[3DGeek]

WHY IS REFRACTION IMPORTANT:

FET fundamentally relies upon refraction through the air.   Without it, there cannot be sunsets, sunrises, moonsets, moonrises on the Flat Earth.

When you look at a sunset, you can see that the sun touches the horizon, then becomes a semi-circle, then a thin sliver, then it's gone.   In Round Earth, this is an obvious consequence of the curvature of the planet - but in FET, (without refraction) the sun could get closer and closer to the horizon - but never quite touch it.   It would also get smaller and smaller (because it would be further and further away from you).

So for flat Earth to work, light cannot be travelling in straight lines...definitely NOT.

REFRACTION:

Now, refraction is a true and real thing - but it ONLY bends light at the junction of two materials (which is an abrupt change) - or due to varying density of the material...which is kinda reasonable - right?

The air is thinner at high altitudes than it is at sea level.

So Tom (in particular) believes that this effect is bending the light from the sun (and moon - and stars and planets - which also rise and set) so that light from the sun drops downwards towards the surface and then flattens out as it gets closer to us.  When we look along the almost horizontal beam - it makes it look like the sun is on (or even below) the horizon.

Tom claims:

* That he has some incredibly complicated math for this (which he never shows ANYONE despite multiple requests).
* That there is a simplified version of it (which is on the Wiki)...which he modestly calls "The Bishop Equation".
* But which incorporates a constant value ("The Bishop Constant") - but which he has no idea of the value of.

As usual with FET - we have a vague, messy theory with plenty of scope for prevarication in the event of challenges.  (Oh, sorry we don't know the value of the Bishop Constant - and you're not seeing the "full" math.)  This is a pattern for Mr Bishop - like how he claims to have no idea what a map of the world looks like.   He fondly imagines that more vagueness makes his nonsense harder to disprove...it really doesn't.

Refraction is a great thing to wave around because most people know it happens - don't understand it very well - so when someone says "It's refraction" and throws some nonsense equation at us - we mostly kinda zone out and assume he must be right.

So we're left with a bold claim - and no way to prove it...or so Mr Bishop fondly imagines.   Fortunately, some of us here are smarter than he gives us credit for!  :-)

These are the problems with his theory:

PHYSICS:

Refraction has been studied since at least Sir Isaac Newton's time.  The effects of refraction on the paths of light rays is very well known - the Victorians worked out all of the effects, measured all of the materials - did mountains of experiments.

Snell's law is all you really need - the sine of the angle that the beam strikes the surface divided by sine of the resulting beam equals the refractive index of the second medium divided by the refractive index of the first.  Easy.

Since we figured out quantum theory, we also know why and how it happens.   It's actually a consequence of conservation of energy and the constant speed of light in a vacuum.   You can derive the experimental "Snells law" from first principles - and the math precisely fits reality.

The "Bishop Equation/Constant" is nowhere in this math.  Honestly: Mr Bishop made it up.  Because he doesn't know the value of the "Bishop Constant" we know he didn't get the number experimentally - and we know he didn't derive it from math because it doesn't match Snell's Law.

REFRACTIVE INDICES:

The refractive index of air at sea level is 1.00029 - this number is in physics textbooks - it's everywhere.   The refractive index of a vacuum is (by definition) 1.   So the amount of variation in refractive index between air and space is TINY...3 parts per 10,000.

But there is a much bigger problem for Tom's pet theory:

Here is a diagram showing what happens when a light ray goes from a low refractive index to a higher refractive index.  In this diagram is from air (1.00029) to water (1.333) - but we can imagine it being from vacuum (1.00000) to air (1.00029) - the bend angle would be less - but the bend direction is the same.  This is "Snell's Law" (Hint: Check Wikipedia!)

       

(Grab a laser pointer and a bucket of water...you can do this experiment yourself).

You'll notice that the light ray bends DOWNWARDS - this is important.   Now, mentally, put the sun (in low refractive index vacuum) at the top left of the picture - and imagine you're a flat-earth occupant standing at the end of the light ray at the bottom of the diagram in all of that higher refractive index air.   The light ray that you see would show the sun as being HIGHER in the sky than it really is...get that?  HIGHER.   Not LOWER - which is what Tom claims.   If refraction was significant then the sun would get HIGHER in the sky as it gets further away.  Not only would there be no sunsets - but the sun wouldn't get as close to the horizon as you'd otherwise expect.

In reality, the bend angle of light is far FAR too small to be noticeable.   You can use Snell's law to calculate it...go ahead, knock yourself out.

Snell's law says that the total amount of bend in transition from one material to another (even if it's a gradual change, as from vacuum to sea level) is dependent on the ratio's of the two refractive indices - so the ratio of the sine of the incoming light ray angle to the sine of the outgoing light ray angle is 1.00029/1.0 - if the sun's rays were striking the atmosphere at 45 degrees to the vertical - then the angle it's going to travel through the densest part of the atmosphere will be arcsine ( sine ( 45 degrees) / 1.00029 )...which is 44.9734 degrees to the vertical.

The bend due to the atmosphere is a wildly impressive 0.03 degrees!  The angle subtended by the sun is 0.53 degrees - so the bend due to the atmosphere is about 6% of the diameter of the sun.  Nowhere close to enough to account for flat Earth sunsets.

If the sun is overhead at noon in US central time - and at around sunset in an equatorial GMT timezone (say at the city of Accra which is close to the equator and the Greenwich meridian)...then FET says us that the sun is 3000 miles up and 6000 miles away to the west of Accra.  The "true" angle of the sun in the sky is 31.3 degrees above the atmosphere - and Snell's Law says that it'll be refracted UPWARDS by an even less impressive impressive 0.01 degrees...and not DOWNWARDS by at least 31.9 degrees as required to make it appear to be below the horizon.

Oh dear...seems that the world must be round after all.

Tom might want to claim that there is some other kind of magic air up there that bends light the other way - this would require a NEGATIVE refractive index.  Trouble is that refractive index depends on the speed of light in the material...since nothing (including light) can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, there cannot be negative refractive indices.

LIGHT FREQUENCY:

One of the VITAL aspects of refraction is that it changes depending on the frequency of light.   Refract white light through a prism - and you get a spread of colors.  If light from the sun were bent through the angles that Tom claims - then there would be a very pretty backwards-rainbow around the edges of the setting sun!   Do you see this?  No?  Then there is no significant refraction - so the Earth is ROUND.

[TomInAustin]

Man, you are on a tear.    These threads should all be cataloged for new comers.

[3DGeek]

Man, you are on a tear.    These threads should all be cataloged for new comers.

Somehow I doubt our FE hosts would be very happy to do that.

Speaking of which - apart from Tom - it's all gone oddly quiet.  I haven't seen an FE'er post for ages.

[Curious Squirrel]

Man, you are on a tear.    These threads should all be cataloged for new comers.

Somehow I doubt our FE hosts would be very happy to do that.

Speaking of which - apart from Tom - it's all gone oddly quiet.  I haven't seen an FE'er post for ages.

We have a couple....I hesitate to call them FE'er's since their ideas seem to differ wildly from those presented by Tom and this site's wiki, but they are posting some. Just not so much in these threads. I might just link to all of them in my signature if you don't mind.

Also, in your first post you have

Snell's law says that the total amount of bend in transition from one material to another (even if it's a gradual change, as from vacuum to sea level) is

which appears to be missing something on the end there. Good stuff, I'm enjoying these threads as I get to learn more about the world and physics, a subject I always wish I got to study more.

[geckothegeek]

Man, you are on a tear.    These threads should all be cataloged for new comers.

Somehow I doubt our FE hosts would be very happy to do that.

Speaking of which - apart from Tom - it's all gone oddly quiet.  I haven't seen an FE'er post for ages.

We have a couple....I hesitate to call them FE'er's since their ideas seem to differ wildly from those presented by Tom and this site's wiki, but they are posting some. Just not so much in these threads. I might just link to all of them in my signature if you don't mind.

Also, in your first post you have

Snell's law says that the total amount of bend in transition from one material to another (even if it's a gradual change, as from vacuum to sea level) is

which appears to be missing something on the end there. Good stuff, I'm enjoying these threads as I get to learn more about the world and physics, a subject I always wish I got to study more.

We used to have junkie, jroa, jrowe and others, but Tom Bishop seems to the onl FE around, and he has a habit of skipping and out and doing the disappearing act.

[3DGeek]

Also, in your first post you have

Snell's law says that the total amount of bend in transition from one material to another (even if it's a gradual change, as from vacuum to sea level) is

which appears to be missing something on the end there. Good stuff, I'm enjoying these threads as I get to learn more about the world and physics, a subject I always wish I got to study more.

Oops!  I've corrected it above.  I was in a bit of a hurry.   I first hit the "Post" button by mistake before I was done working on it - then after editing it, forgot to push "Save" to actually update it!

To save you reading it all over again.

If the sun is over the US central time zone at noon - and you're in the city of Accra (more or less on the equator and the Greenwich meridian) - then according to Tom, you'll see the sun setting over the horizon because of refraction.

Plugging those numbers into actual math places the sun at a "true" angle of 31.3 degrees over the horizon - and the refracted sun at 31.31 degrees.  A hundredth of a degree HIGHER than Tom predicts...not 32 degrees LOWER.

Oh dear...isn't THAT sad?

Maybe Tom will show us his 'big boy' math so we can see where he so egregiously screwed up?

[Tom Bishop]

A few corrections:

- I did not create the "Bishop Constant".

- The "Bishop Constant," is a Universal Electromagnetic Accelerator thing, not a refraction thing. The Universal Electromagnetic Accelerator is the theory that light bends upwards. The "Bishop Constant" came out of an attempt to describe the necessary curve of the sun's rays in such a paradigm, and which someone named the "Bishop Constant". The Universal Electromagnetic Accelerator:



- The mechanism for the Universal Electromagnetic Accelerator is not refraction.

- I have never stated support for the idea that traditional refraction alone is responsible for the limited viewing of the sun.

- I have argued in favor of UA EA in the past when the theory was first proposed, but have since tended to prefer the theory that light travels in straight lines and that perspective is the explanation for why the view of the sun is limited, as opposed to refraction or the Universal Electro-Magnetic Accelerator (which works, but is something I now consider to be less empirical compared to other explanations).

[3DGeek]

A few corrections:

- I did not create the "Bishop Constant".

- The "Bishop Constant," is a Universal Accelerator thing, not a refraction thing. The Universal Accelerator is the theory that light bends upwards. The "Bishop Constant" came out of an attempt to describe the necessary curve of the sun's rays in such a paradigm, and which someone named the "Bishop Constant". The Universal Accelerator:



- The mechanism for the Universal Accelerator is not refraction.

- I have never stated support for the idea that traditional refraction alone is responsible for the limited viewing of the sun.

- I have argued in favor of UA in the past when the theory was first proposed, but have since tended to prefer the theory that light travels in straight lines and that perspective is the explanation for why the view of the sun is limited, as opposed to refraction or the Universal Accelerator (which works, but is something I now consider to be less empirical compared to other explanations).

OK - I apologize - it's easy to get confused between what other FE'ers claim and what you claim.  So "refraction" is off the table.  And at least we agree on the universal acceleration nonsense having nothing to do with it.   (Universal acceleration is nonsense anyway because it doesn't explain the different pull of gravity in different parts of the world.)

So we're left with this weird "modified law of perspective thing".

Firstly, "perspective" is an "emergent property" of light travelling in straight lines - it's not some kind of law of nature that could be "wrong".  It's simple geometry.

Your "modified" perspective is very poorly explained everywhere I've looked (and yes, I have read the stupid old books).

So why do we have perspective?



The (traditional) train tracks are producing light rays that enter the eye, are focussed by the lens (blue) and detected by light sensitive cells in the retina (pink).   Nothing weird/magic/unknown about that.

The light rays in yellow come from the nearest point on the train track - they shine light on a wide region of the retina - so the image is BIG.   The light rays in green come from some distance down the track and are focussed onto a smaller area of the retina so they look SMALLER.   Only something that is literally INFINITELY far away creates rays that focus to a zero-sized dot on the retina.

This is 100% due to the fact that light travels in straight lines.

So sorry - you don't get to modify the laws of perspective without also claiming that light doesn't travel in straight lines because perspective happens the way it does PRECISELY BECAUSE light travels in straight lines and is focussed onto the retina.

Same exact thing with microscopes, telescopes, binoculars and cameras...even "pinhole cameras" with flat film sheets (just in case you were thinking of pouncing on how lenses work!)/

One law of light propagation that works for everything and depends ONLY on the fact that light travels in straight lines and basic geometry.

So tell us again how light passes through the eye with "modified" perspective?     I know it's nonsense - those who are following this thread would love to know how.

[Curious Squirrel]

From my understanding in his other threads, 'modified' perspective simply postulates that the vanishing point occurs closer than infinity. He makes this claim (his words, not mine) because - roughly - "The Ancient Greeks never studied perspective theory for long distances, so we have no idea how it works for longer distances or if there is a vanishing point closer than at infinity." Essentially from what I've seen, he claims the horizon is due to the point at which perspective makes all lines converge into one point, and going past that somehow can make the sun appear to go behind something it's above.

[Tom Bishop]

There was a mistake in my previous post. I meant the Electromagnetic Accelerator, not the Universal Accelerator. They are different.

[3DGeek]

There was a mistake in my previous post. I meant the Electromagnetic Accelerator, not the Universal Accelerator. They are different.

Um...OK.  You'll need to explain the subtle differences and the implications...although not if you don't personally make claims to their veracity...there isn't much of use on the Wiki or in those books about it (unless I somehow missed it).

[Tom Bishop]

From my understanding in his other threads, 'modified' perspective simply postulates that the vanishing point occurs closer than infinity. He makes this claim (his words, not mine) because - roughly - "The Ancient Greeks never studied perspective theory for long distances, so we have no idea how it works for longer distances or if there is a vanishing point closer than at infinity." Essentially from what I've seen, he claims the horizon is due to the point at which perspective makes all lines converge into one point, and going past that somehow can make the sun appear to go behind something it's above.

Yes, this is a general summary of the argument.  The perspective lines meet at a finite distance, not an infinite distance as described by the Ancient Greeks. This describes why the sun appears to descent and meet the horizon a finite distance away, as opposed to an infinite distance away.

As for why the sun disappears from the bottom up, the explanation is that the perspective lines are perfect, but the surface of the earth is not perfect, and there will be an area upon which something can disappear behind. It is mentioned in Earth Not a Globe that the sunset takes longer when the seas are calm compared to when they are more disturbed.

[3DGeek]

Hmmm....if this "modified perspective" is a property of the human eye (and, presumably cameras, etc) why does it only operate in the vertical plane?

If I tilt my head through 90 degrees and look at a sunset - will the sun go back to being 31 degrees above the horizon?

I'll have to do this experiment this evening - I don't think I've ever tried that!  :-P

[Curious Squirrel]

Hmmm....if this "modified perspective" is a property of the human eye (and, presumably cameras, etc) why does it only operate in the vertical plane?

If I tilt my head through 90 degrees and look at a sunset - will the sun go back to being 31 degrees above the horizon?

I'll have to do this experiment this evening - I don't think I've ever tried that!  :-P

I'm doubtful it'll work for you, IF only because of the human brains ability to adapt. We have the world viewing upside down in our retina's (as it were) and our brain adjusts that image correctly within our minds so we can view the world. I can look into digging it up if you like, but I recall reading about an experiment where a group of people wore special glasses all the time that flipped the world upside down for them. After about a week as I recall, they viewed the world normally once again. Their brain having flipped the image once more. I suspect this could mean, if you could devise a way to make those special glasses turn the world 90 degrees, once your mind adjusts to them, then you might be able to test this in the way you describe.

[3DGeek]

Hmmm....if this "modified perspective" is a property of the human eye (and, presumably cameras, etc) why does it only operate in the vertical plane?

If I tilt my head through 90 degrees and look at a sunset - will the sun go back to being 31 degrees above the horizon?

I'll have to do this experiment this evening - I don't think I've ever tried that!  :-P

So...viewing the sunset while standing upright, laying on my left side, on my right side, and also (with great difficulty) during a precarious handstand, I can confirm that the sun does not move relative to the horizon depending on the rotation of my eyes.

From this we may deduce that the proposed FET perspective effect that DEPRESSES the position of the sun relative to the horizon is independent of details of the human visual system.

FET would predict that the sun would move sideways when lying on my side and upwards when standing on my head...and this does not appear to happen.

My pinhole camera thread really, totally and completely, disproves all of this "altered perspective" idea.   It doesn't work.