1

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 10, 2025, 07:07:57 PM »

Remarkable. I'll be blunt then, which experiments on Earth's surface tell us it's the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

It's mostly all the stuff you have already heard about.

- Light redshifts when pointed at a ceiling. ...
- The perceived information from a clock speeds up as the clock increases in height above you....
- Bodies and particles of different masses fall together...
- Bodies are weightless as they fall...

The reason these phenomena are being pointed out with interest by physicists in the relativity articles is because it's not something Newtonian Gravity adequately predicts.

You are assuming I have objections to General Relativity as an explanation of gravity – incorrect, I have no particular difficulties with it, despite the mathematical challenges. However, none of the phenomena you have listed, or the many others referenced in the wiki, demonstrate that Earth is physically accelerating upwards. This is entirely consistent with the Equivalence Principle, that a person standing inside a closed box on Earth would be unable to distinguish his circumstances from being instead in a box in empty space being accelerated at 9.8ms^-2. You seem to think GR means a flat earth is forever physically accelerating upwards, but GR doesn't make that claim. It instead says that with a suitable reference frame, Earth can be considered as accelerating towards the apple. It's the same story Einstein repeatedly uses, that of the passenger on the train versus the observer on the railway embankment: to the passenger, the embankment can be regarded as moving relative to the train. He nowhere says the embankment must be moving and the train at rest.

If we confine the application of the theory to the case where the gravitational fields can be regarded as being weak, and in which all masses move with respect to the co-ordinate system with velocities which are small compared with the velocity of light, we then obtain as a first approximation the Newtonian theory. Albert Einstein

You'll find that quotation in the book I referred to above. Should you know of an experiment which clearly indicates Earth is physically accelerating upwards, I'd be delighted to hear of it.

2

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 08, 2025, 07:54:09 PM »

Direct experiments on the earth's surface tell us that the earth is accelerating upwards.

The OP and the relevant wiki articles all frequently and approvingly refer to the Equivalence Principle when discussing UA, but the EP states that acceleration of the Earth and gravitational acceleration are experimentally indistinguishable. How then can experiments on the Earth’s surface tell us that it’s the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

The OP has some explaining to do before rubbishing general relativity.

The problem is that you read a sentence about gravity from physicists and think that it's talking about Newtonian Gravity because that is the topic in dispute here. Those the same physicists also say that General Relativity succeeded Newtonian Gravity long ago. The gravity they are talking about is General Relativity. They are saying that upwards acceleration of the earth's surface and the General Relativity theory of gravity are experimentally indistinguishable in laboratory experiments. You will also find that those sentences of indistinguishability appear in articles about the history and advantages of Einsteinian gravity, giving additional context to which gravity it is talking about.

Remarkable. I'll be blunt then, which experiments on Earth's surface tell us it's the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

Your difficulties with Brian Cox are at least partly accounted for by his mischievous nature – in the original video you referenced, he's already mocked people calling him a paid NASA shill by claiming that's how he can afford to stay in the Raffles Hotel, Singapore, lol. General Relativity builds on the work of Special Relativity by developing a means of relating different frames of reference where acceleration and/or rotation are involved. The mathematical methods of accomplishing this are indeed very high-level, but they allow us to consider a reference frame with the Earth moving upwards through space if that suits the case we want to analyse. Cox and others enjoy provoking the viewer's interest by citing just such a case, as well as having a dig at those who believe the Earth is physically accelerating upwards. Protesting about "metaphysical mathematics" only shows no appreciation of the breadth and scope of the subject – it's beyond my pay grade too, but you might at least try. On the other hand, UA is easily dismantled with some experimental evidence and schoolboy physics.

Should anyone's interest be piqued, Einstein himself wrote a more accessible book on both SR and GR. https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Einstein/Einstein_Relativity.pdf

3

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 05, 2025, 06:15:29 AM »

Direct experiments on the earth's surface tell us that the earth is accelerating upwards.

The OP and the relevant wiki articles all frequently and approvingly refer to the Equivalence Principle when discussing UA, but the EP states that acceleration of the Earth and gravitational acceleration are experimentally indistinguishable. How then can experiments on the Earth’s surface tell us that it’s the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

The OP has some explaining to do before rubbishing general relativity.

4

Flat Earth Community / Re: Your data is at risk if you use this app

« on: March 12, 2025, 08:28:28 AM »

Thanks for your efforts Pete, it’s appreciated. I don’t use the app myself (why would I?) but I thought it entirely possible some actual users would be among those who read these forums and ought to know the pitfalls.

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Flat Earth Community / Re: Your data is at risk if you use this app

« on: March 03, 2025, 10:11:18 PM »

You might save some time by starting with a recent very public description of the security shortcomings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grjDlOIdf5Q&t=152s

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Flat Earth Community / Your data is at risk if you use this app

« on: February 27, 2025, 08:31:55 PM »

If you recognise the above screenshot as coming from an app you use, beware.

This is from Flat Earth Dave (DITRH)'s Flat Earth Sun Moon & Zodiac Clock app and any data of yours it stores – email, location, password, age etc is stored as safely as in a waste paper basket. No kidding.

Anyone with some knowledge of software construction can download the app, read from it where your data is stored and go read it for themselves. You protected your data with a password? That doesn't help – your password is stored in plain text, readable by anyone who can read.

I know this site doesn't look on MC Toon with a friendly eye, but he's done you a favour by publicising this app's complete lack of security. If Joe Soap can read your location and personal information – easily – what could be done with that information?

Finally, for those here who do understand more than most about computer database files, here is a description (from someone who has seen the files) of some of the shortcomings:

7

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026

« on: February 05, 2025, 09:40:15 PM »

It still has the same problem. If the Moon's shadow is traveling at that steep of an angle then there should be steep Southward or Northward vertical shadow movement in all eclipse shadow paths. Yet we see many with relatively horizontal Eastwards paths for the same duration.

I get that you don't understand this, but I also don't get your thinking there should be "steep Southward or Northward vertical shadow movement in all eclipse shadow paths." Spoiler alert: the marked southern or northern movements occur when the eclipse shadow lands on the northern or southern polar latitudes. For your better understanding, have a look at the global eclipse animations at EclipseWise: they have dozens, if not hundreds, starting from AD2001 and running to at least AD2100 and they make sense of the convoluted paths on Mercator maps that have you baffled. You will find all the examples you've already referred to, so knock yourself out.

https://eclipsewise.com/solar/SEdecade/SEdecade2021.html      (this is for 2021-2030)

8

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026

« on: January 29, 2025, 09:23:42 PM »

As has been said, these things are complex, so here's an interesting animation of the August 12, 2026 eclipse looking at the globe from the Moon.  (https://eclipsewise.com/solar/SEprime/2001-2100/SE2026Aug12Tprime.html)




The Moon's shadow is seen both descending North to South and moving West to East, consistent with its observed behaviour at a descending node. The small black shadow of totality (full eclipse) moves at a consistent speed in a straight line across the field of view during the roughly 1½ hrs of its track over the globe. The larger, slightly shaded circle shows where a partial eclipse will be seen. Projecting this eclipse path animation on to a Mercator map of the world will show the contorted path I showed on page 1 of this thread, and the OP's illustration. Perhaps this will help explain his difficulty.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026

« on: January 22, 2025, 09:55:40 PM »

You are talking about this North-South movement from this University of Arizona diagram:



The above diagram is not to scale, but we can compute with the correct values. Starting from the New Moon position in the diagram lets calculate how fast the Moon is descending Southward.

To get the dimensions of one of the sides of the triangle to the right of the Earth in the above image we can fill out a Triangle Calculator with 5 degrees, 238900 (avg distance from earth to moon in miles), and 90 degrees.



This creates the following result:



The shortest side a, the Opposite Side, is 20,201.13241 miles

We take this value and double it to get the Opposite Side of the other triangle that would be on the lower left of the diagram scene when it approaches Full Moon.

20,201.13241 miles x 2 = 40402.26482 Miles

There are 29.5306 days in a lunar month, the time it takes to get from New Moon to the next New Moon. This should be divided by two to get the time from New Moon to Full Moon

29.5306 / 2 = 14.7653 days in half a lunar month

Half a lunar month in hours is 354.3672 Hours

Now, to get the speed the Moon is traveling Southward we can divide distance by time:

40402.26482 / 354.3672 = 114.0124 Miles Per Hour

The total time of the Aug 12, 2026 total eclipse shadow can be found on https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2026-august-12

First location to see the full eclipse begin   Aug 12 at 16:58:09 (UTC)
Last location to see the full eclipse end   Aug 12 at 18:34:07 (UTC)

This is only about 1 hour and a half hours, and according to the maps the total eclipse shadow is traveling a distance equivalent to about the diameter of the Arctic Circle. Unless you are proposing that that North-South distance traveled is only about 171 miles, this does not make sense.

The shadow should obviously be moving Southward far slower.

I applaud your trying some actual calculations for this, but must point out some shortcomings in your reasoning.

Although you've calculated vertical distance (relative to the ecliptic) between new moon and full moon, you then divide this distance by the time between these events to give an average vertical speed for this movement. This suggests the Moon moves at this speed between new and full moon, but this is unrealistic and implies the Moon's vertical speed would immediately reverse at the full moon to the same speed in the opposite direction. This sudden reversal in vertical speed would be immediately visible to astronomic observers, but no such change is seen: it would be a big talking point for anyone interested in lunar astronomy. The Moon moves in an elliptical orbit around Earth, so vertical speed (relative to the ecliptic) will increase from nil at the new moon to a maximum as it crosses the ecliptic, decrease to nil as the full moon is reached, increase to maximum in the opposite direction as it re-crosses the ecliptic and decrease to nil as the next new moon is reached. The acceleration and deceleration won't be linear either, as a consequence of the elliptical orbit. Solar eclipses occur when the Moon is on or very close to the ecliptic, so the Moon will be moving at or near its maximum vertical speed.

Applying the calculated vertical speed to the globe presents further problems: a globe is not a flat wall and 100 vertical miles (relative to the ecliptic) will be almost exactly 100 surface miles on Earth near the Equator, but more than 1100 surface miles, for example, at latitude 85°N. This shows in the gif when the shadow is crossing the Arctic Ocean much faster than in mid-Atlantic.

Furthermore, the animated gif shows that the moon shadow is running off to the eastern rim of daylight over the Mediterranean as the eclipse ends, so the horizontal surface speed (relative to the ecliptic) on the globe is much greater than at mid-eclipse.

Much more work to do, sorry.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026

« on: January 18, 2025, 08:59:10 PM »

As we've discussed over the last 15+ years, the eclipse predictions are based on patterns rather than an actual geometric model. The denialists are defeated on that point every time it is discussed. Since the predictions are not based on a geometric RE model it creates doubt in the mind, and further evidence that the eclipse predictions do not follow that model fosters cynicism.

Take a look at the Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026, which will pass over our favorite future US protectorate:

https://twitter.com/NationalEclipse/status/1878982718438207924

Notice anything odd? During the eclipse the shadow of the Moon will be moving vertically in a North-South direction. This is quite odd, considering that the Moon is said to travel around the Earth in a East-West direction (or West-East, if you want to argue about rotating earth semantics).

The best excuse you can expect for this typically amounts to "you haven't considered that the Earth is tilted", without expanding further. But any possibility of a coherent explanation can be easily dismissed, since in the Round Earth Theory the Moon is traveling in the same plane of the Sun, and only misaligned by 5 degrees. They are essentially on the same plane. The tilted Earth effect must also occur with the Sun. Reviewing the path that the Sun makes over the Earth, it is difficult to see how the Moon's shadow can move in this direction.

Is that really the most outlandish image of the predicted eclipse path you could find? This took moments to find:




And since the Wikipedia image is public domain, why not show it too?




This one shows the predicted eclipse path on the globe, making it altogether more understandable: the eclipse is forecast to begin off the northern coast of Siberia and finish over the western Mediterranean. Remembering how accurate the predictions were of an eclipse in 1999, also in August, and how I was able, having known for 20 years, to travel just 20 miles to see it completely black out the sun, it would be useful to know how the Saros cycle patterns predict the precise timing and exact location of an eclipse so accurately. It would also help your case to plot the 2026 path on a flat earth map instead of your bad Mercator projection of the globe – I mean, Greenland looks even bigger than Canada and Svalbard at least as big, if not actually bigger than the UK: the ratios in each case are roughly 1:4, oops.

If you're going to poke holes in eclipse calculations, you're going to need more than that.

11

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment

« on: December 20, 2024, 10:38:47 PM »

It should be fun to watch what develops, here and elsewhere.

You may be in the wrong community then. It is a different Flat Earth community which says the Midnight Sun is impossible. This community has always accepted the Midnight Sun in its models and portrays several mechanisms in its materials, which relay that the Antarctic midnight sun has been in Flat Earth models since at least the 1920's. Even in the classic Monopole model, the magnifying dome demonstration for the seasons appears to make a midnight sun.

It's also plausible that our official celestial model for Flat Earth, the  EA Model, could be extended predict a midnight sun. If the light of the sun actually takes the shape of something similar to the closed loops of magnetic field flux lines, it could be that the earth is interrupting the natural path of the Sun's light and that the rays on a larger scale could loop around and appear to be coming from the opposite direction to a distant observer.

If we take one of the upwardly bending light diagrams in the link above and simply extend the loop of one of the rays which intersect with the earth, it loops around and appears to be coming from an opposite direction.



This isn't new, and I have my own questions about the particulars of how this dipole shape would appear, but the above appears to demonstrate that a midnight Sun is not an impossibility in current constructs.

Thank you for the sketch, but it doesn't appear to have uploaded completely – there are no annotations to explain what we're looking at, where an observer would be or where the sun is.

12

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment

« on: December 18, 2024, 09:29:23 PM »

It's been fascinating watching the footage from Antarctica: now that the trip has ended there should be more bandwidth-hungry content to enjoy or fulminate at. What's also fascinating is the reactions from both sides, globe and FE, to the expedition, to the videos, to the experiments, to the very idea of going to Antarctica for real. I was interested in Jeran's remarks in his last livestream before leaving for Punta Arenas to head home – he doesn't seem to have enjoyed Antarctica as a destination. There's an undeniable bit of homesickness too.

I've seen a lot in people's comments to gasp, shake head at or just laugh. This thread has its place in the panoply of reactions and opinions from all parties: not as funny as I've seen, not such full-strength seething and coping, and nowhere near as outlandish as some, but a fairly interesting sample all the same. It should be fun to watch what develops, here and elsewhere.

13

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment

« on: December 16, 2024, 10:02:05 PM »

Well whaddya know, they actually got to Antarctica and apparently no-one has been scammed. Lots of interesting footage of the Union Glacier site and the sun blazing away 24 hours a day from both globe and FE participants. Some people took "do your own research" seriously and it's been fascinating.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Circumnavigation World Record Sailing Discrepancies

« on: October 07, 2024, 09:18:34 PM »

When we look closer at the details we just see anomalies and that things are not really in accordance with what is generally claimed at face value.

Indeed: the OP (and your next post) rewards closer study.
 

In this sort or race for the "around the world sailing record", the goal wasn't necessarily to make a perfect circumference around the globe for obvious reasons, and is really the fastest time someone could sail a distance of 21,600 nautical miles. Francis Joyon and François Gabart made this path:

https://goldengloberace.com/the-route/



This path takes place further northwards near the continents. The total course is 30,000 miles, but they only count the best time to 21,600 nautical miles for the specific record, since this is the circumference of the RE in RE Theory.

Incorrect.
When Joyon and Gabart and his crew (edit: Gabart took the solo record on a different multihull) lifted the record for sailing around the world, they also won the Jules Verne Trophy and it is a condition of that trophy that record setters begin by crossing a line between Créac’h lighthouse on Ushant Island, off the French north west coast and the Lizard lighthouse off the English south coast. Their time is to sail around the world leaving the Capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn to port (on the left) and re-cross that same line in the western English Channel, not to complete 21,600 miles. There are no restrictions on the type of yacht used, as long as it is capable of sailing around the world unaided.

That map shows the track of the Golden Globe 2022 race, a race using traditional yachts in the style of Sir Francis Chichester's famous Gipsy Moth IV, which generally takes 9 months to complete and high-tech aids like GPS are forbidden, it's sextants and chronometers for navigation. It starts and finishes at Les Sables-d'Olonne on the French west coast. about 180 miles from Ushant, and there are also mandatory calling points where each yacht stops in close sight of land for 90 minutes.

It looks like you guys are claiming that she had a bad boat. According to Guinness World Records Lisa Blair holds the record for "Fastest circumnavigation of Antarctica by sailboat". She did it in 92 days 18 hours 21 minutes 22 seconds. We know that hundreds of people are trying to beat world records, and there are even yearly races around Antarctica (which we are often pointed to, but the details are rarely discussed). This represents the best boat, so your arguments are pretty invalid.

Joyon's and Gabart's IDEC SPORT (formerly IDEC 3) is 31.5m long, Lisa Blair's Climate Action Now is half that length. IDEC SPORT carries far more sail than Climate Action Now and uses foils which lift the trimaran partly out of the water to reduce drag and increase speed to peaks of over 40 knots; Lisa Blair's boat has none of these. You might think Blair's is a bad boat, others would say it's a completely different boat and so your argument about round-Antarctica times falls.

The race around Antarctica happened in 2008, but does not appear to have happened since. If you know of hard data about more recent Antarctic Cup yacht races, I'd really like to know, I enjoy keeping up with these kind of events.

Finally, for anyone who is interested in sailing closer to the Antarctic ice and the weather and winds encountered, here's an account of Katharsis II skippered by Mariusz Koper, which holds the record for a yacht sailing around Antarctica below 62 deg S latitude. The anomalous winds feature prominently.

https://www.yachtingworld.com/voyages/sailing-antarctica-record-breaking-voyage-around-southern-continent-123341

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Circumnavigation World Record Sailing Discrepancies

« on: October 06, 2024, 07:07:37 PM »

I looked at your map. The only winds not traveling in the same easterly direction are those eddys forming close to land she wasn't sailing in those areas.

It is bizarre to provide your source as some kind of counter.

A source for her route? 

You realise of course that this is a live map, not instantaneous indications of the wind at the time she was in each area.  At the latitudes between 45S and Antarctica the general trend is westerly (ie blowing towards the east), but there are significant times when the wind varies considerably, from all points of the compass.  Do you think that those times and "eddies" don't count?  To claim that "winds on the inside of the ice ring always travel the same way" is complete fantasy. 

But don't take my word; this from her blog Day 79:

"Hi All,
 
 Last night I finally managed to get to bed by around 3am and by 4am the winds had started to veer from the SW to the W before shifting to the NW and build in strength.  I needed to put a gybe in, but I decided to wait until first light to make it a little easier". 

You'll know of course that a gybe is a similar manouver to a tack, but performed before the wind, so more hazardous.

She ventured a little off course in that instance, I suspect, but as I stated earlier, she was traveling with the wind.

Like I wrote, it is indeed bizarre you would provide a map that does not show an Ice Ring and only shows those eddys that are blowing to the W. She was probably caught up in one  of those.

For information, Lisa Blair's course around Antarctica, as shown on her own site https://lisablairsailstheworld.com/antarctica-2   Both her first attempt in 2017 and the record in 2022 are shown. The 2017 course is particularly interesting for one that doesn't keep to a fairly uniform easterly track.

This also handily shows why round-the-world record attempts have a limit in the latitude south permitted since the globe distance around Antarctica is notably shorter at 60 deg S compared to 45 deg S.

16

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Circumnavigation World Record Sailing Discrepancies

« on: October 02, 2024, 07:40:34 PM »

You're comparing racing cycles with motorbikes: Lisa Blair's monohull ex-racing yacht, although no slouch, is nowhere near as fast as IDEC SPORT, formerly IDEC 3, a multihull built especially to break transoceanic sailing records. IDEC averaged almost 30 knots crossing the Atlantic in 2007, at least three times the speed of a racing monohull like Climate Action Now.

17

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Finding Polaris and FE model

« on: August 21, 2024, 08:21:38 PM »

It's not the "FE Equator", it's how 0 degrees latitude is defined. The hint is that 90 degrees latitude is the North Geographic Pole, and 0 degreed latitude is the Equator, which is also the angle in the sky where the North Star would be to the observer.

I presumed you were talking about an FE definition of the equator, since the globe equator is the imaginary line of all points equidistant from the north and south poles – hence the name, equator. It still leaves the problem of Polaris being not quite at the celestial north pole. For naked eye observations this doesn't matter much, but for accurate navigation it really matters. A yachtsman heading for San Francisco and using an uncorrected sighting of Polaris to measure his latitude runs the risk of possibly coming ashore at Point Lobos, or maybe Timber Cove – both are within the possible error range and would be both embarrassing and expensive.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Finding Polaris and FE model

« on: August 18, 2024, 01:37:18 PM »

Why would you? The location of the equator is defined as where Polaris intersects the horizon as it descends when you recede from North to South.

Fascinating! So the FE equator is actually moving through the course of the day, since Polaris isn't in a fixed position in the night sky as we see it. Polaris has a declination of 89 degrees 15 minutes and 51 seconds of arc, so it actually orbits the celestial north pole in a circle of 44 minutes and 9 seconds of arc radius. This means someone near the FE equator will be closer or further away from the FE equator at different times of day by as much as 88 minutes and 18 seconds of FE latitude – just over 88 nautical miles. Navigators must account for this daily cycle in Polaris's position in the sky to avoid driving the thing on to the rocks when making for a presumed harbour.

I now understand why celestial navigation is especially tricky on a flat earth. Thanks so much for the information.

19

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: I am wondering why I do not see...

« on: April 17, 2024, 05:58:16 PM »

..Reposts a video already posted in the same thread ...

Why so I have, how embarrassing.    Very careless of me, I apologise.

20

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: I am wondering why I do not see...

« on: April 15, 2024, 08:11:13 PM »

Quite by chance I came across this short explanation of the path of an eclipse on a round earth:



You might find it answers some of the above questions.