The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Theory => Topic started by: jimster on March 11, 2019, 08:05:11 PM
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FE has implications for me that casual FErs might not realize.
First, in science class, they didn't say "believe this just because we told you". In 4th grade, we made inclinometers and used them to get an angle on the north star. Then we looked up our latitude, it matched. The teacher then drew a diagram of round earth with people on it and showed how their latitude was equal to the angle they would see to the north star. This was the beginning of education in science through university where we did as many of the actual experiments as practical, we did the math, we saw diagrams, etc.
According to FE I was "brainwashed", but to me that means "too stupid to see through that crap". After all, FErs figured it out, often say it is obvious. So RE must be too dumb to see. Then I look at FE posts and videos and compare it to my fourth grade teacher presentation. Really? 4th grade teacher was tight, clear, simple, complete and explained it. There is no youtube video to explain north star inclination = latitude, I have looked.
Second, I grew up at Edwards AFB USAF Flight Test Center/NASA Dryden/rocket test site where my father worked. My father and most of my friend's fathers worked at test center, nasa, rocket site, astronaut training school, Lockheed, and North American. The first scenes of "The Right Stuff" were filmed there, some in a house exactly like mine. Where they first broke the speed of sound, Yeager. Space shuttle has landed there. I saw SR-71 AND b-70 take off and land. Two X-15 pilots lived on my street, I knew their kids. I asked one if he saw the curve of the earth (through a flat rectangular window), he laughed and said "yes, everybody asks that." Sonic booms all day.
Our fathers got us into very cool aerospace tech places, one father brought home a genie bottle of liquid nitrogen and we did the freeze flower and shatter it, just like the science films. I was in aerospace explorers, tours of Pt Mugu and Goldstone radiotelescopes, climbed all over the test stand for Saturn V, saw (and heard tests of it). Neil Young gave a speech to my high school science class before he went to the moon. After they taught us the periodic chart, we made explosives (chlorine pellets from my backyard pool and some gasoline in a used CO2 cartridge mortar bomb, for one).
In college, I had a summer intern job at the flight test center computer where they were doing data analysis of the then new F-15. My girlfriend summer interned at NASA Dryden, where her father worked on very high temperature glue. I had lunch there and got tours. My best friend's father was an engineer working on the lunar module. The lunar lander was first tested at Edwards. We followed this stuff like other kids followed sports teams.
My father worked on the Saturn V tests. When they fired one off, you could see it and hear it in town. Impressive. Later my father worked on the SR-71, first at the "skunk works", then at area 51.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
My youth was immersed in aerospace, and I personally knew two men who went over 200,000 feet in the X-15. Our fathers were mostly WW2 vets, what Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation". FErs would say they were a bunch of people doing phony things who lacked the ability that FErs have to see through it. The FErs have to be a lot smarter than literal rocket scientists.
So my father was a liar and I am brainwashed, or both brainwashed? Conspiracy theories are not harmless, they hurt people. And I defy you to define the edges of the conspiracy of how ten, or a hundred, or a thousand could do all the required shenanigans to fool billions.
It was miserable living at Edwards, 60 mph wind, 115 degree heat, no trees, tumbleweeds in my yard, out in the middle of nowhere, could get down to zero in winter, once it snowed 2 feet - high desert is a bitch and I hated it. But we did it, to do our tiny part so that USA could have fighters and rockets. And at least I got one of the coolest tech childhoods ever.
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There is no youtube video to explain north star inclination = latitude, I have looked.
It's worse than thought.
Here's one such video that comes close. The indication here is that since it's 3D projected, any scene can be made available to anyone anywhere, and where you are determines what scene you see:
https://youtu.be/4SlRsbQ3nfM?t=4030
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A FEr told me that no planes actually fly from Australia to south America, because on the polar projection map, the distance is too far. I asked him when I flew from Sydney to LA, which is longer than the range of any airliner on the FE polar projection map, and the distance, airliner speed, and travel time all matched the RE globe distance, he questioned whether I was actually in Australia (weird animals, weird geopragy, locals call it OZ for good reason). When I explained I was there for 10 days, traveled to the Blue Mountains, and knew probably 20 Australians that worked for my company, they all thought they were in Australia (or threatened by NASA to lie?), etc etc etc, he changed the subject.
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A FEr told me that no planes actually fly from Australia to south America, because on the polar projection map, the distance is too far. I asked him when I flew from Sydney to LA, which is longer than the range of any airliner on the FE polar projection map, and the distance, airliner speed, and travel time all matched the RE globe distance, he questioned whether I was actually in Australia (weird animals, weird geopragy, locals call it OZ for good reason). When I explained I was there for 10 days, traveled to the Blue Mountains, and knew probably 20 Australians that worked for my company, they all thought they were in Australia (or threatened by NASA to lie?), etc etc etc, he changed the subject.
I’m confused. How did you know the speed of the plane? This is the only way you can compute the distance, yes?
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Other ways to compute the distance: gps, spherical geometry, celestial navigation, odometer.
Boston -> LA is 2700 miles on bing map, nonstop flights are 5 hours 45 minutes.
I have flown this route, my experience matched.
Dividing gives an average speed of 470. Right in the range of jetliner speeds.
What does not match?
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When I explained I was there for 10 days, traveled to the Blue Mountains, and knew probably 20 Australians that worked for my company, they all thought they were in Australia (or threatened by NASA to lie?), etc etc etc, he changed the subject.
I find the hardest part of being Australian is getting that terrible accent right when tourists are around. Also sticking those duck bills on platypuses is really time-consuming. They never keep still.
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A FEr told me that no planes actually fly from Australia to south America, because on the polar projection map, the distance is too far. I asked him when I flew from Sydney to LA, which is longer than the range of any airliner on the FE polar projection map, and the distance, airliner speed, and travel time all matched the RE globe distance, he questioned whether I was actually in Australia (weird animals, weird geopragy, locals call it OZ for good reason). When I explained I was there for 10 days, traveled to the Blue Mountains, and knew probably 20 Australians that worked for my company, they all thought they were in Australia (or threatened by NASA to lie?), etc etc etc, he changed the subject.
I’m confused. How did you know the speed of the plane? This is the only way you can compute the distance, yes?
If you're actually on the flight you can usually poke on the screen in front of you and see the data, which I assume is fairly accurate. One of these:
(https://airlinesfleet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/United-Airlines-Aircraft-Fleet-Boeing-787-8-Dreamliner-Economy-Class-Cabin-Inflight-Entertainment-IFE-Screen.jpg)
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
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I flew from TX to CA, and I have driven from TX to CA. The distance on my odometer was very close to the distance published on the airline schedule. The time was also very close to published. The speed of the airliner worked out to 470 mph, matches time, matches distance, plane matches car matches gps matches google maps.
How would it not be obvious to many immediately if the time speed distance was wrong? Pilot, passengers, etc are zombies? Millions of people, thousands of pilots. All too dumb to realize something doesn't add up?
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
While it is certainly possible to measure a speed, reading a number on a screen is not it. That’s all I’m saying.
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What do we know about airliner speed? Nothing?
Do we know it is about 470 on all schedules?
Can you find me a schedule that does not divide distance by time and get around 470?
I am going to treat airliner speed = 470 as truth. I have many schedules, Boeing docs, and my personal experience as confirmatioon.
Do you have a reason to believe I am wrong that is stronger than my reasons to believe 470 mph?
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What do we know about airliner speed? Nothing?
Do we know it is about 470 on all schedules?
Can you find me a schedule that does not divide distance by time and get around 470?
I am going to treat airliner speed = 470 as truth. I have many schedules, Boeing docs, and my personal experience as confirmatioon.
Do you have a reason to believe I am wrong that is stronger than my reasons to believe 470 mph?
That is a shifting of the burden of proof. I do not have to prove you wrong, you made the claim and so the burden falls on you.
I would say that reading a number off a screen does not qualify as very strong evidence.
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
While it is certainly possible to measure a speed, reading a number on a screen is not it. That’s all I’m saying.
How so? Is a pilot not reading a measured speed via an instrument through a gauge/screen? I often times on a flight listen to the pilots and ATC when available. They are constantly referring to speed and altitude changes. Are they not reading said data from a screen/gauge. As well, their verbal statements regarding such are reflected on the screen in front of me. By your argument the speedometer in my car is just me reading a number on a screen and is not a measure of my speed.
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
While it is certainly possible to measure a speed, reading a number on a screen is not it. That’s all I’m saying.
How so? Is a pilot not reading a measured speed via an instrument through a gauge/screen? I often times on a flight listen to the pilots and ATC when available. They are constantly referring to speed and altitude changes. Are they not reading said data from a screen/gauge. As well, their verbal statements regarding such are reflected on the screen in front of me. By your argument the speedometer in my car is just me reading a number on a screen and is not a measure of my speed.
It is a number shown to you on a screen without any explanation of how it was obtained. You are not in the cockpit reading an instrument. They can put any number they want there.
381 mph. See?
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
While it is certainly possible to measure a speed, reading a number on a screen is not it. That’s all I’m saying.
How so? Is a pilot not reading a measured speed via an instrument through a gauge/screen? I often times on a flight listen to the pilots and ATC when available. They are constantly referring to speed and altitude changes. Are they not reading said data from a screen/gauge. As well, their verbal statements regarding such are reflected on the screen in front of me. By your argument the speedometer in my car is just me reading a number on a screen and is not a measure of my speed.
It is a number shown to you on a screen without any explanation of how it was obtained. You are not in the cockpit reading an instrument. They can put any number they want there.
381 mph. See?
So is the number shown on the screen in the cockpit without any explanation of how it was obtained just a number with no meaning or accuracy? Does the speedometer in my car also need to show the mechanics and formulas used to derive the speed it displays?
As well, I can hear the pilot say to ATC, "Copy, to X knots and X altitude..." And sure enough, the screen in the headrest in front of me will ultimately show those X's.
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
While it is certainly possible to measure a speed, reading a number on a screen is not it. That’s all I’m saying.
How so? Is a pilot not reading a measured speed via an instrument through a gauge/screen? I often times on a flight listen to the pilots and ATC when available. They are constantly referring to speed and altitude changes. Are they not reading said data from a screen/gauge. As well, their verbal statements regarding such are reflected on the screen in front of me. By your argument the speedometer in my car is just me reading a number on a screen and is not a measure of my speed.
It is a number shown to you on a screen without any explanation of how it was obtained. You are not in the cockpit reading an instrument. They can put any number they want there.
381 mph. See?
So is the number shown on the screen in the cockpit without any explanation of how it was obtained just a number with no meaning or accuracy? Does the speedometer in my car also need to show the mechanics and formulas used to derive the speed it displays?
As well, I can hear the pilot say to ATC, "Copy, to X knots and X altitude..." And sure enough, the screen in the headrest in front of me will ultimately show those X's.
Oh yeah? You hear someone say that same number. Okay. I am unimpressed.
You have never seen the number in the cockpit and verified it was the number on the screen, have you? Or are you a pilot?
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
How would anyone 'know' the speed without instrumentation of some sort? If I'm a pilot (or a passenger) I assume they know their speed/distance/fuel consumption through instrumentation/calculation or we all wind up in the drink. Unless of course you want to argue that we have no knowledge as to or any way to measure how fast something is moving. I'm game.
While it is certainly possible to measure a speed, reading a number on a screen is not it. That’s all I’m saying.
How so? Is a pilot not reading a measured speed via an instrument through a gauge/screen? I often times on a flight listen to the pilots and ATC when available. They are constantly referring to speed and altitude changes. Are they not reading said data from a screen/gauge. As well, their verbal statements regarding such are reflected on the screen in front of me. By your argument the speedometer in my car is just me reading a number on a screen and is not a measure of my speed.
It is a number shown to you on a screen without any explanation of how it was obtained. You are not in the cockpit reading an instrument. They can put any number they want there.
381 mph. See?
So is the number shown on the screen in the cockpit without any explanation of how it was obtained just a number with no meaning or accuracy? Does the speedometer in my car also need to show the mechanics and formulas used to derive the speed it displays?
As well, I can hear the pilot say to ATC, "Copy, to X knots and X altitude..." And sure enough, the screen in the headrest in front of me will ultimately show those X's.
Oh yeah? You hear someone say that same number. Okay. I am unimpressed.
You have never seen the number in the cockpit and verified it was the number on the screen, have you? Or are you a pilot?
I wouldn't say just 'someone', that 'someone' would be the pilot/ATC. And the seemingly random number they say shows on my screen as well.
So far, your argument is that unless everyone is shown exactly how a number presented on a screen/gauge is derived/calculated, the number is meaningless/inaccurate. Now that's an unimpressive argument.
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Are you implying that planes don't actually fly that fast and therefore further implying that flight distances with the known flight times therefore equate to shorter flight distances?
I can personally say that I have calculated the top speed of different airplanes based on fuel combustion and engine power, thrust, aerodynamics, etc. Its was a great course in college. Those calculations match what is actually flown to a certain degree.
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Jim,
I don’t HAVE an argument. You do. I am asking for reliable evidence to support your argument, and I am trying to help you formulate it.
Is there any way you can think of to estimate the distance you are traveling in a plane? Imagine there are no clouds, and you are flying over farm country.
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Oh, so you don’t actually know the speed, but rather assume the number shown to you is accurate.
Well then, I’d sure like to play you in poker :)
Use the GPS on your phone, hold it by a window to show speed and location.
It might even tell you the distance from New York to Paris.
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You can calculate GS, aka ground speed, using the time it takes to pass between two landmarks with a known distance. Since, at least in the US, the grids on which country roads are laid out are in one square mile increments, you could technically use that as a landmark, assuming the surveyor and road workers paved the road properly.
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Jim,
I don’t HAVE an argument. You do. I am asking for reliable evidence to support your argument, and I am trying to help you formulate it.
Is there any way you can think of to estimate the distance you are traveling in a plane? Imagine there are no clouds, and you are flying over farm country.
QED, We actually had a thread going a week ago or so where we discussed a number of ideas like reconstructing the scenery from a cell phone video taken out of the airplane window to measure distance.
Another was to test a portable GPS in an airplane on overland flight to see if it correctly reported the distance between passing over known landmarks on land at airplane speeds. The reasoning being that if a given GPS gave accurate speeds and distances in a plane at flying speeds over land that it should be good flying over water too. But then it was postulated that the GPS system may shift into an inaccurate skewed reading of speed and distance while the airplane simultanously slows down or speeds up (often flying at below it's stall speed or over the speed of sound) in order to reach it's flat-world location in the time that the globe model predicts, but in a way that is undetectable by the passengers.
Other ideas included chartering a single engine plane so the RPM of the engine could be recorded via microphone and so the would be no secret airplane speedup.
we kind of decided accurately measuring long distances was out of the reach of hobbyists which is a real problem because flat earthers don't trust any professional to measure if the results or globular.
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I like the first idea the best - because it relies on no fancy gizmos.
So it IS possible to make a rough estimate of the speed an airplane is flying, by measuring the time it takes to cross between certain landmarks. Also, certain farmlands are often parceled into regular plots of known acers. This would likewise help you measure a distance. You’d have to be very careful of course, but this can be done.
It can certainly be done well enough to determine if the speed on the screen is roughly correct or not.
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I like the first idea the best - because it relies on no fancy gizmos.
The fancy gizmos are what help modern commercial pilots do what they do; transport goods and humans safely and profitably around the planet 24/7.
So it IS possible to make a rough estimate of the speed an airplane is flying, by measuring the time it takes to cross between certain landmarks. Also, certain farmlands are often parceled into regular plots of known acers. This would likewise help you measure a distance. You’d have to be very careful of course, but this can be done.
Well, to estimate the speed you need the distance and to estimate the distance you need the speed. So if you're trying to estimate the speed with time between known landmarks then you need to know the distance. And the distance comes from a map. That map was derived from surveyors using fancy gizmos or even fancier gizmos like satellite GPS. So just b/c the end output is a number on a piece of paper and not on a screen, it still came from a lot of fancy gizmos to you.
And if you want to believe you can visually count what you think are acres and come up with a distance that's more accurate, or even in the ballpark, than the numbers derived by fancy gizmos, I am very impressed.
It can certainly be done well enough to determine if the speed on the screen is roughly correct or not.
Or, like I said, listen in on the pilots' radio transmissions and see if what they and ATC say jives with what's on the screen in front of you. I've done it and it has. It's not like it's voodoo.
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You really shouldn’t be THAT impressed. It is quite possible to estimate such parceled distances with a little thought.
In physics, we call these fermi problems.
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You really shouldn’t be THAT impressed. It is quite possible to estimate such parceled distances with a little thought.
In physics, we call these fermi problems.
Sure you could Fermi out a guestimate from 35k ft as to the size of each parcel of land passing below you and be wildly inaccurate in your measurement. Or, you could listen to the pilot transmissions as I hope they have more accurate readings and are not trying to do what you are doing by counting corn fields out the window. Then there's the whole business of over water flights - maybe one can fermi it out by counting waves.
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You really shouldn’t be THAT impressed. It is quite possible to estimate such parceled distances with a little thought.
In physics, we call these fermi problems.
Sure you could Fermi out a guestimate from 35k ft as to the size of each parcel of land passing below you and be wildly inaccurate in your measurement. Or, you could listen to the pilot transmissions as I hope they have more accurate readings and are not trying to do what you are doing by counting corn fields out the window. Then there's the whole business of over water flights - maybe one can fermi it out by counting waves.
Lol, point taken. But you’d be surprised what can be estimated fairly accurately using this method. I teach it to students all the time, and they arrive at accurate order of magnitude estimates for all sorts of things: the number of windows in Chicago, the mean-free path before you see a limousine, the speed that grass grows, how many heart beats have taken place on earth so far....
So I would suggest that it would be premature to discount such a method, especially before you learn it :)
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You really shouldn’t be THAT impressed. It is quite possible to estimate such parceled distances with a little thought.
In physics, we call these fermi problems.
Sure you could Fermi out a guestimate from 35k ft as to the size of each parcel of land passing below you and be wildly inaccurate in your measurement. Or, you could listen to the pilot transmissions as I hope they have more accurate readings and are not trying to do what you are doing by counting corn fields out the window. Then there's the whole business of over water flights - maybe one can fermi it out by counting waves.
Lol, point taken. But you’d be surprised what can be estimated fairly accurately using this method. I teach it to students all the time, and they arrive at accurate order of magnitude estimates for all sorts of things: the number of windows in Chicago, the mean-free path before you see a limousine, the speed that grass grows, how many heart beats have taken place on earth so far....
So I would suggest that it would be premature to discount such a method, especially before you learn it :)
I get it. And I'm not calling it a crap method by any means. I'm all for ballparking stuff, but when it comes to flying in a tube 30k feet up I prefer more exacting methods. And those exacting methods seem to work the world over, 24/7, 365. It's kind of like if I need to drive a nail into a 2x4 and I have a hammer in one hand and a rock in the other, I'm probably going to go with the hammer.