[BigGuyWhoKills]

I am a RE'er who believes perspective cannot describe the setting of the sun.  I am not here to convert you.  I would like a FE'er to explain if my calculations or assumptions are in error.  I'll start off with a "worst case" scenario.

On this page: https://wiki.tfes.org/Erathostenes_on_Diameter, the diameter of the Earth is claimed to be 25,000 miles.  So if the sun orbited over the Antarctic "ice wall", it's path would have a diameter of 25,000 miles.  That means, the farthest a person on Earth could possibly be from the sun is 25,000 miles.  This is the adjacent side of our triangle.
According to: https://wiki.tfes.org/Sun, the sun is 3,000 miles above the surface of the Earth.  That is our opposite side.
The angle we are using is 90°.  We solve the triangle using a Side-Angle-Side formula, and get 6.843°.  If I understand the geometry correctly, that should mean the sun could never be visibly lower than 6.8°.  Since the sun at its southernmost point orbits the Tropic of Capricorn, the actual angle would be larger.  My calculations yield about 8.5° as the minimum for that distance.

Now I'll use a scenario that I have personally observed.  I vacationed in Hawaii a few years ago and watched the sun set on the ocean.  The sunset time there was about 18:45.  That is when we saw the sun disappears at the horizon.  At that same time, is is approximately noon (11:45 AM) in Bangkok.  The distance between these two locations is about 6,596 miles (using globe Earth measurements, it may be less on the flat Earth).  If we create a right triangle with an adjacent side of 6,596 and an opposite side of 3,000, we get an angle of 24.457°.  If the Earth was flat, that would mean that someone watching the sun set at 18:45 in Honolulu would see it at more than 24° above the horizon.  However, I have personally seen the sun set on the ocean from Honolulu.  I know that it was lower than 24°.  I did the math, and for the sun to be 1° above the horizon, Bangkok would have to be 171,869 miles from Honolulu.

But 1° is still 60 times greater than the angle Samuel Rowbotham (http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za32.htm) claims that objects disappear due to perspective.  According to my calculations, for the distance between the sun and the horizon to be imperceptible (1/60°) at a 3,000 mile altitude, the sun would need to be a little over 1 billion miles away from the observer.  This, obviously, creates other problems.

I could possibly be talked into perspective making up 6.8°, but not 24°.  Are there any errors in my calculations?  Have I made any incorrect presumptions?

[iamcpc]

Have I made any incorrect presumptions?

You have presumed that you can tell the location by what you see. What you "see" is by photons shooting from the sun, being refracted off of the dome (in the dome flat earth model), refracted off of the various layers of atmosphere, refracted off of your eyeball, getting turned into an electrical cloud in your brain, and having your brain try it's best to make some sort of image out of this cloud of electricity.



Take this video for instance



photons are bouncing off of a left facing arrow, being refracted by the glass as they enter, refracted by the water, refracted by the glass as they leave, refracted by your eye and the optical fluid before they are turned into a cloud of electricity for you brain to figure out.

All that refraction has dramatically changed the electrical cloud for your brain and you perceive the arrow to be a different size, in a different position, and even facing a totally different direction.  Someone who was living in a refraction free zone has a very different perception of reality that one who is not.



Here's a video which present a theory on where you "see" the sun vs where the sun really is.

[BigGuyWhoKills]

You have presumed that you can tell the location by what you see. What you "see" is by photons shooting from the sun, being refracted off of the dome (in the dome flat earth model), refracted off of the various layers of atmosphere, refracted off of your eyeball, getting turned into an electrical cloud in your brain, and having your brain try it's best to make some sort of image out of this cloud of electricity.

iamcpc, Thank you for the reply.  I am willing to accept some refraction.  I still don't know how I feel about 24° worth.  But the second video implies that refraction would cause the sun to appear higher in the sky, not lower.  Can you explain that?

[rabinoz]

Have I made any incorrect presumptions?

You have presumed that you can tell the location by what you see. What you "see" is by photons shooting from the sun, being refracted off of the dome (in the dome flat earth model), refracted off of the various layers of atmosphere, refracted off of your eyeball, getting turned into an electrical cloud in your brain, and having your brain try it's best to make some sort of image out of this cloud of electricity.

And you are assuming that sunlight is "being refracted off of the dome (in the dome flat earth model)" because

• there is no evidence that this a dome,
• even if there were a dome it would be presumably be much higher than the sun, so sunlight could not be refracted by the dome.
  Refraction occurs when light passes from one medium to another so saying "being refracted off of the dome" is meaningless.

Likewise, "refracted off of the various layers of atmosphere" is meaningless. In any case, as detailed below, refraction by the atmosphere cannot explain sunsets.

Take this video for instance

photons are bouncing off of a left facing arrow, being refracted by the glass as they enter, refracted by the water, refracted by the glass as they leave, refracted by your eye and the optical fluid before they are turned into a cloud of electricity for you brain to figure out.

All that refraction has dramatically changed the electrical cloud for your brain and you perceive the arrow to be a different size, in a different position, and even facing a totally different direction.  Someone who was living in a refraction free zone has a very different perception of reality that one who is not.

Sure, but glass has a refractive index of about 1.5 and water about 1.33 but air at sea-level has a refractive index of only about 1.00029.
An air-water boundary has a total-internal-reflection angle of about 48.5° easily explaining the observed reflections.
But with the very low refractive index of air total total-internal-reflections need a grazing incidence and is only relevant to mirages and similar effects.

Here's a video which present a theory on where you "see" the sun vs where the sun really is.

As BigGuyWhoKills states, that video only shows how atmospheric refraction can, under normal conditions, bend the light from the sun by typically only about 0.5° when the sun is right on the horizon.
Not only that, but the refraction in that video makes the sun appear a little higher, not the minimum 8.5° lower that BigGuyWhoKills's calculations indicated.
Unusual conditions have been observed with somewhat larger refraction but that doesn't help an explanation for the usual sunrises and sunsets.

All your talk of "dramatically changed the electrical cloud for your brain" is just your trying to make yiur words sound impressive but does not add to their value at all.

[BigGuyWhoKills]

Can a flat-earther give me an answer for these two examples?  I cannot come up with a way that these numbers could possibly work out in FET.

The four ways (that I can come up with) in which my post could be wrong are:
    1. The sun needs to be significantly lower than 3,000 miles above the Earth.
    2. The Earth need to be significantly larger than 25,000 miles in diameter.
    3. The distance from Honolulu to Bangkok needs to be significantly greater than 6,600 miles.
    4. My calculations are wrong.