1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 19, 2023, 07:11:50 AM »

There are multiple accounts of most RE adherents that curvature can be detected even at ground level

Do you have any relevant quotes from people to back this up?

An oldie but a goodie claim by AATW that no RE-er has ever claimed that curvature can be detected at ground level by the human eye...

yet...

Unsurprisingly, here he is (along with his choir) in this very thread, doing just that.

With all due respect, I’m not claiming anything about curvature in this thread. I’m taking issue with the blanket assertion that the horizon can never be clearly distinguished.

Posters on this thread should also be wary when they talk about curvature, are they talking in the sense of a curve appearing left to right as you look at the horizon, or in the sense of the curvature away from the observer that produces the horizon?

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 19, 2023, 07:08:05 AM »

And on a clear day, with little swell or chop, lo and behold it’s still a clear line.

I really don’t understand how people can say it’s not.

You can keep making this false statement until the end of time (if you choose), but I have already pointed out why it is false.

Can you explain what you mean? Because I don’t think you have.

On a clear day with good visibility, the delineation between sea and sky is very easy to discern.

Have you lived on the coast? How often do you look out to sea on the average day?

Although I don't currently live on a shoreline of a major body of water, I have spent ample time there.

Fact of the matter is this: the traits of both mediums, such as color and reflectivity, are such that no one person can claim with certainty what it is they are looking at from such a distant point away.

Fact of the matter is?

Sorry, no, that’s your opinion.

Every seafarer and navigator would disagree.

Yes, at time, in poor visibility, one cannot distinguish the horizon. But on many other occasions it is very clear.

Are you saying that even when it is clear, you believe that the water continues on, effectively appearing above the horizon, but that it looks to us exactly the same as the sky?

3

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 16, 2023, 11:18:39 AM »

And on a clear day, with little swell or chop, lo and behold it’s still a clear line.

I really don’t understand how people can say it’s not.

You can keep making this false statement until the end of time (if you choose), but I have already pointed out why it is false.

Can you explain what you mean? Because I don’t think you have.

On a clear day with good visibility, the delineation between sea and sky is very easy to discern.

Have you lived on the coast? How often do you look out to sea on the average day?

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 16, 2023, 11:11:11 AM »

Yes, often times, the sea and sky are indistinguishable.  The other half of that equation is that often times the difference is like night and day. 

If you haven't observed this yourself, perhaps you need to get out more.

Whether or not I 'need to get out more," is not the point. You, nor anyone else for that matter, have zero ability to determine the precise conditions of any object from three miles away. Especially with the naked eye.

That's the point.

We weren’t talking about how far away the horizon was. We were saying that it was often very clear. Because it is. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times a year I used to struggle to see a clear horizon in good visibility.

You couldn't plot with any accuracy the exact line of the horizon from 3 miles away. Even if you did manage to wade thogh the swell, waves, freak waves, refraction, haze, reflections.

And on a clear day, with little swell or chop, lo and behold it’s still a clear line.

I really don’t understand how people can say it’s not. I spent the first 18 years of my life looking at the horizon out to sea literally hundreds of times every day.

Do you live near the coast, SimonC?

Just because someone has done something for a number of years does not mean they have been doing it right. Practice doesnt make perfect. Practice makes permanent. My heating engineer had been using an old saw to cut coper pipe since he was an apprentice. He had no idea that modern day pipe cutters had been invented and carried on blissfully with his 'rough' and time-consuming jointing method.
Many people think/believe they can see a definite line of the horizon. But thats c.3 miles away. And is so fine that it isnt even the thickness of a piece of paper - and you couldnt see something that thin at 3 miles.

Not doing it right?

I’m looking at the horizon and can see a clear delineation of the sea and sky. It’s quite simple. I’m doing it right now, as I type. It’s not thin, it’s the boundary between sea and sky, as you look out.

If you hold two pieces of paper of different colours and overlap one on top of the other, there’s not a thin, invisible line separating them, it’s where the extent one of piece of paper stops, and the other continues behind, and therefore becomes visible. One large body is in front of another large body. On days of poor weather, where the visibility is low, the clear delineation is not there, the sea appears to gradually disappear into the mist.

How you often looked out to sea? Are you saying you never see a clear delineation between sea and sky?

5

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 16, 2023, 11:03:12 AM »

So if you see bumps of waves where is the exact line? At the peak or the trough of the waves? If so which ones? Some are bigger than others.

If we're getting to this level of detail, its a median line between the peaks and troughs.  The volume of water present above the median is equal to the volume absent below the line.  The position of the median is a function of gravity, the shape of the Earth, and the volume of water on the Earth.  Waves are principally a localised topical effect of wind; past, and present. 

@Gonzo; by my count that's 3 individuals who have failed to respond to your question.  Its difficult to respond to someone's opinion on a phenomenon (in this case the maritime horizon), when we don't know whether they are actually in a position to observe it directly.  (Or, indeed, if they've ever observed it directly).

Quite.

It’s rather a habit of some people.

I haven’t posted recently as I’m on holiday in the Isle of Skye, Scotland, I’m staying in a cottage literally a few metres from the sea. On clear days I can see a very obvious clear delineation between sea and sky.

6

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 07, 2023, 08:14:05 PM »

Yes, often times, the sea and sky are indistinguishable.  The other half of that equation is that often times the difference is like night and day. 

If you haven't observed this yourself, perhaps you need to get out more.

Whether or not I 'need to get out more," is not the point. You, nor anyone else for that matter, have zero ability to determine the precise conditions of any object from three miles away. Especially with the naked eye.

That's the point.

We weren’t talking about how far away the horizon was. We were saying that it was often very clear. Because it is. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times a year I used to struggle to see a clear horizon in good visibility.

You couldn't plot with any accuracy the exact line of the horizon from 3 miles away. Even if you did manage to wade thogh the swell, waves, freak waves, refraction, haze, reflections.

And on a clear day, with little swell or chop, lo and behold it’s still a clear line.

I really don’t understand how people can say it’s not. I spent the first 18 years of my life looking at the horizon out to sea literally hundreds of times every day.

Do you live near the coast, SimonC?

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 07, 2023, 06:16:44 AM »

Yes, often times, the sea and sky are indistinguishable.  The other half of that equation is that often times the difference is like night and day. 

If you haven't observed this yourself, perhaps you need to get out more.

Whether or not I 'need to get out more," is not the point. You, nor anyone else for that matter, have zero ability to determine the precise conditions of any object from three miles away. Especially with the naked eye.

That's the point.

We weren’t talking about how far away the horizon was. We were saying that it was often very clear. Because it is. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times a year I used to struggle to see a clear horizon in good visibility.

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 04, 2023, 07:12:22 PM »

Yes it is. It is very often a clear, definite line.

Do you live near the coast?

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: February 27, 2023, 08:51:45 PM »

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Plymouth, UK, and would often see exactly that type of image with my own eyes through my binoculars. Especially Royal Navy vessels, and those of other nations, manoeuvering for Flag Officer Sea Training exercises just offshore. Anyone used to living by the coast and ship-watching would recognise that picture. I can take similar pictures of the Eddystone lighthouse too, approximately 12 miles offshore from Plymouth. It has stump next to it, the remnants of the previous lighthouse (Smeaton's Tower) that now stands on the promanade on Plymouth Hoe, and depending on one's height above sea level, the stump is either visible or not. It's a great test.

Seeing a 'crisp' or 'sharp', or whatever other words anyone wants to use, horizon is not unusual from such a location.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: February 26, 2023, 07:38:40 PM »

Do you live within reach of the coast, Pete?

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 21, 2023, 10:59:08 PM »

Yes, they "say" all of those things, but they don't show any of those things. All they do is talk about what they are going to do, show a guy setting up a telescope or some other gear then gut to a graphic like this with the 'Yes' box checked...





If I presented the same only the 'No' box was checked on the graphic you would have a fit and fall in it screaming that I didn't show anything and that I was just claiming a whole bunch of stuff without evidence.

Go ahead and post your evidence.

They posted evidence the earth is not spherical.

My point is that they didn't post evidence. If I created the exact same video, showing the same footage and graphic, but had the check in the "SIGHTING: NO" box, you would not agree that I posted evidence the earth is spherical.

And not to mention the head of the experiments and maker of the video is a known UFO cult leader and hoaxer paranormal mentalist. Not really the most credible of sources.

Well, this is just in error, considering the evidence they posted demonstrates the measures taken do not align with the requirements of sphericity.

What you describe is actually a tactic RE'rs do all the time.

THese guys posted, "The measurements were the same..." when it came to the buildings' peaks and bases measured.

They didn’t provide any evidence of how they calculated that distance between the towers, though.

They seem to have taken two locations from GPS and used a mapping application to calculate it, which will provide a distance at sea level (or possibly ground level). So of course it will be ‘the same’.

.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 21, 2023, 09:20:26 AM »

Quite.

So why attempt a more complex task with the pitfalls that brings?

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 21, 2023, 09:12:09 AM »

While agreeing with stack that the visual evidence(!) on that video seems vague, it should also be borne in mind that GPS and other GNSS systems purely give a position. GPS does not measure a distance. GPS can give two spot positions, but an application, or manual calculation, must be done to calculate a distance between two positions. I'd wager that if this was done via an application, then the distance given is the distance at sea level on the WGS84 datum, so it would therefore by definition not show the distance between the top of the two towers used in the video.

Interesting that this was chosen rather than directly measuring the tops of equal height towers closer together using a laser, such as towers on long suspension bridges etc.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Arctic Flights

« on: February 03, 2023, 09:12:04 AM »

Yes, although the days of routine HF radio contact between ATC/other ground stations and aircraft are disappearing as CPDLC and other forms of datalink take over.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Arctic Flights

« on: February 02, 2023, 01:42:44 PM »

Not sure I've seen any posts that...

have been quick to appeal to the C.A.A. and F.A.A. flight training and flight headings which aircraft follow and, unless I am interpreting the posts wrong, it seems the suggestion is that the earth must be round because pilots know that from their flight training.

Navigation and meteorology training will touch on variables due to the nature of the globe, certainly this occurred during my ATC training, which would be at a similar level to commercial pilot training. I don't think earth shape would be of any particular relevance to aircraft handling training.

16

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Phases of Venus & Lunar Eclipses on Other Planets

« on: January 21, 2023, 10:30:00 PM »

It just seems a bit odd to decry a new poster asking questions by saying 'do your research' when there's not much out there on EA, especially whether or not if affects over celestial bodies.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Phases of Venus & Lunar Eclipses on Other Planets

« on: January 20, 2023, 09:02:33 AM »

Where should people be reading up on this sort of subject, Pete?

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Flat Earth Projects / Re: The Atlantic Split

« on: December 20, 2022, 10:31:50 PM »

Quite.

And regardless of their present docility, they are only anomalous in the fact that they are strong winds. We know exactly why they are strong, and we can predict and forecast them. There's nothing unexplainable about them. They are anomalous as Death Valley is anomalously hot, The Netherlands is anomalously flat, the Atacama anomalously dry, or the fall leaves in New England are anomalously colourful.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Wiki on aviation

« on: November 24, 2022, 03:15:11 PM »

Yes  - to scheduled times.

Schedule times are published before a lot of factors are known, such as winds, which can affect flight times. Also, scheduled departure time is the time at which the aircraft will start pushing back from the gate. At some airports, such as Heathrow, take-off can be 30 minutes later, or it can be as little as five minutes later, depending on the runway(s) in use, location of the gate, and traffic situation. Scheduled times also add in a buffer for air holding at destination based on statistical likelihood. Some airlines also add in a buffer so that they are consistently early (or at last not late!) for their punctuality statistics.

However, as I said, once the aircraft has actually taken off, and the number of variables has been greatly reduced, the ETA generated will be accurate to within a minute or two.
In fact we are working on a concept called 'Target Time of Arrival' (TTA) for long haul flights into LHR which will give the flight crew a 2-minute window during which to arrive. Gloabl aviation only works through predictability. To claim there are great unknowns out there in terms of flight time is just not correct, just as it is to say we don't understand winds in the southern hemisphere.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Wiki on aviation

« on: November 24, 2022, 10:18:58 AM »

Its fine saying that software was written for plane flights. Yet its so weird that on an out journey a plane can take longer than expected to get there and on the in journey it gets back quicker than expected. of course we blame tail winds or head winds for this. Isn't it remotely possible that the estimated distances were miscalculated and relying on a round earth? It never ceases to amaze me how frequently many people get off a flight an hour before they were due to land. Its actually quite worrying given the consequences of a plane taking off and no one knowing when it will eventually land.

How do you define 'expected'? I can sit in my control tower at Heathrow and see the expected arrival time of a flight just airborne from Singapore or Los Angeles, and lo and behlod it turns up within a minute or two of that time. Are you comparing actual times to scheduled times?