNKED!  (is that even a word?)


9
Flat Earth Theory / Disproof: Why doesn't the southern hemiplane freeze?
« on: September 13, 2017, 01:42:56 PM »
Thanks to StinkyOne for coming up with this idea - it's a VERY clever disproof of the flat earth...one that I'd never have thought of.   As provided, his (her?) disproof only applies to the unipolar map (which Tom says is incorrect - but which has far fewer conceptual difficulties than the bipolar map) - but we can extend the argument to disprove the bipolar map too.

Let's start simple with our odoriferous friend's original complaint - we'll get to the bipolar map in a moment:

In the unipolar FE map, the area of what would be the Northern hemisphere in RET is much MUCH smaller than the area of the Southern hemisphere.

The equator is midway between North Pole and Ice Wall.   So the area of the northern "hemiplane" is just one quarter of the entire surface area of the habitable disk (pi-r-squared and all that!) and the southern hemiplane is three-quarters of the area.

Since the sun is very close to the ground (relatively compared to RET) - and we know it spends the same amount of time over the Northern hemiplane as the Southern (average day lengths are the same), it must be spreading it's energy over a MUCH larger area in the South than in the North...three times as much in fact.

The "flashlight" sun must be changing the width of it's beam to make that happen (please do tell us how it "knows" to do that!) - and that spreads the sun's energy over larger areas in the south and smaller areas in the north.   The average total energy per square mile in the South would have to be one third of what it is in the North.

Hence, the further South you go, the colder it should become because the sunlight is so spread out.   In fact, we can extend this argument by each latitudinal band and show that the North Pole would melt - and the entire Southern hemiplane would freeze solid.

OK - but the unipolar map (despite being STILL the only one on the Wiki - and STILL the one that almost all FE'ers refer to) is not favored by everyone.

So what about the newer (bipolar) map?

It kinda fixes StinkyOne's original complaint by splitting the world into two precisely equal hemiplanes - but even so, the areas of the oceans are very much larger than in RET.

But the sunrise and sunset times across the world are a perfect match for what RET predicts...so the sun must speed up over these large areas of open ocean and slow down over the land - or more generally, it's speed over areas where the FE map stretches the Lat/Long grid (compared to RET) must increase compared to areas where the lat/long grid is compressed.   Quite how the sun "knows" to do this is something of a mystery - but since nobody will tell us how the sun moves exactly - and what makes it do this complicated dance just to make it seem like the earth is round - well that's beyond comprehension.   However, this is what we're told.

This leaves us with two possibilities:

1) The Sun spends more time over the oceans than the land and sunrise and sunset times that we see in the south are WRONG.
...OR...
2) The sun speeds up over the oceans and therefore each square mile of southern ocean gets less sunlight than we'd expect and the oceans would freeze.

This is actually a VERY hard argument for the FE'ers to defeat.

To produce the correct sunrise and sunset times, the sun must cross 360 lines of latitude in 24 hours at a steady rate of one degree every minute - but if it does that and the lines are not equally spaced everywhere (which is IMPOSSIBLE in an FE map) - then some parts of the world will freeze and/or other parts will boil.

There is really no escaping that.

Nicely played StinkyOne!

10
Flat Earth Theory / Disproofs - a summary of progress so far.
« on: September 12, 2017, 03:26:44 PM »
As some of the earlier "Disproof" articles get pushed down the forum - I wanted to collect together some links and summarize them for those who are interested.  If FE'ers have alternative summaries of what happened in these discussions, please do post your points of view.

1) Tides: Why are there two high tides per day?  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6229.0
    The only FE response (from Pete Svarrior) actually helped the RE case with some handy diagrams
    He didn't understand that there are TWO tides per day and handily explained why there is only one in FET.
   CONCLUSION: FET has no counterargument.  RET wins.

2) Question about Perspective (Round 1): How is the FE "perspective effect" possible?  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6242.0
    No significant FE response.
   CONCLUSION: FET has no counterargument.  RET wins.

3) Lunar eclipses and the "shadow object": Why does the "shadow object" that is required to explain lunar eclipses not obscure any stars? https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6284.0
    Oami said "God can control every photon"...an "interesting" position!
    Joyceclair essentially backed up that "argument".
    Boodidlie agreed.
    CONCLUSION: The FE consensus is that god fakes all of this stuff.\

4) Seeing France from the UK: Observations of Calais from the cliffs of Dover.  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6492.0
    No FE response.
   CONCLUSION: FET has no counterargument.  RET wins.

5) Why does the moon appear upside down in the south?  The moon seems to be rotated when viewed at different latitudes how can this be?  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6149
    Perhaps "TheTruthIsOnHere" was attempting a response.  Seemed only to confirm RET.
   CONCLUSION: FET has no counterargument.  RET wins.

6) Moon Inversion.  Again, more issues over how the moon appears at different latitudes.  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6496
    Neutrino (an RE'er) attempted to explain Tom's position on this...raised more questions than answers.
   CONCLUSION: FET has no counterargument.  RET wins.

7) What is the Sun?  Someone asked about the nature of the FE sun.  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6516
    Tom Bishop said "What makes you think that anyone would know the mechanism of the sun just by looking at it? Controlled experimentation is required. Until that time, although the motions are visible to us, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown".
    I pointed out that we can indeed know the mechanism "just by looking at it" and showed evidence.
    Tom replied that "Stellar fusion has not been demonstrated in a lab"  (untrue) and that "observation alone just does not cut it."
    Then he "cunningly" hijacked the thread to talk about the Rowbotham experiment and went back to his favorite (but inconclusive) "proof" about view-over-water...dozens and dozens of replies later - and he'd managed to deflect the "What is the Sun?" question entirely without ever saying more than saying (in effect) "I don't know - and I reject any and all evidence you have".
   CONCLUSION: FET doesn't know and tries hard to deflect the debate.  RET wins.

8 ) The Moon.  A thread that started simply enough but was revealing:  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6618
    Someone asked about why we can only see one side of the moon.
    Tom Bishop explained that the moon rocks back and forth and claimed that astronomers were able to map the far side of the moon before Apollo.  Weird.
    I carefully explained what the truth is.
    Tom Bishop posted something REALLY odd...https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6618.msg121514#msg121514 "Can you show us an example of where an receding object 3000 miles in height turned 45 degrees to its side?" - who knows what THAT meant.  But basically he talks about the "altered perspective" thing.
    He posted a couple more times with increasingly weird claims for this "perspective" thing.
    The thread never did come to any conclusions - basically the FE response is "Weird Perspective Effects"
    CONCLUSION: FET claims "weird perspective".

9) Using airline flight data.  This is my step-by-step proof that there cannot be a valid FE map.  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6633.0
    Tom first "proves" that a triangle described by three distances has internal angles that add up to 180 degrees on a flat map.  He's proving something obvious.
    This is explained to him.
    In THIS post: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6633.msg121852#msg121852
    I let the 'other shoe drop' and employ a quadrilateral proof to show that no possible FE map can ever exist that is consistent with airline flight data.
    Tom complains that he can't find the data.   We show him how.
    He makes the immortal statement "The distance from New York to Paris is unknown."...people find this so funny, they add it into their signatures!
    Then he disputes the airline flight data.
    It is pointed out that it matches GPS data - Tom disputes the reliability of GPS.
    In THIS post: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6633.msg122051#msg122051 - I carefully reiterate the argument and point out that the data for distances is verifiable using the known speed of the airplane and the known flight durations.  I point out other sources to back up the flight distance data.
    Eventually, Tom comes back with a claim that made me burst out loud laughing:  "if you bring up cruising speed, please show how the cruising speed of the aircraft was calculated. Based on a test flight to a location with a "known" distance according to Round Earth Theory in the aircraft's development?"  Basically, he's saying that the only way airlines and airplane manufacturers know how fast a plane flies is to fly it over a "known" (but in his belief, incorrect) distance and use a stopwatch to measure how long it takes.
    Many people explain how we know how fast planes fly...including one airline pilot.   I point out that the speed of an airliner is designed into it before the airplane is ever built.  It's not measured after the plane is actually built!
    Tom acts as though these statements were never made - simply doubling down on his earlier demands for speed proof.
    Tom imagines that airplane speed is only measured as "air speed"...which isn't true.
    Tom claims that the cockpit instruments calculate distances using a round-earth model, and are therefore producing incorrect results.
    This thread has wound on for a very long time...but Tom can only keep his toehold on doubt by repeatedly claiming that airlines and airplane manufacturers have no idea how fast their planes can fly.
    It eventually occurs to me that it doesn't matter.  Even if planes fly twice as fast as everyone thinks - that doesn't change the math in my "quadrilateral cities" claim because you can double all of the distances - and the result is STILL a map that doesn't match the flat earth.
    For Tom to be right, the speeds of aircraft would have to magically vary according to some odd law of physics to make it perfectly seem like the world is round, even though it's flat.  The airplane's drag coefficient and/or thrust would have to be different for North/South versus East/West routes - AND would have to be different in the northern hemisphere versus the south.
    Throughout the LONG thread - no other FE'ers offered any useful contributions.
   Sadly, the debate on that thread has gotten so long, and so badly derailed that the important points have been missed.

10) Disproof of FET using refraction.  This thread proves that you cannot use "refraction" to explain FET sunsets. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6710
      Tom points out that he DOES NOT support "refraction" as the cause of sunsets.   I apologize for assuming this to be the case.
      He explains that the "electromagnetic accelerator" thing is also not his current theory.
      He now supports this "altered perspective" concept - but says that he agrees that light travels in straight lines.
      No other FE'ers offered any contributions.
      While the thread didn't disprove FET (at least not Tom's version of it) - but it did establish that the "altered perspective" idea is "The Current Thing".

11) Another careful proof project: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6699
      Not a tremendously useful thread - but it does demonstrate that GPS data agrees with older pre-GPS maps - as evidenced by old land plat descriptions (which are a matter of public record) and the work of the "Degree confluence project".
      No significant FE input.
      CONCLUSION: FET is now unable to dispute lat/long data derived from GPS, RET can demonstrate it's efficacy any time we want.

12) Alternate maps problems:  Where I show some deep problems with the two standard FET maps:  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6793
      Where it's pointed out that the location of Polaris (and the Southern Cross) cannot agree with directions determined by compass.
      Tom repeats that he doesn't know the true map of the FE...and how "longitude lines curve or orient themselves around the North Pole at great distances".
      Junker makes a rare factual contribution by explaining that many FE'ers still believe in bending light and the Electromagnetic accelerator.
      Tau says that sunset (and hence starset) is complicated and that we shouldn't assume it'll work intuitively.
      Tom sews confusion by asking how we know that longitude lines point North.
      Pete Svarrior makes a valid point about the location of the magnetic pole versus the 'true north'.
      I make more explicit my concerns.
      No further input from FE'ers.
      CONCLUSION: FET has no coherent answer.

13) Pinhole cameras, Sunsets and FET perspective.  Most of the current FE 'defense' centers around this odd "alternate perspective" thing. I attempt to unravel it. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6785
      Tom posts this: "You are basing your "proof" on what happens in the real world on an ancient theory about triangles and concepts of infinity. That is not an empirical proof."
      I point out that, no - my proof depends on the idea (which Tom supports) that light travels in straight lines and on Euclidean geometry and nothing else.
      Tom (clearly not understand a darned thing) goes back to simply claiming that perspective is different - but failing to understand that his laws of perspective have to work for a simple pinhole camera - and they DON'T.
      I try to make it even simpler - showing that you can use other ways to prove this.
      Tom makes another bizarre post: "You are using math on a diagram which is situated outside of the universe; not on an empirical first person view."
      I'm just drawing straight lines showing how light goes through a hole...this seems very much "inside the universe" - but maybe Tom doesn't believe in diagrams?  I dunno.
      Tom abandons the thread.
      No other FE'ers make significant comments.
      CONCLUSION: Definitive win for RET.   FET has no coherent answer.

14) Airliner cruise speeds - and why they matter.   In which I attempt to get the "Airline flight distances" debate back on-topic. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6828
      No FE response.
      CONCLUSION: Definitive win for RET.   FET has no coherent answer.

15) Do passenger airplane windows distort camera photos? In other threads, FE'ers claim that photos taken from airliners are inadmissible because the windows distort the images. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6814
     I demonstrate that they do not.
     Junker says that you can't see earth curvature at 40,000 feet (which is more or less the case).
     StinkyOne points out that you could see that curvature from Concorde.
     Tom says "The Concorde was looking down at a circle"...which is a baffling statement.
     Basically, it seems undisputed that photographs from airliner windows are indeed admissible evidence...but Tom doesn't understand that if the Earth was flat, you'd never see a "circle" from an airplane window.
     CONCLUSION: FET may no longer claim "window distortion".

16) Disproof of FET: Two sunsets by balloon.   How could this happen in FET?  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6832
     Tom says:  "If the sun is descending into the horizon to perspective, what makes you think that if you were to increase your height shortly after sunset that you would not be able to see the sun again?"
     It's explained that perspective cannot be "wrong"...again...and Tom is asked to explain this "alternative perspective" stuff...because aside from one (Rowbotham?) diagram, nobody ever does.  They just parrot that it's true.
     CONCLUSION: FET falls back on "altered perspective" without coherent explanation as to how this explains the phenomenon.

17) Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric...in which the speed of light is used to measure distances. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6852
     Junker complains (legitimately) that this approach cannot produce accurate distances.
     I explain that it can provide an upper limit on distance - and that this is sufficient to disprove any FET map you can come up with.
     I also point out that the price of an airline ticket (most of which is paying for the cost of fuel) is roughly proportional to the RET distance flown...which also adds credence to the idea that airlines know how far they are flying.
     No further FE input.
     CONCLUSION: RET can now easily disprove any highly distorted FET map...of course FET no longer have any kind of a valid map whatever.

18) Disproof: Clouds lit from below at sunset.  In which the 'alternate perspective' hypothesis is put to the test and fails. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6875
     No FE response.
     CONCLUSION: RET win.

19) Disproof using hurricanes.   Hurricanes are caused by the coriolis force - there is no such FE force.  https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6860
     Tom says that the bit in the Wiki that says that they are caused by the Northern and Southern Celestial Systems grinding together at the equator is correct.
     But then misconstrues the argument and fails to explain why (a) hurricanes never come near the equator and (b) why they rotate in opposite directions north and south of there.
     No further FE input.
     CONCLUSION: RET win.

So far, I don't see any cases where the FE'ers have put up an even halfway valid defense for any of these arguments.

It's clear that the two main arguing points that they have are:

1) Alternate perspective...which is not well explained and doesn't fit with light travelling in straight lines.
2) "We don't know - so we must be right"...which is a VERY odd debate tactic!

It's clear that the way forward in these debates is to firmly define what the FE'ers are trying to explain with their altered theory of perspective - and to try to break the counter-explanation down in to simpler terms so that they may understand.   Pictures and diagrams may help them.

This part of FET is key - because without it, they cannot make sunsets work.  (And, IMHO, even with them sunsets won't work.)

11
Flat Earth Theory / Disproof: Clouds lit from below at sunset.
« on: September 09, 2017, 02:46:37 PM »
Here in Texas, the after-effects of Hurricane Harvey have produced some truly spectacular cloud formations - and some of the most gorgeous sunsets I've seen in a long time.

Here is a 180 degree panoramic photo taken from my balcony last night (Sept 9th 2017):



And here is a single-shot photo with the camera pointed off to the West just a few seconds earlier:



My house is oriented North/South and the balcony looks out to the West.  Because we're close to the equinox (Sept 22nd), the sun is setting almost exactly to the west - right in the middle of both photos.   When I took these pictures, the sun had clearly just set...and it had disappeared below the rooftops of those houses that you can see on the skyline.

Now...according to the "altered perspective" thing that Tom keeps insisting on (and which is mentioned in about a dozen places on the Wiki) - the reason that the sun isn't 30 degrees above the horizon (as we'd expect since it's 6,000 miles away horizontally and 3,000 miles up) is because of some weird perspective thing...and the reason we can't still see it anymore is because we're no longer inside the cone of light that it projects downwards.

This is so poorly explained that it defies logic...but that's typical of all FE theory.

But here's the thing.  The undersides of those clouds are CLEARLY being lit from somewhere.   Sunlight from the setting sun is lighting the clouds from below...not above as you'd expect if the sun was "really" 30 degrees above the horizon and projecting a downwards cone of light...which we're clearly on the darkening edge of.

This effect is easily explained in RET because the sun really is "below the horizon" - so for a short period after sunset, the suns rays are shining upwards and lighting the undersides of the clouds.

I live in a "dark skies" neighborhood where outdoor lighting has to be kept to a minimum and directed downwards as a requirement of the building codes - so this can't be lighting from buildings or street lights because we have neither.

So how is this explained by the "altered perspective" theory?


12
Flat Earth Theory / Disproof using hurricanes.
« on: September 05, 2017, 03:46:24 PM »
I was inspired to post this just this morning:

So, we've recently seen the awesome power of Hurricane Harvey in Houston - and we're about to see Hurricane Irma do a number on Florida.

In RET, hurricanes start off as north/south straight line winds that are turned into spinning circular storms as a result of the Coriolis Effect.

The Coriolis effect is a direct result of the shape of the Earth (a sphere) and the fact that it rotates.  In the Northern hemisphere, hurricanes ALWAYS rotate counter-clockwise - and in the Southern hemisphere, they always rotate clockwise (for historical reasons they are often called "typhoons"...but typhoons are just clockwise/southern-hemisphere hurricanes).

Hurricanes/typhoons NEVER form at the equator and they happen to move towards it - they dissipate before they get there.  That's because there is no coriolis force at the equator to hold a hurricane together.

If you don't know what the coriolis effect is - or why it relates to rotating spheres and not planes - read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force - which offers a pretty good description.

In FET...oh...there can be no Coriolis effect.

Conservation of linear momentum would cause any circular storm of such a large size to be dissipated by centrifugal force within a short amount of time, and without a coriolis force continually nudging it back into a circle - there could be no hurricanes or typhoons whatever.

Oh...but wait!   I forgot to check the Wiki...on the page about (https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Coriolis_Effect) it says "The Wind Currents are put into gradual motion by the attraction of the Northern and Southern Celestial Systems, which are grinding against each other as gears at the equator line."...which is a total handwave.

There is no mention of these "celestial systems" anywhere else in the Wiki - no description of their motions - nothing at all - just this one sentence.  This is neither proof nor demonstration - it's offered without evidence - it's just words thrown together.

However, the description of them "grinding" like "gears" on the equator line paints a pretty mental picture that might perhaps allow us to reconstruct what the heck the author was talking about.

It would suggest that any such rotation of a storm could only happen at the equator where these two systems meet.  We imagine two counter-rotating "wheels" whipping up the wind between them.

But sadly, this has two major problems:

1) There are NEVER any hurricanes formed at the equator and they actually dissipate as they get close to it...which is because the coriolis force is at it's strongest in the tropics and vanishes entirely at the equator.
2) Those "wheels" would produce storms that ALWAYS rotate in one direction...but typhoons and hurricanes rotate in OPPOSITE directions.

So the pretty mental picture is clearly bullshit.

The Wiki makes ZERO other references to "celestial currents" - so this is an otherwise entirely undefined piece of terminology.

One could hazard a guess that they were talking about whatever it is that makes the stars swirl around the night sky - and since the FE'ers fondly believe that they can explain their motion with northern hemisphere stars rotating one way and southern hemisphere stars the other - you could see why they might imagine some "grinding" going on at the edges...but this effect stretches all the way down into the lower atmosphere, just above the oceans' surface?   Then why doesn't it affect other things like airplanes?   We know the coriolis force affects them - but this would cause them to spin around as the cross the equator...I've heard of no such effect - and as the author of flight simulators for the airlines and the military - I'm pretty sure they'd have demanded that I simulate it - as they do for the coriolis force.

In any case, the described motions of the stars in the two hemispheres would result in someone on the equator seeing half of the stars moving one way and the other half the other way...which CLEARLY doesn't happen because there are constellations that span the equatorial line of the sky that would be ripped apart by such motion...so the whole counter-rotating celestial current thing is nonsense.

So the Wiki's description is complete nonsense...so FE'ers have no coriolis force - and therefore no hurricanes.

Since there ARE hurricanes (and typhoons) - the Earth is Round.

QED.

13
Flat Earth Theory / Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« on: September 02, 2017, 05:01:04 PM »
Careful observers of my recent posts may be aware that I've been rigging a gigantic logical trap for the FE'ers.

All of this debate about airline flight distances is VERY close to a perfect proof that no possible flat earth map can be true.

The ONLY remaining argument that Tom Bishop has is that he denies the maximum speed of an Airliner is known to us.

Well - I'm getting bored with that debate - the RE'ers have won it 20 ways.

So it's time to spring the next piece of the trap.

If Tom declares that people who make and fly airplanes have no idea how fast they fly....what is the one thing in the entire universe who's speed is DEFINITELY known?

It's the speed of light.

The speed of light (technically: "the speed of light in vacuum") is known to be an absolute universal constant...it doesn't vary by the slightest amount, no matter how it's measured - and it's the "universal speed limit" - nothing can go faster.

So if I could measure those distances using the time light takes to travel - then nobody could doubt the distances I end up with.

Ooohhhh!  Wouldn't THAT be cool?!

BACKGROUND:

Most computers contain a software tool called "ping" - I'm not sure it's standard on Windows computers - but Mac's and Linux machines have it installed by default and there are free versions of it that you can download for Windows too.   The Linux version (and probably some of the Windows downloadable versions of it) come with "source code" - which means that you can see how it works and verify that neither NASA, the US government nor anyone else couldn't have sneaked some flat-earth-coverup software into it.   (I just looked - they didn't!)

The name of the software ("ping") comes from the analogy of a sonar 'ping' from a submarine...but this is an internet ping.

What "ping" lets you do is to send a very short message to more or less any other computer on the Internet - have that message be instantly turned around and sent back to you.   Ping measures and displays the amount of time that took.

USING THIS HANDY TOOL:

Since we know that a message cannot possibly travel faster than the speed of light - we can use 'ping' to provide distance measurements to more or less any place on the Earth...with one caveat: We don't know exactly which undersea cable or satellite link carried the signal - and there will be some small delays in that signal due to the time it takes computer software to turn it around and get it back to us.

So if you take the 'ping time' and multiply it by the speed of light, what you know is that the target computer can be no FURTHER than that distance (but it may be somewhat closer).

What's more - on the Internet - I can log into some distant computer - and have it issue a "ping" to a third machine and report back to me how long that took.   

That means that I can measure times not only from my computer to any other machine in the world - but also from any machine I have legal access to, to any other point in the world.

Now - this is an interesting research tool for FE'ers:

For example, if I had access to a computer in Sydney Australia - I could "ping" a computer in Santiago Chile and know that the distance between those cities is no greater than some distance I can calculate.   The distance might be less than that calculation says - but it cannot possibly be more because signals along electrical wires and optical fibers can be no faster than that.

Now - Mr Bishop isn't going to like this very much.

It destroys his last remaining objection.

So, for example - I just logged into a computer in Silicon Valley, California and did a 'ping' to the Japanese culture center in Tokyo, Japan.  I got a 'ping' time that's around 71 milliseconds (0.071 seconds).

The speed of light is 299,800,000 meters per second.

 0.071 seconds x 299,800,000 meters per second = 21,300,000 meters.

But the 'ping' signal went from Silicon Valley to Tokyo AND BACK AGAIN - so the one-way distance is 10,700,000 meters or so...10,700 km.

So we now know - for 100% sure - that Silicon Valley and Tokyo are less than 10,700 km apart - which is ~6,600 miles.

The ACTUAL distance according to Google and Airline sources is 5,200 miles - but we know that the "ping" approach will produce numbers that may be too BIG - but can NEVER be too SMALL - so this is an expected result.   NO MORE THAN 6,600 miles.

Looking at BOTH of the flat earth maps that we have available to us, we can see that they both make the distance between California and Japan VASTLY more than that...so with just one simple software command, I've proved conclusively that both maps are WILDLY incorrect.

No underlying assumptions beyond the value of the speed of light.  Anyone here can try the same test...feel free...go nuts!

Oh...Mr Bishop...are you in trouble now?   I think so!

We can now use "ping" to verify that the distances for airline routes aren't a hell of a lot longer than they claim...sure the 'ping' approach can't show that they are too short - but it can definitely prove that the distance between Sydney Australia and Santiago Chile isn't two or three times what Qantas says it is...and that's enough to disprove BOTH of the current FE maps.

Anyone, anywhere on the Internet can happily ping computers and compare to the distances that any FE map you'll ever produce and INSTANTLY disprove it from the comfort of their own homes.

Oh dear, Tom...I do think your FE ideas are going to be in a lot of trouble now.

Now - it's possible that your very next reaction will be to claim that the number we have for the speed of light must be wrong.

You may be interested to know that I can tell everyone here how to measure the speed of light using just a microwave oven and a bunch of chocolate chips.

(Yeah - I know that sounds batshit crazy - but google it.)

So - "ping", chocolate chips and a microwave.  That's delivers 100% of the experimental evidence you need to prove that the word isn't flat.


Is this fun or what?!  :-)

More disproofs coming soon - I have lots of ideas left to go still!

14
Flat Earth Theory / Disproof of FET: Two sunsets by balloon.
« on: August 30, 2017, 11:42:56 AM »
I know FE'ers are rather fond of experimental results from hundreds of years ago - and just last night, while reading "The Invention of Clouds" by Richard Hamblyn (who is a meteorologist) I came upon a description of some of the very early balloon experiments:

https://books.google.com/books?id=HbajgFGBrTEC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=see+sunset+twice+balloon+ride&source=bl&ots=b-2QpwoRKd&sig=otJxoQR7GPiBF24maUDQ5vDR9Dg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOz6eO6v7VAhUr2IMKHeG1ArEQ6AEIejAR#v=onepage&q=see%20sunset%20twice%20balloon%20ride&f=false



SUMMARY: In 1783, the (now famous) scientist Jacques Charles took a number of flights in an early hydrogen balloon.   On one occasion, they launched the balloon slight after sunset - and as the balloon rose in alititude, saw the sun rise back up above the horizon - and then slowly set again.

This is actually not a particularly novel phenomenon - you can see it happen on airline flight that take off at dusk...and it's particularly noticeable in helicopter flight because they ascend vertically.  Modern hot-air balloonists don't usually see it because the wind conditions right at sunset are typically not good for safe balloon flight.  There is one company in California that used to offer double-sunset flights to newly-weds - but they seem to have stopped the practice, and I can understand why.  But suffice to say that this is not a rare phenomenon.

So - why is it important?

In RET, as you rise in altitude, you can see further around the curve of the Earth - so the once-hidden sun becomes visible again - until the Earth's rotation carries the balloon further around the curvature of the planet and the sun sets for a second time.

In FET, there is a rather severe problem.   As you RISE in altitude, the angle of the sun to your horizontal is getting SMALLER...and whatever mechanism it is that makes sunsets work would push the sun CLOSER to the horizon, and not further away from it.   Assuming either "refraction", or Tom's "alternative perspective" or even "electromagnetic acceleration" - this should be impossible.

So double-sunsets like this are a very simple proof that the Earth isn't Flat - no matter what hokey reason is given for how sunsets work.

QED.

Is anyone getting bored with all of these killer proofs yet?  I have quite a few more to go yet...and I keep coming up with new ones. It would be nice if the FE'ers would concede defeat so we could go back to posting amusing cat photos!

15
Flat Earth Theory / Airliner cruise speeds - and why they matter.
« on: August 29, 2017, 11:13:06 AM »
In numerous other threads, RE'ers like myself point out that airline-quoted flight distances are WILDLY different from those measured on various FET maps.

This should come as no surprise - it's a fact of geometry and topology that you can't "flatten" a sphere without distorting the distances and angles across it.

Clearly there is a discrepency between RET distances and FET distances.

Let's give this a name - to save typing in future:

frD - Flat/Round Distance ratio.  Defined as "The ratio between an FET distance and an RET distance between two particular points on the Earth's surface."

Using the unipolar map the frD between Sydney Australia and Santiago Chile is around 2.1 and on the bipolar map it's around 3.0.

This is not a small number!

Let's define some more terms:

trT - Flat/Round Time ratio.  Defined as "The ratio between an FET 'on-time' flight time and an RET 'on-time' flight time between two cities."

Flight times are measured using clocks - those times are verified by the millions of people who fly every single day.  There are about 100,000 airline flights every day.  Many organizations check what percentage of planes arrive on time - and break that down by route and by airline - and it's true beyond reasonable doubt that over 80% of flights arrive on time - and that number rises to around 90% for "good" airlines.

That means that ftT is 1.0...quoted airline flight times are correct statements of how long the plane takes to get there (barring delays) whether the Earth is round or flat.

So here is a third term:

frS - Flat/Round Speed ratio.  Defined as "The ratio between the speed an FET airliner must fly to achieve mostly on-time flights to that same speed in RET between two particular points on the Earth's surface."

Basic algebra says that:

frD / frT = frS

...and because we agree that frT is 1.0, we can simplify that to:

frD = frS

...in other words:  The discrepancy between FET and RET distances is equal to the mysterious discrepancy between the speed that Tim Bishop thinks airlines fly and the speeds that the airlines and aircraft manufacturers THINK they fly.

OK - so the error in the airplane speeds has to match the discrepancy between FET and RET maps.

But hold on one cotton-picking-minute here!!!

The frD for Sydney-Santiago  is 2.1 or 3.0 (depending on which map you choose)...but the frD between cities in the USA is almost 1.0...same deal in Europe.

WTF?

If the frD varies between flights across continental USA and flights from Australia to Chile - then the frS must vary by the same amount.

What this means is:

Whatever error there was in calculating the speed of a particular airliner was is DIFFERENT in different routes.

In fact, since many individual aircraft fly 'triangular' routes between three or even more cities, the error in the calculation of that individual airplane's speed would have to vary depending on where it's flying.

Here is an example:  Qantas also fly that same airplane on the Sydney-Aukland route.

The RET distance given by Qantas is 2,162km...and (using the unipolar map) - the FET distance is around 3,000km.   So the frD (and therefore the frS) is only around 1.4.   So why does the 747-400 fly at only 60% as fast over that route.

More significantly:

Isn't it an AMAZING coincidence that the speeds of airliners vary in PRECISELY such a way as to make it seem like the route distances match a round earth - when in fact the earth is flat?

Did airline manufacturers manufacture engines and aerodynamics to exactly make it look like the world is round when it's really not?

And it's not just that they could have fudged the air speed indicators and installed software to fake the throttle responses to do that.   Airplanes handle VERY differently when flown at cruise speed and at half cruise speeds.

There is simply no way you could hide all of that fakery.

So...what's going on here Mr Bishop?

Do enlighten us.

16
Flat Earth Theory / Do passenger airplane windows distort camera photos?
« on: August 27, 2017, 09:32:29 PM »
Lots of people post photos taken out of passenger airliner windows that claim to show horizon curvature.

FE'ers always reply by saying that the window of the plane causes distortion that makes it look like that.

Then, I thought a bit about the shape of the windows.   They don't bulge outwards or dimple inwards compared to the skin of the airplane because that would add horrible amounts of drag.   They match the curvature of the skink of the plane - which is cylindrical over most of the (cattle-class) seats that I can afford.

That means that the two layers of plastic that make up the window are such that the inner layer is dead flat - but the outer layer is a section of a cylinder.   The plastic is of uniform thickness in both cases.

So the lensing effect of the window ought to preserve horizontal lines as horizontal - which means that they can't possibly bend the horizon line into a curve when the plane is flying straight-and-level.

But then, thinking harder on the problem - I realize that a curved sheet of plastic would be like a convex lens followed by a concave lens...and being almost exactly the same radius of curvature, they would cancel each other out.

Now I'm suspecting that our FE friends are talking bullshit here.  (No!  Surely not!)

So in the interests of doing an experiment, when I recently took a flight on a brand new 787 airplane, I thought  I should test this idea.

I pressed my cellphone flat against the inner window and snapped photos of the wing of the airplane.  The aileron (I think that's what it is) that's in my view is dead straight in diagrams of the airplane I found online...and in my photos, that same line is straight too.

Hmmm - so NO DISTORTION!

Oh - oh!  Could it possibly be that the FE'ers are talking nonsense here?

Surely not?

I'm rather certain that this whole FE excuse of the window glass distorting the straight horizon to make it LOOK curved may well be a bunch of hogwash.

If I'm correct - then we can find DIRECT proof of the curvature of the horizon...and I *KNOW* that FE'ers trust direct experimental evidence.

I'm flying back tomorrow - and I'll try to get more pictures.   On the outbound flight, it was too cloudy to get a clear picture of the horizon...maybe I'll get lucky coming back.  It's the exact same airplane both ways...so that's good.

I'll post results in a couple of days when I have a moment to spare.

17
Flat Earth Theory / Alternative maps problems.
« on: August 24, 2017, 06:41:50 AM »
We've basically seen two efforts at flat earth maps here.

1) The one in the Wiki has the "North Pole" in the center with straight lines of longitude radiating away from it until they reach the "ice wall" surrounding the habitable parts of the Earth...and concentric circles for the lines of latitude.

2) The one that Tom occasionally posts that has both the north pole and Antarctica present, with wavy lines for latitude and longitude.



Now we know that Tom currently denies the first map (the one on the left, above) because he knows that the continent of Antarctica actually exists.   He also says that he doesn't know the "true" FET map of the Earth...which I suppose is fair enough.

However, there is a problem with the map on the right.

The star "Polaris" is always in the North...vertically above the North Pole.  This is a fact that has been relied upon for celestial navigation for hundreds (probably thousands) of years.

But if the map on the right is correct, then Polaris would NOT reliably point "North" in as much as the lines of longitude are curved and waving about all over the place.

Tom tells us that he believes that light travels in straight lines - so ANY FE map that has curved longitudinal lines is demonstrably wrong.

This severely restricts the range of possible maps that can be considered.   Any FET map that allows common celestial navigation has to have straight lines of longitude in any region where Polaris is visible (ie the entire region North of the Equator...PERIOD.

FINDING #1:  Lines of longitude in the Northern hemi-plane must be STRAIGHT.

Unfortunately, there is no similar star close to the South pole...but sailors have still managed to navigate there using the "Southern Cross" method.   This involves a grouping of stars which allow you to infer the location of the South pole from the intersection of imaginary lines:



So although we don't have a convenient "anti-polaris" to work with - we can still use the stars to indicate a position that must be vertically above the South Pole.

(UPDATE: With a moderately good telescope, you can use the star "Sigma Octantis" as a "southern-pole-star because it is sufficiently close to being vertically above the South Pole)

OK - so using the same argument as with Polaris - to keep the Southern Cross (and Sigma Octantis) directly in the South - the lines of longitude must be straight there too - and that's a big problem for FET.

If you subscribe to the map on the left - the Southern cross would have to be above every point on the Ice Wall at once.   All of those places are "south" when viewed from somewhere.   Someone living in South Africa would see the Southern cross in their southern sky - and so would someone in Australia....and that's impossible.

So the map on the left is busted too.

FINDING #2: Lines of longitude in the Southern hemi-plane must be STRAIGHT.

What FET needs is a map where all of the lines of longitude run straight from the equator to the North Pole and also straight from the equator to...wherever the heck the South Pole is.

But now...unavoidably...all of the lines of longitude must have a 'kink' in them at the equator...which is truly batshit crazy...ships and aircraft would have to make sharp turns as they crossed the equator in order to keep on a southerly course.

What would happen to compasses?   How could they possibly agree with celestial navigation?

It's actually even worse than that...unless the equator is a dead straight line, there would be no way to avoid some lines of longitude from crossing each other!  But if the equator is a straight line, then circumnavigation becomes impossible (note this is a problem for the map on the right).

There is no possible Flat Earth mechanism to keep both Polaris and the Southern Cross in the right places for both celestial navigation and compass navigation.

FINDING #3:  There is no possible "flat" map that can explain both celestial and compass navigation...and since this has been in use for many hundreds of years (perhaps thousands) - we know that the Earth must be round.

QED.

(I'm betting Tom will be ignoring this one!)

18
Flat Earth Theory / Pinhole cameras, Sunsets and FET perspective.
« on: August 23, 2017, 10:15:10 AM »
In a recent thread (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6710.0), Tom Bishop said a couple of interesting things:

Quote
I have argued in favor of UA EA in the past when the theory was first proposed, but have since tended to prefer the theory that light travels in straight lines and that perspective is the explanation for why the view of the sun is limited, as opposed to refraction or the Universal Electro-Magnetic Accelerator (which works, but is something I now consider to be less empirical compared to other explanations).

...and...

The perspective lines meet at a finite distance, not an infinite distance as described by the Ancient Greeks. This describes why the sun appears to descent and meet the horizon a finite distance away, as opposed to an infinite distance away.

OK - so we've established that (barring the minimal effects of atmospheric refraction) Tom believes that light travels in straight lines.  ("Rectilinear propagation" to use fancy-talk)

This is an important breakthrough (for me, at least).

What we're left with is this notion that the conventional concepts of "perspective lines" and "vanishing points" is somehow incorrect.

But "perspective lines" and "vanishing points" are merely a consequence of light travelling in straight lines.  They are a convenience for artists and the like - but they aren't some fundamental part of physics.

So there is a contradiction in Tom's mind here...one that we should probe into.

Firstly, let's take the human eye, brain and all of that other messy stuff out of the picture.   Let's not even have a lens or anything else in the way of forming an image.

Let's think about the simplest optical device imaginable...a pinhole camera.

A light-tight box with a pinhole punched in the front and a photographic plate at the back.

 

There are thousands of photos of sunsets made by pinhole camera enthusiasts online - here is one of them:



So we know that pinhole cameras "see" sunsets...so whatever the mechanism that Tom subscribes to has to "work" with a pinhole camera.

Looking again at that diagram:

 

This is how perspective works with a pinhole camera.   When the tree is further away, the light coming through the pinhole makes a smaller image...right?

You can use the law of "similar triangles" to state that the height of the image on the back of the camera divided by the distance from image to the pinhole must equal the height of the tree divided by the distance from tree to pinhole.

That MUST be true if light travels in straight lines...it's elementary Euclidean geometry.

Put another way - we can come up with an equation for the height of the image:

   Himage / Dimage = Hsubject  / Dsubject

Where:
  Dimage = Distance from image to pinhole.
  Dsubject = Distance from subject to pinhole.
  Himage = Height of the image of the subject on the back of the camera.
  Hsubject = Actual height of the subject.

...which we can rearrange to:

   Himage = Hsubject x Dimage / Dsubject

To make life easier, let's suppose our camera is one foot across.  So Dimage is one foot - and all of our distances are in feet...that simplifies the equation a bit:

  Himage = Hsubject / Dsubject

In English - the height of the image is the height of the subject divided by the distance it is from the camera.

This is "THE LAWS OF PERSPECTIVE" in a nutshell...just a single, simple equation that depends ONLY on the fact that light travels in straight lines and Euclidean geometry - and it's a proof that any high-school student could comprehend.

It IS indisputable.

So how far away does the tree have to be to "vanish"?  Well, if Himage = 0, and we know that Hsubject isn't zero then the only possibility is that Dsubject is infinite.

So right here - we have the "laws of perspective" - derived from first principles using nothing more than an old-fashioned pinhole camera and the law of similar triangles.

Sorry Tom, you can't believe in "Light travels in straight lines" *AND* your funky version of perspective without denying the most basic Euclidean geometry.

Fundamentally - if at sunset, we know that the FET sun is 3000 miles up and 6000 miles west (Hsubject=3000 miles, Dsubject=6000 miles) - then a one foot long pinhole camera would show the sun to be 6" above the horizon...not the sunset that was actually photographed with a pinhole camera.

But not matter what - Tom's notions that the laws of perspective, known since the times of the Ancient Greeks are incorrect must be untrue.

So Tom....unless you wish to change your answer about how sunsets happen - we have here definitive proof that the Earth Is Not Flat.

More fundamentally:

If the Earth is truly Flat and if sunsets happen - light CANNOT travel in straight lines, and (as explained comprehensively in my previous thread) it CANNOT be due to refraction.

So, alas, poor Tom...you're back with "Electromagnetic acceleration" - which is a truly crappy hypothesis that's going to be VERY easy to disprove.   Trust me, I already have very simple evidence against that load of hogwash!

Are you now ready to admit that the world is not flat?   I really think you should.

19
Flat Earth Theory / Disproof of FET using refraction.
« on: August 13, 2017, 06:01:15 PM »
WHY IS REFRACTION IMPORTANT:

FET fundamentally relies upon refraction through the air.   Without it, there cannot be sunsets, sunrises, moonsets, moonrises on the Flat Earth.

When you look at a sunset, you can see that the sun touches the horizon, then becomes a semi-circle, then a thin sliver, then it's gone.   In Round Earth, this is an obvious consequence of the curvature of the planet - but in FET, (without refraction) the sun could get closer and closer to the horizon - but never quite touch it.   It would also get smaller and smaller (because it would be further and further away from you).

So for flat Earth to work, light cannot be travelling in straight lines...definitely NOT.

REFRACTION:

Now, refraction is a true and real thing - but it ONLY bends light at the junction of two materials (which is an abrupt change) - or due to varying density of the material...which is kinda reasonable - right?

The air is thinner at high altitudes than it is at sea level.

So Tom (in particular) believes that this effect is bending the light from the sun (and moon - and stars and planets - which also rise and set) so that light from the sun drops downwards towards the surface and then flattens out as it gets closer to us.  When we look along the almost horizontal beam - it makes it look like the sun is on (or even below) the horizon.

Tom claims:

* That he has some incredibly complicated math for this (which he never shows ANYONE despite multiple requests).
* That there is a simplified version of it (which is on the Wiki)...which he modestly calls "The Bishop Equation".
* But which incorporates a constant value ("The Bishop Constant") - but which he has no idea of the value of.

As usual with FET - we have a vague, messy theory with plenty of scope for prevarication in the event of challenges.  (Oh, sorry we don't know the value of the Bishop Constant - and you're not seeing the "full" math.)  This is a pattern for Mr Bishop - like how he claims to have no idea what a map of the world looks like.   He fondly imagines that more vagueness makes his nonsense harder to disprove...it really doesn't.

Refraction is a great thing to wave around because most people know it happens - don't understand it very well - so when someone says "It's refraction" and throws some nonsense equation at us - we mostly kinda zone out and assume he must be right.

So we're left with a bold claim - and no way to prove it...or so Mr Bishop fondly imagines.   Fortunately, some of us here are smarter than he gives us credit for!  :-)

These are the problems with his theory:

PHYSICS:

Refraction has been studied since at least Sir Isaac Newton's time.  The effects of refraction on the paths of light rays is very well known - the Victorians worked out all of the effects, measured all of the materials - did mountains of experiments.

Snell's law is all you really need - the sine of the angle that the beam strikes the surface divided by sine of the resulting beam equals the refractive index of the second medium divided by the refractive index of the first.  Easy.

Since we figured out quantum theory, we also know why and how it happens.   It's actually a consequence of conservation of energy and the constant speed of light in a vacuum.   You can derive the experimental "Snells law" from first principles - and the math precisely fits reality.

The "Bishop Equation/Constant" is nowhere in this math.  Honestly: Mr Bishop made it up.  Because he doesn't know the value of the "Bishop Constant" we know he didn't get the number experimentally - and we know he didn't derive it from math because it doesn't match Snell's Law.

REFRACTIVE INDICES:

The refractive index of air at sea level is 1.00029 - this number is in physics textbooks - it's everywhere.   The refractive index of a vacuum is (by definition) 1.   So the amount of variation in refractive index between air and space is TINY...3 parts per 10,000.

But there is a much bigger problem for Tom's pet theory:

Here is a diagram showing what happens when a light ray goes from a low refractive index to a higher refractive index.  In this diagram is from air (1.00029) to water (1.333) - but we can imagine it being from vacuum (1.00000) to air (1.00029) - the bend angle would be less - but the bend direction is the same.  This is "Snell's Law" (Hint: Check Wikipedia!)

       

(Grab a laser pointer and a bucket of water...you can do this experiment yourself).

You'll notice that the light ray bends DOWNWARDS - this is important.   Now, mentally, put the sun (in low refractive index vacuum) at the top left of the picture - and imagine you're a flat-earth occupant standing at the end of the light ray at the bottom of the diagram in all of that higher refractive index air.   The light ray that you see would show the sun as being HIGHER in the sky than it really is...get that?  HIGHER.   Not LOWER - which is what Tom claims.   If refraction was significant then the sun would get HIGHER in the sky as it gets further away.  Not only would there be no sunsets - but the sun wouldn't get as close to the horizon as you'd otherwise expect.

In reality, the bend angle of light is far FAR too small to be noticeable.   You can use Snell's law to calculate it...go ahead, knock yourself out.

Snell's law says that the total amount of bend in transition from one material to another (even if it's a gradual change, as from vacuum to sea level) is dependent on the ratio's of the two refractive indices - so the ratio of the sine of the incoming light ray angle to the sine of the outgoing light ray angle is 1.00029/1.0 - if the sun's rays were striking the atmosphere at 45 degrees to the vertical - then the angle it's going to travel through the densest part of the atmosphere will be arcsine ( sine ( 45 degrees) / 1.00029 )...which is 44.9734 degrees to the vertical.

The bend due to the atmosphere is a wildly impressive 0.03 degrees!  The angle subtended by the sun is 0.53 degrees - so the bend due to the atmosphere is about 6% of the diameter of the sun.  Nowhere close to enough to account for flat Earth sunsets.

If the sun is overhead at noon in US central time - and at around sunset in an equatorial GMT timezone (say at the city of Accra which is close to the equator and the Greenwich meridian)...then FET says us that the sun is 3000 miles up and 6000 miles away to the west of Accra.  The "true" angle of the sun in the sky is 31.3 degrees above the atmosphere - and Snell's Law says that it'll be refracted UPWARDS by an even less impressive impressive 0.01 degrees...and not DOWNWARDS by at least 31.9 degrees as required to make it appear to be below the horizon.

Oh dear...seems that the world must be round after all.

Tom might want to claim that there is some other kind of magic air up there that bends light the other way - this would require a NEGATIVE refractive index.  Trouble is that refractive index depends on the speed of light in the material...since nothing (including light) can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, there cannot be negative refractive indices.

LIGHT FREQUENCY:

One of the VITAL aspects of refraction is that it changes depending on the frequency of light.   Refract white light through a prism - and you get a spread of colors.  If light from the sun were bent through the angles that Tom claims - then there would be a very pretty backwards-rainbow around the edges of the setting sun!   Do you see this?  No?  Then there is no significant refraction - so the Earth is ROUND.


20
Flat Earth Theory / Airline flight data - summary.
« on: August 11, 2017, 09:12:47 PM »
We are now at the point where Tom Bishop has only one remaining way to dispute the data I've provided that PROVES that there cannot possibly be a workable Flat Earth map.

He now claims that neither the airlines, nor their pilots, nor the airplane manufacturers are aware that their planes are actually flying at twice the speed of sound rather than the more mundane 0.8 of the speed of sound that they claim.   Mysteriously, these engines that are designed to work in the subsonic realms are actually producing about four times the thrust they are believed to produce (double the speed - quadruple the drag!) and consuming fuel at about a third the miles-per-gallon number they were designed to achieve.

This is an impressive denial of reality.

So Flat Earthers - do you still believe in Tom's unassailable logic?

I'm interested to hear since not one of you has chimed in to help him.


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