[Rory]

Who here has seen the sun set?
Along with every other object in the sky, it moves across the sky at a constant angular velocity and then clearly crosses the horizon, weather you are on the sea, atop a skyscraper, or in a valley. (or on the iss)

How can this be? It clearly does not spin around above us or else we could almost always see it!

The attempts to explain this seem to often talk about "perspective" or "refraction" as if the word itself completely explains the unusual nature of light that would be necessary for the bottom half of an object to be blocked by something that isn't in between the object and observer. Any artist or projective geometry will be able to show you exactly what it would look like for a sun to move in circles above us, and any experiment you can do about refraction will show that it is negligible, and only a black hole or giant planet sized lens could make the sun appear such an odd way.

Also, I'm aware that this doesn't say much about the shape of the earth, because a sun could still orbit a disk earth.

If you think the sun is fake/digital, then think about this:

All the sun does for us besides gravity is give light. Any image/hologram that can be created is done so by a light that you have to be looking at. So in order to create a fake sun you have to actually build a giant fake light in the sky that moves around. You can't just project it up there, so the above argument still sort of applies to a fake sun, although I don't know if anyone who believes in the circling sun theory also thinks the sun is fake.

[Shifter]

Who here has seen the sun set?
Along with every other object in the sky, it moves across the sky at a constant angular velocity and then clearly crosses the horizon, weather you are on the sea, atop a skyscraper, or in a valley. (or on the iss)

How can this be? It clearly does not spin around above us or else we could almost always see it!

The attempts to explain this seem to often talk about "perspective" or "refraction" as if the word itself completely explains the unusual nature of light that would be necessary for the bottom half of an object to be blocked by something that isn't in between the object and observer. Any artist or projective geometry will be able to show you exactly what it would look like for a sun to move in circles above us, and any experiment you can do about refraction will show that it is negligible, and only a black hole or giant planet sized lens could make the sun appear such an odd way.

Also, I'm aware that this doesn't say much about the shape of the earth, because a sun could still orbit a disk earth.

If you think the sun is fake/digital, then think about this:

All the sun does for us besides gravity is give light. Any image/hologram that can be created is done so by a light that you have to be looking at. So in order to create a fake sun you have to actually build a giant fake light in the sky that moves around. You can't just project it up there, so the above argument still sort of applies to a fake sun, although I don't know if anyone who believes in the circling sun theory also thinks the sun is fake.

I guess the heat is irrelevant then? Or the radiation? Good luck arguing with people when your opening post is so arrogant and ridiculously lacking

[Rory]

Who here has seen the sun set?
Along with every other object in the sky, it moves across the sky at a constant angular velocity and then clearly crosses the horizon, weather you are on the sea, atop a skyscraper, or in a valley. (or on the iss)

How can this be? It clearly does not spin around above us or else we could almost always see it!

The attempts to explain this seem to often talk about "perspective" or "refraction" as if the word itself completely explains the unusual nature of light that would be necessary for the bottom half of an object to be blocked by something that isn't in between the object and observer. Any artist or projective geometry will be able to show you exactly what it would look like for a sun to move in circles above us, and any experiment you can do about refraction will show that it is negligible, and only a black hole or giant planet sized lens could make the sun appear such an odd way.

Also, I'm aware that this doesn't say much about the shape of the earth, because a sun could still orbit a disk earth.

If you think the sun is fake/digital, then think about this:

All the sun does for us besides gravity is give light. Any image/hologram that can be created is done so by a light that you have to be looking at. So in order to create a fake sun you have to actually build a giant fake light in the sky that moves around. You can't just project it up there, so the above argument still sort of applies to a fake sun, although I don't know if anyone who believes in the circling sun theory also thinks the sun is fake.

I guess the heat is irrelevant then? Or the radiation? Good luck arguing with people when your opening post is so arrogant and ridiculously lacking

Sorry, I thought saying Electromagnetic radiation instead of simply light would sound even more arrogant

[Shifter]

No, it would have made you sound like you had half a clue what you were talking about

[Rory]

You really thing I don't know what I'm talking about because I said light instead of electromagnetic radiation? What else is lacking?

[Shifter]

An intellect for one

[Rory]

An intellect for one

Shifter, first you try to point out a flaw in my argument that ultimately stemmed from your own misunderstanding, and so you say I have no intellect?

I meant what else is lacking in the original post.

[Shifter]

There was no misunderstanding on my part.

The electromagnetic spectrum is very broad and visible 'light' only makes up a tiny fraction of it.

Who here has seen the sun set?
Along with every other object in the sky, it moves across the sky at a constant angular velocity and then clearly crosses the horizon, weather you are on the sea, atop a skyscraper, or in a valley. (or on the iss)

How can this be?

They say there is no such thing as a stupid question but I think this one is the exception. 

Did you even go to school?

[juner]

An intellect for one

Lay off the personal attacks. Warned.

[Rory]

The electromagnetic spectrum is very broad and visible 'light' only makes up a tiny fraction of it.

If I had said visible light then you would have a point (Edit: if you wanted to seem really smart you could have mentioned particles that come from the sun). But this light vs electromagnetic spectrum issue is useless and irrelevant. You are only looking for superficial things to say "gochya" at and then call me dumb.

If you think its a stupid question then it should be easy for you to answer or explain yourself. If the sun is thousands of miles above us, then why do I see it cross the horizon at a constant angular speed twice a day?

[Oami]

I have seen it. And sunrise, also. The sun being cut neatly into a semi-circle by the sea. The diameter of that semi-circle seemed to be pretty much the same as it is for the full circle sun any time of the day.

This is indeed very hard to explain with perspective, as we know that phenomenom. I have seen someone explaining how the sun "appears to be" equally large any time of the day because of the atmospheric magnification that occurs near the horizon; however, so far no one here (as far as I have noticed) has explained why it turns into a semi-circle before disappearing completely.

[Rory]

I have seen it. And sunrise, also. The sun being cut neatly into a semi-circle by the sea. The diameter of that semi-circle seemed to be pretty much the same as it is for the full circle sun any time of the day.

This is indeed very hard to explain with perspective, as we know that phenomenom. I have seen someone explaining how the sun "appears to be" equally large any time of the day because of the atmospheric magnification that occurs near the horizon; however, so far no one here (as far as I have noticed) has explained why it turns into a semi-circle before disappearing completely.

Hmm, how could some sort of 'atmospheric magnification' cause the sun to occupy more of my vision, thus also causing the rest of the sky to occupy less of my vision? Somehow the magnification would have to always be 'pointed' at the sun, but I can't imagine how that could possibly work.

[Shifter]

The electromagnetic spectrum is very broad and visible 'light' only makes up a tiny fraction of it.

If I had said visible light then you would have a point (Edit: if you wanted to seem really smart you could have mentioned particles that come from the sun). But this light vs electromagnetic spectrum issue is useless and irrelevant. You are only looking for superficial things to say "gochya" at and then call me dumb.

If you think its a stupid question then it should be easy for you to answer or explain yourself. If the sun is thousands of miles above us, then why do I see it cross the horizon at a constant angular speed twice a day?

Sigh. The Sun is approximately 150 million km away from us. We are on a spinning rock that orbits the Sun. In addition, the sun also orbits the galactic core which takes roughly 250 million years to complete. In addition to this, our local galactic cluster is heading towards a region in the universe dubbed 'The Great Attractor'.

You should not be looking at internet forums as educational institutions. No one here that will answer your questions will be properly accredited so treat everything you see online (including me) as BS until you are able to verify it yourself.

[Rory]

The electromagnetic spectrum is very broad and visible 'light' only makes up a tiny fraction of it.

If I had said visible light then you would have a point (Edit: if you wanted to seem really smart you could have mentioned particles that come from the sun). But this light vs electromagnetic spectrum issue is useless and irrelevant. You are only looking for superficial things to say "gochya" at and then call me dumb.

If you think its a stupid question then it should be easy for you to answer or explain yourself. If the sun is thousands of miles above us, then why do I see it cross the horizon at a constant angular speed twice a day?

Sigh. The Sun is approximately 150 million km away from us. We are on a spinning rock that orbits the Sun. In addition, the sun also orbits the galactic core which takes roughly 250 million years to complete. In addition to this, our local galactic cluster is heading towards a region in the universe dubbed 'The Great Attractor'.

You should not be looking at internet forums as educational institutions. No one here that will answer your questions will be properly accredited so treat everything you see online (including me) as BS until you are able to verify it yourself.

I'm trying to argue that flat earth theory is wrong and that these questions are basically unanswerable because the earth is obviously round. And I definitely didn't come to a flat earth forum for education.

[Smokified]

Who here has seen the sun set?
Along with every other object in the sky, it moves across the sky at a constant angular velocity and then clearly crosses the horizon, weather you are on the sea, atop a skyscraper, or in a valley. (or on the iss)

How can this be? It clearly does not spin around above us or else we could almost always see it!

The attempts to explain this seem to often talk about "perspective" or "refraction" as if the word itself completely explains the unusual nature of light that would be necessary for the bottom half of an object to be blocked by something that isn't in between the object and observer. Any artist or projective geometry will be able to show you exactly what it would look like for a sun to move in circles above us, and any experiment you can do about refraction will show that it is negligible, and only a black hole or giant planet sized lens could make the sun appear such an odd way.

Also, I'm aware that this doesn't say much about the shape of the earth, because a sun could still orbit a disk earth.

If you think the sun is fake/digital, then think about this:

All the sun does for us besides gravity is give light. Any image/hologram that can be created is done so by a light that you have to be looking at. So in order to create a fake sun you have to actually build a giant fake light in the sky that moves around. You can't just project it up there, so the above argument still sort of applies to a fake sun, although I don't know if anyone who believes in the circling sun theory also thinks the sun is fake.

I guess the heat is irrelevant then? Or the radiation? Good luck arguing with people when your opening post is so arrogant and ridiculously lacking

What part makes his post arrogant.  What part makes your post not arrogant?  Why can't you just answer his questions or respond to his challenge of the flat earth theory with out taking it personally and making it about you or him?

[3DGeek]

OK - so let's just re-couch the original statement of the problem - with full scientific rigor - and without the snarkiness - here's my shot at that:

Who here has seen the sun set?  (The "sun" being defined as "the star about which we orbit" for RET and "the hot glowing ball that moves in some manner above the Earth" for FET).

Along with every other object in the sky (except planets, asteroids, comets, birds, aircraft, helicopters, frizbees...), it moves across the sky at an (approximately) constant angular velocity and then appears to cross the horizon and disappear below it, whether you are on the sea, atop a skyscraper, or in a valley. (But not in the ISS because it's orbital motion causes retrograde sunsets and other complicating factors...fortunately the FE'ers don't believe in the ISS - so we can nix this complication!)

How can this be? If it moved around in a plane that's approximately parallel to the plane of the flat earth, and if light travelled in straight lines then we should almost always be able to see it!

The explanations for this in FET sometimes talk about "perspective" or "refraction" as if those words completely explained the nature of light that would be necessary for the bottom half of an object to be blocked by something that isn't in a direct line between the object and observer.

It is (I believe) an indisputable fact that in FET, the rays of light from the sun graze the horizon - even though the straight line from sun to our eyes would pass a considerable distance above it.  That is the only way that the sun can appear as a semi-circle resting on the horizon when it is in fact still a considerable height above the flat earth.

(There is an additional problem here.   If the rays of the sun are distorted this way - then so are the rays of light from the moon, stars and planets - which also appear to rise and set over the horizon.)

However, for this to happen, then one of two things must be true:

1) Some kind of "refraction" is happening through the atmosphere near sunrise and sunset...or...
2) The "laws of perspective" are wrong.   But there really isn't such a thing as "laws of perspective" - the only physical law involved here is that light travels in straight lines through any uniform medium...since we're agreed that in a flat earth setting we still see sunsets - then light cannot be travelling in straight lines...and the only known mechanisms for that are:
   a) Relativistic space distortion due to immense gravitational fields (inapplicable in FET because either gravity does not exist - or the gravity of the flat earth is far too small to distort light...AND because gravitational distortion would bend light in the wrong direction to create sunsets).
   b) Refraction...which is the other theory here.

So even if you claim that some weirdly "different" perspective is the cause - it still has to be caused by SOMETHING - and since relativistic bending is off the table, we're back to refraction.   So whether you claim "perspective" or "refraction" - the end result is "refraction".

Let's consider refraction then.   Refraction can only happen when light passes through different materials - or through one material at different densities.

Which means that the atmosphere has to bend the light of the sun, when it's near sunset.   We could certainly say that the air is both warmer and denser close to the ground compared to at high altitudes - so this would have to be the "smoking gun".

Trouble is - we know how air bends light - we can easily measure it with the simplest of equipment - and what we know for 100% sure is that warmer/denser air would bend the light AWAY from the horizon line - not towards it.   So if this theory was correct, the sun would actually get higher in the sky the further away it was.

Even if by some means, reverse-refraction was the cause - it would cause the sun to travel in a weird shaped arc as it approached the region of maximum distortion because refraction has to happen in the north-south direction as well as in the east-west.   If this theory were correct, then the sun would approach the horizon in an every steepening J-shaped curve.

If you deny that problem by somehow claiming that "the perspective effect preferentially favors the east-west distortion over north-south" - then the Sun and Moon would become elliptical (well, more "egg-shaped" actually) as it approached the horizon...and they clearly don't.

Pleas that sunlight is somehow special fail because the moon, stars, planets, comets and asteroids also rise and set over the horizon...and because you get the same results with refraction of sunlight as for any other light when you do this in the laboratory.

Hence neither refraction NOT perspective can properly explain the sunset phenomenon without producing other artifact that we don't see.

I politely request clarification from the FE community for these problems with their world-view.