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Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof
« on: November 22, 2017, 11:00:33 PM »The actual paths of these objects from a side view is immaterial. Your side view model is just a theoretical construct based on Euclidean space for how things *should* be positioned based on some continuous trigonometry rules.
Actually, the side view models you are looking at here are composed of pixels. They are a representation of a discrete space - so why can't you draw one - just one, not two from two different perspectives - that represents what you say is actually happening? Or are you saying there IS no objective reality?
Here's what I'd like to know:
You say a perfect straight-line bullet fired perfectly horizontally at the setting sun would hit it. And I agree that it would, eventually, if we discount all other relative motion that's going on.
I can't see how that happens in your version of reality, though.
Let's suppose this perfect straight-line bullet is slow enough to follow in a helicopter. So we stand on a cliff, aim perfectly horizontally at the setting sun bisecting the horizon across the ocean, and pull the trigger. Then we get in the chopper and follow it. We take a radio with us, and an observer back on the cliff confirms that we are converging perfectly on the horizon, heading straight for the sun. We fly and fly and the bullet just keeps going, a couple of hundred feet above the waves. We catch up with the sun (which we've paused for the duration of this experiment), and it passes 3000 miles overhead.
Why didn't the bullet hit the sun? We aimed right at it and fired in a perfectly straight line, and our observer on the radio told us we were heading straight for the sun - but somehow we've managed to 'hit' the bottom couple of hundred feet of 3000 miles of empty air that we couldn't even see when we took the shot!
Let's say we try again, and this time we aim up a couple of degrees, just to make absolutely sure. We follow the bullet again, and it does get higher this time, but it still passes almost 3000 miles below the sun.
To me, it seems inarguable that if we want to hit a sun that is in reality 6000 miles away and 3000 miles in the air over (approximately) flat ground we must fire it at an angle to the ground that will cause it to rise 3000 miles over the course of 6000 travelled horizontally. And if that's the case, then that's the same angle the sun must appear to us in the sky. Doesn't that make sense to you?
Congratulations! You just won the 3DGeek prize for most coherent explanation that'll screw with Tom's head!
This is beautiful. I may print and frame it!
So - yeah. If a hypothetical physical object that travelled in a perfectly straight line (Tom's "bullet/laser") that is aimed at the horizon, where the sun APPEARS to be...then Tom says we'd hit the sun (even though it's 3000 miles up in the sky).
Rather than following it with a helicopter. Let's tie a piece of string around the bullet with a plumb-line attached to it (it's a thought-experiment plumb-bob with zero air resistance). I'm 5'10" tall - so we'll make the string about 5'7" long - just long enough so it touches the ground as the bullet leaves the barrel.
As the bullet moves away from me - the plumb bob just touches the ground...I'm watching it carefully through a telescope and at no point does it NOT touch the ground because "The Earth Is Flat" and I fired it at the sun - which was at the horizon at the time.
As it impacts the sun (as Tom, surprisingly, says it must) - the end of the string is both touching the ground and 3,000 miles ABOVE the ground.
Weird or what?
I think Tom just shot himself in the foot with what I'm going to name "The Bishop Bullet". Now he's in an even deeper hole.
You could to the experiment with a crazy-powerful laser - put it on a tripod, say 5' above the ground and aim it at the setting sun - then have someone run along next to the laser checking how high above the ground it is (should always be 5') until they are 6,000 miles away and under the noontime sun. Either:
1) The laser wasn't aimed horizontally in the first place - but rather at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizon...which we'd know after we walk just two feet away from it and discover that the beam is now 6' above the ground.
...OR...
2) Tom is wrong and laser doesn't hit the sun after all - in which case the laser light went straight and the sunlight bent - over the same distance.
...OR...
3) The sun leaves a gigantic scorch mark when it rests on the ground at the point when the laser hits it.
...OR...
4) The world isn't flat and the ground curves away below the laser beam so the (initially) horizontal laser beam can indeed hit the sun while it's also 93 million miles above our head.
Anyway - Nice one JocelynSachs! Very nice indeed!