[TGWATY]

So I am new to the Flat Earth Theory.  I don't know much about it other than "The earth is flat."  I am curious about a few things.  This is not a challenge to debate. I am not that interested in proving you wrong. I am just curious about the Flat Earth answers. 

1) Seen from earth, the night sky apparently revolves around the Pole Star.  Whether this is due to the earth's motion, or the celestial sphere's motion.. doesn't matter to me.  But as you travel south, eventually the Pole Star disappears below the northern horizon.  If the earth is flat, this shouldn't happen. No matter what the distance to the pole star is, if it is visible from one point on the plane of the earth, it should be visible from any other point.  Maybe it could be obscured by dust or just be too faint to see as you get farther away, but it should never dip below the horizon.

2) similar question (geometrically speaking).. how does the Flat Earth theory explain that the people in, say, China have daylight after America has seen the sun dip below the horizon?

3) If the earth is flat, then the shortest distance between two points is a simple straight line. Yet ship captains and airline pilots follow a great circle path, which is the shortest distance between two points on a sphere.  Are sailors and pilots deceived? Or is there a vast conspiracy where sailors and pilots are following straight lines and pretending to use spherical geometry for navigation?   It is true that on a circular map centered on the north pole that straight lines in northern latitudes can be very close to their great circle counterparts, but then south of the equator (as measured on sphere) the difference between straight lines and great circle paths is much greater.  What does Flat Earth Theory say to this?

[Action80]

So I am new to the Flat Earth Theory.  I don't know much about it other than "The earth is flat."  I am curious about a few things.  This is not a challenge to debate. I am not that interested in proving you wrong. I am just curious about the Flat Earth answers. 

1) Seen from earth, the night sky apparently revolves around the Pole Star.  Whether this is due to the earth's motion, or the celestial sphere's motion.. doesn't matter to me.  But as you travel south, eventually the Pole Star disappears below the northern horizon.  If the earth is flat, this shouldn't happen. No matter what the distance to the pole star is, if it is visible from one point on the plane of the earth, it should be visible from any other point.  Maybe it could be obscured by dust or just be too faint to see as you get farther away, but it should never dip below the horizon.

This is a common misconception.

Eventually, things that are above you in the sky will disappear from your sight for a multitude of reasons, two of which you mentioned in your post.

The earth has many objects existing on its surface, all of which serve to act as potential obstacles when viewing objects located in the sky.

2) similar question (geometrically speaking).. how does the Flat Earth theory explain that the people in, say, China have daylight after America has seen the sun dip below the horizon?

The sun happens to be lighting that portion of the earth's surface during that time.

3) If the earth is flat, then the shortest distance between two points is a simple straight line. Yet ship captains and airline pilots follow a great circle path, which is the shortest distance between two points on a sphere.  Are sailors and pilots deceived? Or is there a vast conspiracy where sailors and pilots are following straight lines and pretending to use spherical geometry for navigation?   It is true that on a circular map centered on the north pole that straight lines in northern latitudes can be very close to their great circle counterparts, but then south of the equator (as measured on sphere) the difference between straight lines and great circle paths is much greater.  What does Flat Earth Theory say to this?

The great circle path is simply what happens when you draw a straight line on a sphere.

Navigation of all sorts has remained essentially unchanged, is all based on celestial sphere navigation, with simply different methods of accomplishing that type of navigation as technology has improved.

[WTF_Seriously]

The great circle path is simply what happens when you draw a straight line on a sphere.

Navigation of all sorts has remained essentially unchanged, is all based on celestial sphere navigation, with simply different methods of accomplishing that type of navigation as technology has improved.

TGWATY. Just remember to do your own research into some statements you may find here.  Everyone here has some form of bias and no one is correct all of the time, especially me.

The great circle path is not simply "what happens when you draw a straight line on a sphere" as you probably are already aware.



The great circle path is one that appears as an arc when the shortest 3-D path along a sphere is represented on 2-D representation as shown.

Also, almost all travel these days is done using GPS which has nothing to do with a celestial sphere unless you want to consider all of the GPS satellites orbiting earth as a 'celestial sphere.'