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Suggestions & Concerns / Yet another warning

« on: September 08, 2021, 08:46:17 AM »

Here is the sequence of events:
A user (whose name I do not recall) posted in FE Theory a a new thread with few questions (I think the title was something like "could to find in the FAQ), they involved things like the fact that the ISS can be seen with just binoculars.
Then about a week later after getting no responses that same uses posted "I guess no one is going to respond"
To which I replied with the reason I thought no one would respond which as far as I can see has a lot to do with the entire MO of FE theory and what is going on on this board.
So then I got a warning for off-topiic posting and the thread was deleted (as far as I can tell).

So if my post was off-topic for the FE theory board (despite it being a response to a post already there) where should it have been posted?

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Flat Earth Theory / Problems with the FE sun

« on: August 21, 2021, 07:17:28 PM »

Some clear indications of the round earth require a bit of effort to observe (like noticing that the stars change as you move north/south requires you to travel a bit).
But issues with the sun can be observed by anyone right where you are.

The FET posits some sort of "spot light sun" that tracks around the claimed disk earth roughly around the equator (a bit north or south depending on the season though what causes this movement is not specified).  The day light illumination provided by this FE sun is going be a round spot fading into darkness and this spot must fit roughly between the center and outer edge of the disk.   So the radius of this spot is roughly half the radius of the disk.  But that means the area of the illuminated spot is only 1/4 the area of the entire disk, yet we observer it to be half.  Doesn't this refute the FE model?

We observe the light / dark transition to be a straight line (usually not due north / south but still a straight line), but the spot the "spot light sun" would cast would be round and thus have a curved light to dark or dark to light transition.  This transition zone will also be much wider than what we observe. The sunrise and sunset times available online for basically any city on earth are based on the globe model and I have never heard of anyone anywhere every claiming they are wrong.   Doesn't this refute the FE model? 

The FET claims that the sun rising and setting behind the horizon is an illusion of perspective where a far distant object appears low on the horizon and as it nears you it appears to rise.  But the perspective illusion explanation does not provide for an equal amount of rise irrespective of the position of the sun.  The track of the sun across the sky changes day to day, but the angular distance we observe the sun travel along that track is the the same for every hour of the day.  But the perspective illusion has a much smaller angular change in the morning or evening than it does at midday.  Doesn't this refute the FE model?

The sun does not appear at sunrise as a tiny dot that grows size but it comes up from behind the horizon and is observed to be larger than it is for the bulk of its trek across the sky and likewise for sunset.  The perception of a large disk size at sunrise or sunset is due to atmospheric distortion, but clearly it is not a tiny dot that grows or shrinks but we observe it (please be extremely careful observing the sun) as roughly the same size throughout its daily passage.  Doesn't this refute the FE model?

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Flat Earth Theory / What is beyond the south pole?

« on: August 21, 2021, 12:02:40 AM »

There are numerous obvious problems with FET with regard to it not coming close to predicting the observations of the sun, day/night, moon, and stars that we actually see.
But here I'm just asking about the rather fanciful claim that what is past the south pole is not the other side of the planet but a transparent dome, or an infinite frozen plane
The "ice wall" is apparently out of fashion (though it seems to come up often enough).

Flights over the south pole while not common have occurred and those as well as land expeditions across Antartica all end up on the other side of the planet just as the global earth theory predicts.
None has been stopped by the dome, or ended up on a frozen waste land (or hit the ice wall).

There have been circumnavigations of Antartica as well including In 2019 by a robotic sail done ( https://www.noaa.gov/news/saildrone-is-first-to-circumnavigate-antarctica-in-search-for-carbon-dioxide ) which clearly documented its 13,670 mile trip. Less than 1/5th of the 75,000 miles going around the edge of the flat earth would entail.

To be honest the FE is so silly I find it very hard to accept that anyone takes it seriously.

Why do these clear results not soundly refute the FET for its supporters?   The claim is that such support stems from observation and evidence not just belief, but here is evidence that throughly refutes the FE, yet its supporters remain.

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Flat Earth Theory / How did FE proponents come to believe in a FE? What lead you to this view?

« on: August 08, 2021, 04:13:33 PM »

I'm not trying to be flip here, I'm asking the FE believers to do something difficult.  That is to examine why you believe something.
It is clear (as can be seen in other threads on this very site) that no FE theory explains the observations of our world that any of us can make and we haven't even gotten into the vast amount of more technical scientific data and fundamental physics theory around gravitation, relativity, etc.  If you do not accept that, and use that as your main reason, that's fine (let me know) but please do not use this thread to debate the scientific viability of FE, there are other threads dealing with that.  Plus of course there is the impossible level of conspiracy a FE view requires.

So if you are a FE believer, how did you come to this point of view?   Can you recall when you first started to think this way and why?

Beyond that why do you continue to believe it?

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Flat Earth Theory / How do FE proponents explain flying over the south pole?

« on: August 01, 2021, 05:15:57 PM »

I figured this would be frequently addressed but I couldn't find it (so if it has please just point me there).

Suppose you start out 1,000 miles north of the south pole (of for FEers the ice wall) and fly due south and continue on that same locked heading for 2,000 miles.
Where do you end up 2,000 miles laster?  In reality you end up in what the FE model says is the other side of the disk, but that can't be so ??   Even ignoring that
no one has ever seen this claimed ice wall, doesn't just overlying the pole prove it really is the bottom of the ball?

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Flat Earth Theory / On a FE, why does the night sky appear different depending on your position?

« on: August 01, 2021, 01:52:46 AM »

The night sky seen from the northern and southern hemispheres is radially different.  No matter how powerful your telescope you can not see stars that are on the other side of the planet from your position.  That is what we observe and it makes perfect sense for a ball earth.  But why would it be true for a flat earth?