[JTolan_Media1]

Bobby S:

If I'm capturing this all correctly, then what you have for a flat earth is an upward refraction phenomenon that gives the earth a more 'spherical' appearance, as if distant objects are declined in elevation and/or your observation altitude is lower than actual.

yes, that's exactly right Bobby.  Keep watching my videos cause I've done extensive research on atmospheric refraction.

If refraction's a reality, then it applies in analyzing and assessing both flat and spherical models.

yes, a proper understanding of atmospheric refraction is key, so we have to understand which way the atmosphere really bends light (and under what atmospheric conditions, etc.)   


Flat earth advocates might ignore refraction (when it actually helps the theory) and assume straight line propagation when it supports their observations, but light bending is definitely needed when it comes to explaining why we have night time on a flat plane. 

The first question anybody asks of the flat earth theory, how can I have night time on a flat plane surface? 

That was my first question. 

Not to get into too many detail at this point, but we notice that at about -1.9 deg elevation from 31000 feet, we begin to see darkness with some atmospheric layering of sorts.  This is similar to looking into a pool of water and when the incident angle gets to a certain critical angle, total reflection occurs, and we can't see inside the water. ( or can't see outside when we're underwater scuba diving.) 

Now that's the some thing here with the atmosphere, when the viewing angle is very shallow,  the atmospheric layering with the different variations and index of refraction begins to refract light upwards and it appears to reflect the darkness of space.  However, the mountain peaks rise somewhat above the warmer and moist atmospheric layers that exhibit more drastic light bending, and the propagation path between airplane and mountain peak is a bit more homogeneous with less light curving, thus the mountains peaks are framed against what looks to be blackness of space (albeit with some light horizontal banding visible due to atmospheric layering perhaps)

Now here is a fun calculation we can do:

let's calculate the altitude of the sun above the flat plane, if daylight is governed by atmospheric refraction at shallow angles:   at ground level we would expect the angle to be larger than the 1.9 degrees we observe from 31 000 feet, say maybe an angle of 3.0 deg. 


than distance from us to where its evening (or morning) is  D = pi/2*3959 = 6218 miles   (assuming we're at the equator and sun is overhead)


h_sun_3deg = 6218 x tan(3.0) = 325 miles.

at 5 deg it would be:

h_sun_5deg = 6218 x tan(5.0) = 544 miles.

Now if there are high altitude light bending phenomena, in the ionosphere etc.. that angle could be a lot more drastic, placing the sun even higher.    How the sun and moon stay up there above the plane of the earth is yet another issue, (weather it's a real object or an image, yet another debatable subject)   keep watching my videos. 

Anyway, this flat earth is damn fascinating, I'll tell you that right now.  whether the models are accurate or have shortcomings, is another issue. 

-JT

[Bobby Shafto]

I had already drafted this up but failed to hit the POST button last night. Now I see that JTolen has replied. I want to post this anyway since it contributes to the current thread and I am going to want to reference this when I follow-up, which will have to be later:

I'd like to understand what the basis is for believing light increasingly refracts away from the earth at shallower angles (greater angles of incidence).

I believe I found the reasoning in JT's previous video, starting at the 4-minute mark:

"I set out to prove to myself it was refraction. Refraction is what must be causing this flat earth phenomenon."



"I started studying the mirage over water, and the closer I looked at it the more disturbed and perplexed I got. Light seemed to be bending upwards not downwards."

"Initially, I thought the reflection is off the surface, but the surface is rough. It can't be off the surface. Then I started reading different papers and I realized it was an evaporative boundary layer. I began to realize that the shallower the observational angle is to the surface, the more prone it is to refraction and evaporative boundary layer."

"Beyond a certain critical angle there is a lot of bending of the light rays. That is why when the flat earth researcher looks out in the distance the angle becomes shallower. Based on this new insight I decided I need to sight objects over land and really tall objects like mountains where the angle is somewhat steeper and I can minimize atmospheric refraction."

The deduction here is that the atmospheric conditions that cause the sort of refraction/internal reflection that can produce inferior mirages at the surface are what explains atmospheric refraction in higher regions of the atmosphere. And that's reiterated in the recent video:

"The atmosphere prevents seeing at shallow angles. There's a critical angle beyond which the light rays just bend as they enter the warmer regions of the atmosphere with more moisture content. So we cannot see way in the distance. There is a limiting factor."

[HorstFue]

Refraction increases greatly near the surface.
Air is much denser at low altitudes. Air density increases more than linear. Additionally effects may be, the ground or sea surface cooling the air close to the ground.
You can observe the increasing refraction at sunsets. Often only the lower part of the sun is deformed, getting flatter. Sun has an viewing angle of only 30 arc minutes, and even within this small angle, you see refraction increasing significantly.

Mt. Humphreys is on or in front of the horizon. The line of view to Mt. Humphreys summit is high up in the air, above 12,000 feet: Low refraction.
For anything else farther away the line of view "touches" the ground. Somewhere in between it is tangential and close to the ground: High refraction!

[Humble B]

I always wonder why this kind of observations are only done by FE'ers, and mostly under the most appalling conditions, like fog or darkness.
If because of a flat earth these Colorado mountains would be that easily visible by night time over a distance of 475 miles, then similar observations should be done all over the world and especially by clear day light. So who will show us a clear picture of a sunbathing Mount Everest, taken from a distance of 500 miles?

That's why I still believe that reflection inside the planes double glassed window is the most obvious explanation here:





Think Occam's rasor will not protest, neither will GreaterSapien who in his video explained those mountains cannot be visible so close behind each other from that point of view:

[Bobby Shafto]

That's why I still believe that reflection inside the planes double glassed window is the most obvious explanation here:

I disagree. There's bearing shift with eastward movement that's consistent with San Juan mountains in the Rockies. Those are distant peaks.

The criticism ought to focus on the analysis and whether or not being able to see those peaks indicates a flat earth. I've seen Pikes Peak from 450 miles away with binoculars (at 37,000').

I dispute the 500 mile claim. I think he got his positions wrong, was loose with his bearings, and his claim that they appear at the expected angle below horizontal for a flat earth. His take on atmospheric refraction is odd too and I hope he sticks around to talk about that.

But those are the Colorado Rockies he's seeing. I have no doubt about that. (I think mostly Mt. Wilson, specifically.)