21

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Shape of the planets

« on: November 16, 2017, 02:45:33 PM »

Here was the answer I have been searching for about the belief held by Flat Earthers.

Found this on another website, but at least it is something of a answer, even if I am not sure what a luminary is.

" genuine flat Earth researchers like myself who will tell you unequivocally that the Sun, Moon, stars and "planets" are all merely luminaries, round discs of celestial light, NOT spherical Terra firma capable of landing on as the Freemasons at NASA would have you believe."

Finally, an answer on what Flat Earthers believe. Totally wrong, but at least it is an answer.

22

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Satellites

« on: November 16, 2017, 02:14:57 PM »

This thread made me join. haha.

Good question OP. I'm a communications tech. I work for a top 10 defense contractor that manufactures satellites and launches them from the Space Coast. Basically, the satellite acts as a repeater. The transmission comes from our earth stations, include voice and data, and transmitted to the satellite which then streams the data (repeats) back towards earth, where a properly pointed dish can receive. The dishes typically are able to send/receive data and the communication to/from the satellite and earth station is two-way, bi-directional.

I have installed commercial dishes for end users (gov't, military, gas and oil rigs, ships). I assure you that they work when pointed correctly at the sky, and don't work if they're just inches off. There's an entire procedure involved in pointing and setting a dish as well as math helps on getting the angles correct. Once linked up, I can send test messages to a Network Ops Center where a tech verifies my data and sends me out a test reply which I also verify.

I also work with microwave (ground to ground stations), fiber, central office, network, PSPC radio, backbone, etc. I'm a tech, not an engineer, so my 25 years of experience involves the installation and maintenance of comm equipment. My work involves correctly pointing, provisioning, and testing large scale  wireless communication devices.

FE'rs need to work this info into their model somehow, because satellites exist and are in use all over our flat earth. There's no need to be afraid to admit that they are real.

Satellites are real and you do not have the need to know basis of the truth behind satellites.  Yes your company may manufacture the satellites and think they are being "launched" into orbit but that is not really true.  They are not in space but are typically kept in the sky by very large hydrogen balloons.  They range in elevation between 40,000 to 80,000 feet in the air. 

Here is one of the stations where balloon launches occur.  Look at the bottom for schedule of past launches.  http://stratocat.com.ar/bases/37e.htm

Please note the MIR launches which are pieces of the ISS which is also on a balloon.

Surely he does not really believe this. Really.... You just....I mean....Nope. You can not really believe this.

It is so hard to figure out what is going on here on this site. I can never tell if the post and person posting is just trolling, or an actual believer of the Flat Earth. I am convinced that this Forum has to be just Round Earth proponents, but some take to trolling, and some take to answering.

I wish you could all see how hard I hit my forehead with my hand when I read the balloon thing. Come on... There are some silly things about Flat Earth, but giant balloons. LOL.... I must of missed that explanation in the Wiki.

23

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Science Proves Flat Earth **PROOF**

« on: November 15, 2017, 08:04:38 PM »

Parallel Universes are a real possibility. There is only so many possibilities for particle configurations in multiple universes. So, if there are an infinite number of cosmic possibilities, but limited number of particle configuration, than one has to accept that there is a possibility that we may exist in one of the particle arrangements that construe a Flat Earth Structure with Physics that match.

I have linked a paper to help explain this position. Please read as it gives great insight into this very real possibility. 

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/multiverse.pdf

Remember: you can't prove I am wrong, so you must be wrong.

Actually, I can prove that you're wrong.

If the claim is that OUR Earth is flat - then OUR laws of physics must apply to it.

Sure - there might be other universes in the "multiverse" that had different laws of physics that might somehow allow a flat planet to exist...but ours isn't that one.

Even if our universe is infinite - then it's not the case that every possible configuration of particles will somewhere exist - no matter what, the  laws of physics apply - and there can no more be a 31 mile nuclear fusion reactor or a place where gravity doesn't apply but universal acceleration does.

A truly infinite universe would contain an infinite number of Earth's like ours (round!) with an infinite number of people talking on an infinite number of websites called "tfes.org" - but infinitely large numbers of the people who populate them and make infinite numbers of claims like yours - doesn't make ANY of them right!

So no - you're wrong - this is NOT a flat earth proof.

3D,

I know. Please excuse my attempt at bad humor. I am frustrated at the lack of actual help from any Flat Earth proponent to give actual proof, other than, well I am behind a keyboard so you can't prove anything to me.

But, to be honest, I am very interested in the Multiverse Theory. Also, I find the current debate on the "shape" of the universe to be quite interesting as well.

Once again, please excuse the bad humor attempt, but after hours and hours of reading on this site, only to find that one maybe two people (flat earth side) post on the debate forums, and mostly with the answer of "you can't prove me wrong because whatever reason, or prove that science actually does science"y" things" I was frustrated, and wrote the above.

24

Flat Earth Theory / Science Proves Flat Earth **PROOF**

« on: November 15, 2017, 05:53:33 PM »

Parallel Universes are a real possibility. There is only so many possibilities for particle configurations in multiple universes. So, if there are an infinite number of cosmic possibilities, but limited number of particle configuration, than one has to accept that there is a possibility that we may exist in one of the particle arrangements that construe a Flat Earth Structure with Physics that match.

I have linked a paper to help explain this position. Please read as it gives great insight into this very real possibility. 

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/multiverse.pdf

Remember: you can't prove I am wrong, so you must be wrong.

25

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Using airline flight data.

« on: November 15, 2017, 02:19:28 PM »

The interesting thing about the FE'er's assertions that GPS is broken is that it was developed by the US military - primarily to allow cruise missiles and other long range/high-precision weapons to achieve ~2 foot precision on targets anywhere in the world.

The coordinates take you to real places if you attempt to follow them. The distance between the coordinates are based on a globe.

This isn't like wiring a house, Tom.  You don't just bring a whole bunch of it and stop spooling it out when you make landfall, because undersea cable is very expensive.  And even if you did, undersea cables have repeaters emedded in them every so many miles to boost the signal.  The owners know how many repeaters are in the cable, which means they know how long the cable is.

Are you an owner? Do you have access to their records for us?

As usual, we have the passive-aggressive effort to sow confusion and doubt rather than draw back the curtains and open the window to allow enlightenment and debate.

The point here is that the people who lay undersea cables - and the people who pay for them to be laid - and the people who run the system by remotely querying those regularly space repeaters would all have to be bundled up into your increasing spiral of conspiracy.

So now, the big undersea cable companies are a part of the same conspiracy as NASA, SpaceX, GPS and cellphone providers, the Russian, Chinese, Indian, French, South African and (now) North Korean governments?

Is there anyone besides Tom Bishop who is NOT a part of this coverup?

Isn't this just the teensiest bit paranoid?

Where did I say anything about a conspiracy? You are making a lot of assumptions on how submarine cable layers operate and I am asking for further information to demonstrate what was claimed is true. How do we know that they didn't run out of cable at one point and learned that they needed to bring more cable for these things?

This is an interesting Website . Not sure how I wound up here, and not sure how i ended up reading this thread.

Anyway. Tom, cable laying ships are extremely precise. I did a brief stint (9 days) aboard one such vessel, MV Wave Venture (http://www.cablesm.fr/Wave%20Venture.pdf). at the time I was working as an engineering intern for a company which contracted this vessel to do some work. I spent a lot of time in the operations room as well as on the cable deck and learned about the cable laying process.

The supplies aboard the ship are precisely measured and inventoried. This is necessary as the ship is enormously expensive to operate and running out of cable or other supplies mid-tour would be disastrous.

If you go to that PDF I linked, near the bottom are photos of the two cable handling drums. Those large drums play cable in and out. Their circumference is known and their motion precisely measured. Up in the control room, there are readouts on rate of cable pay-out, tension on the cable, amount of cable played out (easily calculated from drum diameter and # rotations of drum).

If the ship moves ahead too quickly and tension rises, the cable will snap. This would be catastrophic. To this end, tension is monitored careful and ship movement must be precisely controlled. The ship uses a dynamic positioning system, based on GPS. The accuracy is around 2 meters (the 400-something ft long ship can maintain its exact position within 2 meters and a degree or two of heading using directional "azimuth thrusters" and high performance GPS receivers positioned around the ship).

The GPS positioning system agrees closely with the cable run length, measured physically using the cable drum over long distances. This experimental "proof" of GPS accuracy is performed on every cable laying run. If the ship has moved 1 mile on GPS, but an unexpected amount of cable has been played out, this would be obvious in the ship control room (would probably indicate an unexpected underwater feature and the ship would back up/pick up cable and figure out what went wrong before re-laying).  Note that the cable laying plan also takes into account underwater topology (based on oceanic surveying, done via sonar).

-----

On another note of interest. A lot of land surveying these days is done via LIDAR. Basically an aircraft (or for smaller areas, maybe a small UAV) flies over and a lidar sensor takes millions of point distance measurements (worked based on speed of light and reflections, does not rely on any notion of round or flat anything). The end result is a dense "point cloud" or high resolution 3D map of an area.

Here's a  little clip that shows a bit of the process and what the results look like:

In order for the measurements from the moving aircraft to be combined into a coherent 3D model, the precise location of the aircraft & LiDAR at each moment must be known. Otherwise, the map would be an enormous mess (jumble of points). There are two major methods of inferring the location of the lidar at each time step

- SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping)
- Sensor-based (GPS + Inertial measurements)

The slam method is much more difficult and is the subject of current research. With the slam method, in each new time step, you try "sync up" your new laser scan with the last one, finding an overlapping match and thus inferring the new position of the laser.

The sensor-based method uses a combination of GPS and an IMU (accelerometers and gyros) to log the precise position and orientation of the sensor in 3D space. By combining the long-term accuracy of GPS and short-term precision of inertial methods, and using filtering techniques, centimeter-level accuracy can be achieved.

In either of these methods, if the position of the laser cannot be accurately determined in 3D space for every moment in time (lets say GPS or IMU failure or inaccuracy), the map will look like a mess with all kinds of overlapping, incoherent points. In this event, the instrumentation will have to be repaired and data will have to be re-collected.

Now, if GPS worked consistently but with a scale offset, ie measured wrong distances, there are two issues. Firstly, the sensor fusion would fail (the inertial measurement unit would disagree with the GPS measurements). Secondly, the created map would be accurate, but at the wrong scale (distances incorrect). While the former takes some knowledge of signal processing to understand, the second can easily be analyzed empirically.

You can personally download LiDAR data sets, tagged with GPS data as well as aircraft data (altitude, position, velocity, etc). To prove to yourself that these GPS data sets are of accurate scale (since you don't seem to want to trust anyone else), you could download a dataset for somewhere local to you and look at the 3D point cloud. Measure a distance in the pointcloud between two known locations (lets say measure out the distance between two buildings). Then, in real life, go out there and confirm this data empirically using whatever equipment you like (laser range finder, radar, measuring tape, whatever).

In this manner, you will have proven the following:

A) the physically measured 3D pointclouds agree with published aerial maps (ie what you would find on google earth)
B) Aircraft are able to accurately determine their location, speed, position, orientation and altitude
C) GPS is able to accurately measure distances within a tolerance of several feet of absolute non-compounding error.

The underlying assumptions here are:

- The speed of light is ~ 3*10^8 m/s (required for lidar measurements)
- Time can be accurately measured (again required for lidar measurements)
- You are capable of personally measuring distance in the order of a few hundred feet to empirically verify the data

This is real, undisputable physical data that you can empirically verify yourself.

My credentials:

Bsc. Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
BSc. Aeronautics & Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

My graduate thesis involves navigation of autonomous vehicles and as such relies on accuracy of systems such as GPS from a small, directly measurable scale up to larger areas. We work in GPS-available and GPS-denied environments and must fuse data from inertial systems, Lidar, RADAR, GPS, cameras, etc. to have both aerial and ground vehicles navigate precisely.

Hopefully my suggested experiment gives you an avenue to prove to yourself the performance of GPS . I prove it to myself daily in my line of work. Once this business of distances is sorted, I believe the rest of the proof is clear cut using the geometry already presented by others. I should probably get back to work now.

Right... so you spend 9 days on such a vessel and that makes you an expert on exactly what kind of extra cable and supplies they bring along. Are we to assume that you interrogated the captain about his extra cable?

How do we know that there is no excess cable? You are assuming that a possible Flat Earth model must cause a cable shortage, when the opposite can be true as well.

Troll level 1000.

How trolling works on the internet:

Post something for people to argue over. People post about this or that. OP comes in and says something along the lines of "prove it" etc.. More arguing from other side. Then troll is out done, so you attack the person. Then say something silly like "Are we to assume that you interrogated the captain about his extra cable?" then back to more silly statements like: "How do we know that there is no excess cable?"

Fun to read, and fun to post to, but man, really starting to believe this whole page is nothing but a huge internet troll experiment.

**EDIT**

I am sorry for not adding something to the actual debate. But, as I am very convinced, Tom does know how you can very accurately know how much cable a vessel brings aboard. You can very easily compute this. You just need to know the size of the drum and its core diameter size, and the diameter of the cable.  While I can spend my time adding the math here, I am going to ask Tom to look it up, as it is easily available to find on Google.

It frustrates me that you attack the person, and not the problem. Like I said, troll level 1000.

26

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Shape of the planets

« on: November 15, 2017, 01:09:07 PM »

Mark,

Greetings! Welcome to frustration! I have been on here for 3 days seeking answers like you, but so far, only only really receive answers like "empirical evidence" and prove that they are spheres, blah, blah, blah..... Nothing really of value that I can find so far to make me change my mind in any way. If there was verifiable data and experiments, etc...like current science is held too, than I could consider the possibility of a Flat Earth. But, really its just prove to "us" (Flat Earther) that what you see is right. Etc... I could go on about what I am not getting, but I think you get the point.

As for answers, I will say that 3DGeek has gone out of his way to answer most of your questions that you, I and everyone else that comes here ask. I highly recommend reading this Board, as it was extremely helpful for me:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6902.0

Also, for the spherical shape of the sun and planets, here is an extremely helpful board that will answer most of your questions:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=7519.0

As far as I can tell, there is no explanation for how gravity works on spherical objects in space (or whatever they call it) and as far as the sun,  I think that the current explanation is that it is a 31 mile across tokamak in a "lightbulb" or something. (I cannot be really sure of this is people arguing over a possibility of its existence, or if science could allow for something like that"

Anyway. I am nowhere smart enough to help out to much on this, but there are several post here that help out a lot. Good luck on getting answers!

Also, as I am regurgitating other post for answers, please accept my apologies if I explained them wrong, and please feel free to correct.
   

27

Flat Earth Theory / Re: An experiment I want every single one of you to explain

« on: November 14, 2017, 04:37:33 PM »

This type of phenomenon is normally explained by you having changed and broadened your perspective lines at higher altitudes to restore the sun, but this particular case is explained by the existence of waves.

In what situation would I change and broaden my perspective lines?

Technically the explanation for why the sun sets at higher altitudes is also "waves," and whatnot. The perspective lines meet at the horizon and are perfect, but the surface of the earth is not perfect.

See, I am telling you, he is on a new level with his trolling. My favorite part of this is the "waves", and whatnot statement. The only flaw I need mention is that waves do not operate the way you need them to for this explanation. Waves do not always travel toward the observer, and you know that. In fact, with this argument what you are describing, when a wave runs anything other than toward the observer, you would see multiple sunsets as waves are exactly that. Waves. Meaning they have a peak and a trough. And we know that a wave is both above and below the average line.

Now, I need help as to "whatnot" is. This needs to be explained so we can better understand your point. Maybe the "whatnot" fills the area between the crest and valley of a wave. Lets hope so!

28

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 14, 2017, 03:56:10 PM »

Since our beliefs are based on things like "birds descend into the horizon" and yours are based on "since the sun lights exactly 50% of the earth at all times... therefore.." your burden of proof is a lot higher. We just need to show that birds descend for our assertions and you need to prove that 50% of the earth is lit at all times for yours.

Okay. Now I am convinced he isn’t serious. Proof that the earth is 50% lit at all times.

Nope...Nope. He isn’t real. All you have to do is call someone. Anyone. Anywhere. Not hardly a huge scientific process. When you call them, ask if it is light out or not.

Won’t even go into the day/night cycles of the poles on this one.

Nope. He has to be some sort of troll.

Calling someone and asking if it is light does not prove that 50% of the earth is illuminated.

I understand that you guys are really trying your hardest on this, but you really need to think things through and avoid embarassing yourselves.

Sorry. You are right. It does not prove that. It would take multiple people calling and multiple people answering throughout the world to take this project on. But, it can be done. And we can prove if it is light by using video calls, such as Skype or FaceTime.

And for the record, I believe you owe me an answer on great circle sailing/ Mercator sailing.

29

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 14, 2017, 03:15:47 PM »

Since our beliefs are based on things like "birds descend into the horizon" and yours are based on "since the sun lights exactly 50% of the earth at all times... therefore.." your burden of proof is a lot higher. We just need to show that birds descend for our assertions and you need to prove that 50% of the earth is lit at all times for yours.

Okay. Now I am convinced he isn’t serious. Proof that the earth is 50% lit at all times.

Nope...Nope. He isn’t real. All you have to do is call someone. Anyone. Anywhere. Not hardly a huge scientific process. When you call them, ask if it is light out or not.

Won’t even go into the day/night cycles of the poles on this one.

Nope. He has to be some sort of troll.

30

Flat Earth Theory / Great Circle Sailing/ Mercator Sailing

« on: November 14, 2017, 01:21:17 PM »

I have read several post about using aircraft as proof that Flat Earth is possible, by using inaccurate GPS measurements.

What about Sailing Vessels using Great Circle Sailing and Mercator Sailing? I have seen, did the measurements and math for sailing, and have seen accurate results with both time and fuel consumption. Great Circle sailing occurs on the Earth, not in the sky, and has been done so far a very long time. Without going to far into depth of the math, traveling a straight line on the round earth requires an actual path that is curved on a "flat map" and one would expect the opposite to be true in the flat earth theory.

Proof: I will arrive at proper destination using a curved line. (say from Norfolk, VA to Rota, Spain)

Please help explain this issue.

RJ

31

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Disproofs - a summary of progress so far.

« on: November 13, 2017, 11:43:45 PM »

Thank you for the replies. I do wish there was an answer for my questions. But I appreciate any time given to responses.

All things aside, I have much respect for a site to not only allow for questions, but entertain them and answer as well.

One last question I have is regarding celestial sailing. As a Mariner, I am well versed in this form of navigation, and enjoy the use of being able to use celestial bodies for navigation. With that said, I do have a question on Polaris. Typically, it is used to give a quicker line of position for latitude. (Once again, grossly over simplified). But this method is only used in the Northern hemisphere as it is only visible for this problem in this hemisphere. Why, is this not possible in the Southern Hemisphere, when the Flat earth should allow for this star to be utilized by all areas on the globe, due to its location on the celestial sphere utilized by celestial navigation.

32

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Disproofs - a summary of progress so far.

« on: November 13, 2017, 06:27:03 PM »

Hi All,

New here. I am researching, and reading, and looking, to find the Flat Earth Theory explanation for how the Sun works. I read in the Wiki that it is believed to be a Sphere of about 32 miles in diameter and 3000 miles above the surface of the Earth. I have a couple of questions that I thought may be answered here in this Forum Board, as anything I find seems not to answer the questions.

1.) Why is the earth flat but the Sun (and Moon) spheres?

2.) How does the Sun heat the Earth? (Now, I typically have accepted the 98 million mile from earth theory, and Nuclear Fusion which creates radiation which is felt as heat [please excuse my gross over simplification of this process]) But, i am having a hard time believing that a 32 mile wide sphere can sustain nuclear fusion for any length of time, and that he is hot enough to heat the earth to sustainable levels.

3.) How does the Sun (and Moon) not fly away from earth? With the Flat Earth Theory, wouldn't centripetal/centrifugal forces fling these spheres off into space without some sort of "tether" keeping them attached to the earth?

Please help me understand. I have looked and looked, and can only find anecdotal post about "proving the sun actually uses nuclear fusion to Work" post.

I can understand the burden of proof being on the other side, especially since I am asking on the Website for Flat Earth support, but I was hoping this would help. I have seen, read, and can visually observe the current scientific model, so any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you
RJ