21

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 22, 2017, 11:00:33 PM »

The actual paths of these objects from a side view is immaterial. Your side view model is just a theoretical construct based on Euclidean space for how things *should* be positioned based on some continuous trigonometry rules.

Actually, the side view models you are looking at here are composed of pixels. They are a representation of a discrete space - so why can't you draw one - just one, not two from two different perspectives - that represents what you say is actually happening? Or are you saying there IS no objective reality?

Here's what I'd like to know:

You say a perfect straight-line bullet fired perfectly horizontally at the setting sun would hit it. And I agree that it would, eventually, if we discount all other relative motion that's going on.

I can't see how that happens in your version of reality, though.

Let's suppose this perfect straight-line bullet is slow enough to follow in a helicopter. So we stand on a cliff, aim perfectly horizontally at the setting sun bisecting the horizon across the ocean, and pull the trigger. Then we get in the chopper and follow it. We take a radio with us, and an observer back on the cliff confirms that we are converging perfectly on the horizon, heading straight for the sun. We fly and fly and the bullet just keeps going, a couple of hundred feet above the waves. We catch up with the sun (which we've paused for the duration of this experiment), and it passes 3000 miles overhead.

Why didn't the bullet hit the sun? We aimed right at it and fired in a perfectly straight line, and our observer on the radio told us we were heading straight for the sun - but somehow we've managed to 'hit' the bottom couple of hundred feet of 3000 miles of empty air that we couldn't even see when we took the shot!

Let's say we try again, and this time we aim up a couple of degrees, just to make absolutely sure. We follow the bullet again, and it does get higher this time, but it still passes almost 3000 miles below the sun.

To me, it seems inarguable that if we want to hit a sun that is in reality 6000 miles away and 3000 miles in the air over (approximately) flat ground we must fire it at an angle to the ground that will cause it to rise 3000 miles over the course of 6000 travelled horizontally. And if that's the case, then that's the same angle the sun must appear to us in the sky. Doesn't that make sense to you?

Congratulations!   You just won the 3DGeek prize for most coherent explanation that'll screw with Tom's head!

This is beautiful.   I may print and frame it!

So - yeah.     If a hypothetical physical object that travelled in a perfectly straight line (Tom's "bullet/laser") that is aimed at the horizon, where the sun APPEARS to be...then Tom says we'd hit the sun (even though it's 3000 miles up in the sky).

Rather than following it with a helicopter.   Let's tie a piece of string around the bullet with a plumb-line attached to it (it's a thought-experiment plumb-bob with zero air resistance).   I'm 5'10" tall - so we'll make the string about 5'7" long - just long enough so it touches the ground as the bullet leaves the barrel.

As the bullet moves away from me - the plumb bob just touches the ground...I'm watching it carefully through a telescope and at no point does it NOT touch the ground because "The Earth Is Flat" and I fired it at the sun - which was at the horizon at the time.

As it impacts the sun (as Tom, surprisingly, says it must) - the end of the string is both touching the ground and 3,000 miles ABOVE the ground.

Weird or what?

I think Tom just shot himself in the foot with what I'm going to name "The Bishop Bullet".   Now he's in an even deeper hole.

You could to the experiment with a crazy-powerful laser - put it on a tripod, say 5' above the ground and aim it at the setting sun - then have someone run along next to the laser checking how high above the ground it is (should always be 5') until they are 6,000 miles away and under the noontime sun.  Either:

1) The laser wasn't aimed horizontally in the first place - but rather at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizon...which we'd know after we walk just two feet away from it and discover that the beam is now 6' above the ground.
...OR...
2) Tom is wrong and laser doesn't hit the sun after all - in which case the laser light went straight and the sunlight bent - over the same distance.
...OR...
3) The sun leaves a gigantic scorch mark when it rests on the ground at the point when the laser hits it.
...OR...
4) The world isn't flat and the ground curves away below the laser beam so the (initially) horizontal laser beam can indeed hit the sun while it's also 93 million miles above our head.

Anyway - Nice one JocelynSachs!  Very nice indeed!

22

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What happens when the ice wall melts?

« on: November 22, 2017, 10:28:52 PM »

I do believe the FE view of the ice wall is that it is roughly 150 ft tall and infinitely thick. Under the ice is actual rocks, but the lack of sunlight beyond the ice wall allows for an infinite plane of ice/rocks.

The problem with "lack of sunlight" beyond the ice wall is that it would get colder and colder the further away from the sun you went.

At some point it would be cold enough to turn the air into a liquid - then to freeze it solid.

But if the air froze solid - there would be a vacuum above it - into which air from the warmer regions would rush.    It too would freeze.    Within no much time, there would be supersonic winds rushing out over the ice wall - and within a very short time (days - not years) the air where we're living would all be gone.  With no air pressure, the oceans would start to boil - and the water vapor would also rush out over the ice wall and freeze.    Pretty soon, all life on Earth would be dead - there would be no air or water of any kind.

Since this CLEARLY hasn't happened - we must presume that the ice-wall malarky is nonsense.   A true flat Earth would need 100 mile high walls around the edges to contain the atmosphere.

But if the air is held in place via the firmament, it's possible.

I suppose so.  But that introduces many other problems.

23

Flat Earth Theory / Re: In the bipolar map - what is around the edge?

« on: November 22, 2017, 10:27:56 PM »

I'm lost. If there is an ice wall, how do we get to it?  If we can't because the flat earth is infinite, how does the sun rise and set?

Not all FE'ers believe the same thing.

* Some say that there is a solid dome over the Earth - made of (maybe) ice - because the Bible says so.
* Some say that the land BEYOND the ice wall is infinite - but we can't get there because it's too cold and dark.
* Some say that the flat earth is NOT infinite - and has a high wall around it to stop the air and water from escaping.
* Doubtless, there are other variations.

MOST FE'ers believe that the sun moves around at a constant (or near-constant) height of 3,000 miles above the flat earth.   A few have other ideas.

Some people believe that the ice wall is what we RE'ers would say is just the outer edge of antarctica.  Some believe that there is a separate continent of antarctica AND an entirely separate ice wall that surrounds the outer rim of the world.

Some say that the interior of antarctica cannot be explored because it's too dark and too cold.   Some say that the United Nations has ships, planes and drones that  are tasked with preventing nosey people from going to the ice wall...they are oddly unspecific about how this is possible or why nobody who's been turned around by them has ever written about it.

100% of these ideas are utterly indefensible...some more than others.

24

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What happens when the ice wall melts?

« on: November 22, 2017, 10:17:38 PM »

I do believe the FE view of the ice wall is that it is roughly 150 ft tall and infinitely thick. Under the ice is actual rocks, but the lack of sunlight beyond the ice wall allows for an infinite plane of ice/rocks.

The problem with "lack of sunlight" beyond the ice wall is that it would get colder and colder the further away from the sun you went.

At some point it would be cold enough to turn the air into a liquid - then to freeze it solid.

But if the air froze solid - there would be a vacuum above it - into which air from the warmer regions would rush.    It too would freeze.    Within no much time, there would be supersonic winds rushing out over the ice wall - and within a very short time (days - not years) the air where we're living would all be gone.  With no air pressure, the oceans would start to boil - and the water vapor would also rush out over the ice wall and freeze.    Pretty soon, all life on Earth would be dead - there would be no air or water of any kind.

Since this CLEARLY hasn't happened - we must presume that the ice-wall malarky is nonsense.   A true flat Earth would need 100 mile high walls around the edges to contain the atmosphere.

25

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Speed of light

« on: November 21, 2017, 04:35:44 PM »

You can't just make a claim and say, prove me wrong. Without evidence, it doesn't mean anything.

Well, you can...but then everyone will assume that you're a complete idiot...AND have the evidence to prove it!

26

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Using airline flight data.

« on: November 21, 2017, 03:53:34 PM »

One could use the real-time data provided by flightradar to monitor certain flights as they happen.

Sure - and we've suggested that too.   I forget what the countervailing argument for that one was.

I've also suggested (for long distances) that using the "ping" times over the Internet would place a lower limit on the distances between locations. An Internet "ping" can't travel faster than light - so if it takes 70 milliseconds to get a result - the distance between the two locations cannot be more than (0.007/2) x speed-of-light.  But the resident flim-flam artists don't like that one either!

I think they used to believe that they could simply say "our map isn't finalized yet - so all bets are off on disproving it"...but that simply isn't enough.  If we have ANY measurement of distances - even quite approximate ones - we can prove conclusively that there is no POSSIBLE flat map that fits the data.

Bottom line - no matter WHAT measurement of distance (or angles) you can come up with, the FE'ers *CANNOT* tolerate it's acceptance because that would be the final death-knell of their stupid theory.

We've even tried ASKING FE'ers what kinds of distance measurements they would accept...and we get <crickets>.

But as I've said - we now have "The best mind in Flat Earthism" claiming that math doesn't work.  He actually posted a link that he claimed proved that "2+2 doesn't equal 4" - which turned out to be something that said nothing of the sort...but that tells you quite a bit about the level of intellect around here!

To be fair on the ping thing, it IS sort of important to be 100% sure the spot you're pinging is where it's supposed to be/claiming it to be. Actually on that note, couldn't a site like pingtest.net be a useful/reliable source? You can select a server to ping, so you'll know the location of the server in regards to where you are, and it shouldn't be too hard to verify the locations of the server through another means, right? Idle thought.

I do wish any of them would pipe up with what can be used to measure distance though. Not that I expect any distance gathered to be accepted considering the present apparent claim that basic math doesn't work in the real world.

Yes - it certainly is important to know where the server is...and that's not an easy thing to prove.  It looks like Ookla have discontinued the pingtest.net site though.

27

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 21, 2017, 03:50:57 PM »

If space is non-euclidean then ALL light rays are curved - including the ones that lead to the tree on the horizon.

Also including the ones used by FE to calculate the height of the sun above the flat earth, as I've pointed out before.  Which means the sun could be at any height.  Which is the same as saying that nobody can know anything about the sun's height, since how would you know how much curvature the light has?

It's much easier to assume the light has NO curvature and see where that takes you.  I seem to recall Tom once saying as much...

The problem for non-Euclidean spaces is that land and light and eyes and cameras would all be non-Euclidean.   The only way to TELL that you're in a non-Euclidean space is to test things like whether the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees and whether pythagoras's theorem works.

The biggest, and simplest, way to show that Tom is talking more horseshit is to do this (either for real - or as a thought-experiment):

1) Draw 200 thirty mile diameter suns next to each other in a 6000 miles horizontal line from zenith where you're standing at sunset to zenith where it's midday.
2) These represent the positions where the sun was at zenith at 200 locations spaced 6/200 hours (1.8 minutes) apart.
3) Now draw lines (using Tom's magic perspective/non-euclidean/discrete weird-assed fake math) from the edges of these suns to my eye.
4) We know that the light from the top edge of the sun at sunset had to follow the exact same optical path as the bottom edge of the sun did 1.8 minutes earlier.
5) But if the sun is being pushed to the horizon by some funky non-linear space - then it's angular speed from zenith to horizon won't be constant.
6) Which means that the sun will not remain circular - it'll get squashed into an ellipse.

Since the sun NEVER looks elliptical - there cannot be anything other than true straight line propagation of light...and that defeats Flat Earthism.

Then think about the implications of being able to see sunlight reflected from the undersides of clouds when the sun is BELOW the horizon.   This can't happen in Flat Earth (no matter how the light rays travel) because if they bent that much, they'd hit the ground before they reached the clouds.

The reason Tom has suddenly started talking about non-Euclidean geometry is because he's realized that his earlier statement the "Light travels in straight lines" was killing him.   What he SHOULD have done was to say that he was mistaken about that - and that Electromagnetic Acceleration applies (his earlier theory).   But since he now knows that he's painted himself into a corner - he's grasping at non-Euclidean straws to try to rectify the situation without losing face.

Well...it's not going to work.   If light is curved for WHATEVER reason - then the light from everything is curved in the same exact way - so it would STILL look like the sun was way above the horizon.

The only way to get out of this one is to claim that sunlight, moonlight, starlight, planetlight, cometlight, etc doesn't travel in straight lines - but every OTHER source of light does.

That too would get decidedly funky - things like mirrors would start to behave weirdly.

There simply isn't a way to "fix" FET with anything remotely convincing.

Magic pixie dust (or magic perspective) that does whatever Tom commands it to do is the only way out.

28

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Using airline flight data.

« on: November 21, 2017, 03:29:52 PM »

One could use the real-time data provided by flightradar to monitor certain flights as they happen.

Sure - and we've suggested that too.   I forget what the countervailing argument for that one was.

I've also suggested (for long distances) that using the "ping" times over the Internet would place a lower limit on the distances between locations. An Internet "ping" can't travel faster than light - so if it takes 70 milliseconds to get a result - the distance between the two locations cannot be more than (0.007/2) x speed-of-light.  But the resident flim-flam artists don't like that one either!

I think they used to believe that they could simply say "our map isn't finalized yet - so all bets are off on disproving it"...but that simply isn't enough.  If we have ANY measurement of distances - even quite approximate ones - we can prove conclusively that there is no POSSIBLE flat map that fits the data.

Bottom line - no matter WHAT measurement of distance (or angles) you can come up with, the FE'ers *CANNOT* tolerate it's acceptance because that would be the final death-knell of their stupid theory.

We've even tried ASKING FE'ers what kinds of distance measurements they would accept...and we get <crickets>.

But as I've said - we now have "The best mind in Flat Earthism" claiming that math doesn't work.  He actually posted a link that he claimed proved that "2+2 doesn't equal 4" - which turned out to be something that said nothing of the sort...but that tells you quite a bit about the level of intellect around here!

29

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Bedford Levels experiment

« on: November 21, 2017, 03:16:10 PM »

I understand from the comments above that there is currently little clarity about how the Wiki is maintained. I'll do my best to improve that communication and provide more open avenues for making suggestions. I was sincerely under the impression that the current system works fine, but I am now realising this may not be the case.

Thanks Pete - it was not obvious who to contact in order to make changes.  I've complained to various FE'ers about (for example) the spelling of Eratosthenes - and never once did anyone say "You need to talk to Pete Svarrior about that"...or "You need to post to this specific place on the forum to get it investigated".

So might I suggest that the first change to be made to the wiki be to prominently add a page "HOW TO MAKE CHANGES TO THIS WIKI" - that says to contact you to get permission to edit - and these are the acceptable boundaries for content.  (eg: Do you want a section on common RET complaints about FET that you have good answers for - and a section for RET complaints that FET DOESN'T have good answers for?)

I will not be changing the description of the Ice Wall to something more palatable to round earthers, because this is not a RE wiki. And yes, I know you disagree with us on that one, so spare us the essay.

The problem is not with the description of the Ice Wall - the way it's described is (presumably) a good reflection on what FE'ers claim - so that's the right thing for the Wiki to have.

The problem is with the photograph.  Which I've shown, conclusively, is a photograph of a large iceberg...there is zero doubt on that score.

I think it's fine to say "This is a photo of an iceberg - but it shows what the ice wall probably looks like" - but it's wrong to say (or even imply) that this is an actual photograph of the ice wall...because that's a flat out lie.

I understand your wish to present a clear statement of FET on the Wiki - but the BIGGEST cause of confusion here is that there clearly isn't one single FET.  There are lots of disagreements between FE'ers on many of the points there.   So I think it would be good if the Wiki clearly laid out the various viewpoints.

Many of the places where you and I have butted heads is when I've said "FET says this" when in fact, the truth is that "Some FE'ers say this"...and when you're not one of that group - you (understandably) get upset about it.   I'm not making this mistake intentionally - it's just REALLY HARD to keep track of which FE'ers hold which theories.

The biggest SNAFU in the Wiki is about the FE map.   There is hardly a mention of the "bipolar" map - and almost the entire Wiki is written from the perspective of a "unipolar" map.   Tom says that the unipolar map was "replaced" in 1911 (!!) - and either he's wrong (only SOME FE'ers decided to change to the bipolar map) - or the Wiki and at least 60% of what is says is 100 years out of date.

I'm an experienced Wiki editor - I maintain three Wiki's (one for a local car club, another for my family and a third for my business) and I'm in the top 2000 editors of all time at Wikipedia.   I'd be happy to do a bit of "WikiGnoming"  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiGnome) - without making major content changes.  It's clearly the case that the Wiki should represent the views of FE'ers - even if they are complete horseshit (which they are!) - so adding RET stuff into it would be inappropriate - unless it's in some specific "Common Unanswered Criticisms" kind of page.

30

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Bedford Levels experiment

« on: November 20, 2017, 09:31:01 PM »

Just too many variables that are impossible to control for.

Fair enough. Resolved.

I actually own a 100 watt class IV laser...but it's not visible light, it's infra-red.  That thing is scary dangerous.  Even the reflection of a reflection of the laser is enough to destroy your eyesight and the 30,000 volt power supply can produce 3" long sparks on a humid day!   The idea of a bunch of people with a poor understanding of math and science aiming it down a canal is decidedly terrifying!

31

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Bedford Levels experiment

« on: November 20, 2017, 09:04:12 PM »

With the modern technology we have today, could we not set up Wallace's experiment with lasers? It should prove more concrete than "appearing" a certain way.

Not with cheap, safe, easily portable lasers.

A typical laser pointer would illuminate an area about 10 meters in diameter at the end of the Bedford levels...and as a consequence, it would be far too dim to see, even at night.

You'd need a class 3B or possibly a visible beam class 4 laser to do an experiment over that distance - and those things are heavily regulated.  You couldn't just haul one off to a potentially populated area and start shining it down a canal without cordoning off the area, etc, etc.

But the result would be the same.

The problem is that the refractive index of air (which doesn't normally vary much) is significantly affected by temperature and humidity changes - so when the beam skirts close to the surface of the water (which it will if the Earth is round) then it's going to be diffracted downwards - making it look like the water is flatter than it really is.

This happens SPECIFICALLY in this kind of test because the temperature of air at a foot or so above the water and an inch or so above water are going to be quite different - and the humidity will change immensely over those very short distances too.   So given the perfect conditions, you can make the beam follow the curvature of the Earth - or you can have it curve upwards (making the earth look more curved than it really is) - or more sharply downwards (making the Earth seem concave).

Using a laser doesn't change that.

To do the experiment right, you'd need to have control of the air temperature and humidity over ten to twenty feet above the water - and doing that outdoors is impractical.

So this experiment is a bust.   You can make it come out any way you want by just trying it over and over again.   If it just rained, there will be lots of humidity at all heights - so the beam will be straighter and the world will look more curved.   If you do it after a long dry spell - then it'll come out flatter.   If it's a cooler day, then straighter beam - if it's a warmer day then a more curved beam.   Add in wind conditions to blow the humidity off to the side of a canal - things change again.

Just too many variables that are impossible to control for.

It's never going to resolve this argument...period.

32

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Seasons. How do they work on flat earth?

« on: November 20, 2017, 08:49:29 PM »

The problem the bipolar map has is how to explain it being daylight on both east and west coastlines of the pacific ocean while being nighttime in Africa.

No, still had that problem. Think of it like two unipolar maps for the motion of the sun. During North Summer it follows a track around the North Pole, and during North Winter it follows a track around the South Pole. On the Equinoxes it moves between these two tracks through some unknown mechanism.

So yeah, it comes with it's own host of issues, but it at least solves the whole Antarctica continent thing! This seems to be a bit of a theme....

Well does it?  It still has an Ice Wall - only now the ice is there on the equator.  I thought the unipolar map actually made a lot more sense...it's a lot easier to toss a bunch of antarctic explorers into the "conspiracy bucket" than it is to claim that people (like me) who crossed the international date line somewhere near the equator on a ship somehow either teleported to the other side of the disk - or made a roughly 12,000 mile detour during which VERY weird things would happen to compasses and stars while "above" the North pole or "below" the South pole.

The unipolar map kinda worked because it buried all of the anomalies and weird shit behind the ice wall in a place where hardly anyone goes, and the sun and moon can be expected to behave wierdly.

The bipolar map dumps all of those same anomalies slap in the middle of the pacific ocean where LOTS of people travel - and where both sun and moon (and stars) all have to move.

From an FE'er's perspective, it's a disaster.

Yeah, it solved the problem it set out to solve, that of Antarctica being a distinct continent. A lot of FE hypotheses appear to take this route. They find an observation that doesn't fit in some way, and create a way to make it fit, consequences in other areas be damned.

Yep - it's definitely the FE'ers biggest weakness.  You can see it time upon time.

33

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Seasons. How do they work on flat earth?

« on: November 20, 2017, 07:59:05 PM »

The problem the bipolar map has is how to explain it being daylight on both east and west coastlines of the pacific ocean while being nighttime in Africa.

No, still had that problem. Think of it like two unipolar maps for the motion of the sun. During North Summer it follows a track around the North Pole, and during North Winter it follows a track around the South Pole. On the Equinoxes it moves between these two tracks through some unknown mechanism.

So yeah, it comes with it's own host of issues, but it at least solves the whole Antarctica continent thing! This seems to be a bit of a theme....

Well does it?  It still has an Ice Wall - only now the ice is there on the equator.  I thought the unipolar map actually made a lot more sense...it's a lot easier to toss a bunch of antarctic explorers into the "conspiracy bucket" than it is to claim that people (like me) who crossed the international date line somewhere near the equator on a ship somehow either teleported to the other side of the disk - or made a roughly 12,000 mile detour during which VERY weird things would happen to compasses and stars while "above" the North pole or "below" the South pole.

The unipolar map kinda worked because it buried all of the anomalies and weird shit behind the ice wall in a place where hardly anyone goes, and the sun and moon can be expected to behave wierdly.

The bipolar map dumps all of those same anomalies slap in the middle of the pacific ocean where LOTS of people travel - and where both sun and moon (and stars) all have to move.

From an FE'er's perspective, it's a disaster.

34

Flat Earth Community / Re: Anyone for a public discussion?

« on: November 20, 2017, 07:36:55 PM »

The problem is a good deal more subtle than that. 

i can't really tell who you're arguing with.

but yes, that's how numerical integration works.

The deal is that the FE'ers claim that "because mathematicians can't solve the three-body problem" the use recurring patterns in the dates of eclipses to predict them in the future...or that there is no way people could have gone to the moon because the three-body problem is insoluable, etc, etc.

They like this because an absence of math makes it harder for people to show the paths of sun and moon and it throws hefty amounts doubt about mathematics into the eyes of the gullible.

However, this ISN'T how sunsets are actually predicted in the modern world.   The math works perfectly well - it just has to be integrated numerically rather than by symbolic means...and Sir Isaac Newton figured that out (the approach is actually called "Newton's method").

35

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Seasons. How do they work on flat earth?

« on: November 20, 2017, 07:32:10 PM »

By what mechanism does the sun shift its orbit? How does it speed up and slow down to account for the dramatically different orbital sizes?

Unknown.

Tom, has anyone laid the differing winter/fall sun orbits on the bi-polar map?

There was something around a while back, need to bookmark it at some point. It claimed the sun still follows the two Tropics during the summer and winter solstice just like in the unipolar map. At the Equinox the sun shifts between orbiting the North Pole and orbiting the South Pole through some unknown means. The exact path on the equinoxes was unknown at the time of that post however.

Did it explain the path the sun takes over 24 hours of a single day?  It seems like it needs to either teleport - or rush around the outside edge of the world so fast that we can't see it move.

The problem the bipolar map has is how to explain it being daylight on both east and west coastlines of the pacific ocean while being nighttime in Africa.

36

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Speed of light

« on: November 20, 2017, 07:23:54 PM »

I think we're starting to see eye to eye. The problem is that in this "crazy-pants universe" gravity does not exist, and gravity is the driving force between the "smaller objects have to go faster" effect- which is on a spectrum all the way from no gravity = no dilation to infinite gravity = infinite dilation. This means that in a universe with no gravity, time dilation would never occur, and therefore uniform acceleration of the Earth would approach, and exceed, the speed of light with no questions asked. It can be going as fast as it wanted and time dilation would not take place because there would be no gravity to contribute to the combination effect.
This is why Einstein's principles cannot support a flat earth model or a universe in which gravity does not exist.

That's not true.  SPECIAL relativity applies without gravity.   GENERAL relativity says that uniform acceleration and a uniform gravitational field are equivalent.

Out in the universe, far, far from any stars or galaxies and where the gravitational forces have fallen below any conceivably measureable levels - the speed of light is still a constant - and THAT is the problem that requires special relativity to solve it.

But it doesn't prevent the Earth from accelerating upwards forever because time dilation would mean that we'd never reach lightspeed from an outsider's perspective.

37

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is and isn't proof

« on: November 20, 2017, 06:55:56 PM »

You are assuming that space is Euclidean.

In Euclidean Space it would be impossible for anything to appear at the horizon, since it would be an infinite distance away. Since things appear at the horizon in the Flat Earth model, space must not be Euclidean.

...or the Earth isn't Flat.


Ahhh!   So now you're playing the "non-Euclidean geometry" card...I wondered how long it would be before you got THAT desperate.

So you've given up with the other pathetic explanations?  No more magic perspective?

Well, I'm sorry - it doesn't help.   If space is non-euclidean then ALL light rays are curved - including the ones that lead to the tree on the horizon.   When the sunlight peeks between the leaves of the tree - that final path of light from tree and from sun have to be exactly the same.

Also, any geometry that distorted the position of the sun by that much would also distort it's shape to a similar degree - so the sun couldn't possibly be circular when it was distorted enough to reach the horizon.

Also - imagine the light going in the opposite direction.

If I aim a laser at the setting sun (through a convenient gap in the leaves) how does my laser "know" to turn upwards towards the sun - or to continue onwards to a distant mountain that's 100 miles away?    It can't go in both directions.   But light paths are reversible.

OK - so that's dismissed that one.

What's your next desperate move Tom?

38

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Bedford Levels experiment

« on: November 20, 2017, 06:47:27 PM »

As 3D says, we don't have permission to edit the Wiki, and to be honest, I'm not sure I could resist temptation if I was given permission.

Back to the topic in hand.  It was a wager certainly, but from there, your information is not quite correct.  Hampden disputed the result, but there was a referee who confirmed Wallace's result and declared him the winner.  Hampden later published a leaflet saying that Wallace cheated.  Hamden was then jailed for libel, as well as death threats against Wallace. 

Wallace didn't get off scott free though, he was ordered to repay the money as the same court ruled that the wager had been invalid because Hampden retracted the bet.  Wallace was criticized by his peers for "his 'injudicious' involvement in a bet to 'decide' the most fundamental and established of scientific facts.  (info from the real Wiki, references are available there)

However, what's more to the point is that Wallace repeated the experiment under slightly different conditions.  I.e.  He used three poles, and observed that the middle pole was raised compared to the ones at the end, thus proving the earth is in fact round. 

So, my question is why do you believe Rowbotham and disregard Wallace ?

The story is much deeper even than that.  Lady Blount repeated the experiment - and "confirmed" Rowbotham - but her description of how she did it is so vague that it's impossible to tell what the heck she measured.    Another guy repeated it someplace else and found that the Earth is CONCAVE.   DOZENS of other people repeated it in a series of letters to the Editor of "English Mechanic" over two or three YEARS and most found the Earth to be round...although a few did not.

What this PROVES...conclusively...is that this is a terrible experiment!   Any experiment or observation that cannot be reliably reproduced has to be treated with profound skepticism.

I deny BOTH the Rowbotham AND Wallace results.   Neither of them produced a result that we can confidently say was "Proof".

View-over-water experiments are all hard to do right (people stand 10' over the water and expect to see a horizon calculated for a 5'6" eye height...we don't know the effects of mirages, fata-morgana and other atmospheric distortion).

So ignore them all and move on.

Now...sunset evidence.  That's the good one.

39

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Satellites

« on: November 20, 2017, 06:39:21 PM »

All FE'ers should go look at the ISS through binoculars one evening and ask themselves how something so profoundly un-aerodynamic could be possibly be moving at the speed it clearly moves.

Or maybe you just don't want to see it?   Like my granddaughter sticking her fingers into her ears and singing "La-la-la-la-laaa...not listening" when we tell her it's bedtime.

Ah, this would be the same sort of situation where I repeated asked Tom to stick his head out of his window and check the validity of dateandtime.org for himself by watching the time of sunset.  I don't think he ever responded to that suggestion.

Yes - exactly.   These are very desperate people - trying SO hard to maintain this one theory that they are prepared to shut their minds to the hundreds of crazy things they have to say to defend it.

40

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Using airline flight data.

« on: November 20, 2017, 06:37:49 PM »

Great read!

Question. Since reading this, I believe according to Flat Earth Theory, we are to assume that we are unable to rely on distances between cites using travel times, due to any variable that can be introduce to the traveler. We are unable to rely on GPS for position of something on earth since is probably does not exist, or if it does, can not be trusted. And lastly, I have not been able to find a reliable map of what earth looks like, (One I can use for actual distances, location, etc...) What can be used as a constant to do any sort of reliable math problem to figure out locations?

More than one FE'er has said "We don't know what the map of the world looks like - the maps we have on the Wiki are just examples."...so we don't even have a map.

To me it seems as though any form of an actual way to locate something on the earth cannot be done in regrading the Flat Earth Theory. How are we all not lost all the time when sailing on the water, or flying in the air. If we are unable to accurately assume anything based on a round earth, how are these flights, cruises, anything at all able to be accurately predicted with the Flat Earth Theory. Having been a sailor and vessel master myself, I can say that Great Circle sailing has been very reliable for navigation, which relies heavily on the earth being round.   

Yes - we've even produced documentary PROOF that cable-laying ships only carry enough cable for a "great circle" route plus a TINY amount extra - and arrive at their destination with only a little cable to spare.   This means that a cable of known length, made and measured in a factory - exactly reaches over this distance.  Which agrees with Google Maps, which agrees with GPS, which agrees with the airlines.

The cable laying ships are giving us an amazingly exact "measurement with a ruler" approach...and even that is pooh-poohed because Tom can't believe that they never run out of cable or get more from somewhere or have a hell of a lot left over!

What we have here are a group of people who have the intelligence to know that they don't have a leg to stand on.   Seriously - there is no way to explain away the sheer MOUNTAINS of evidence we have that their Flat Earth theory is just junk.

But they are stubborn people and will go to ANY lengths (including denying that math works or claiming that aircraft manufacturers don't know how fast their airplanes can fly - or that passengers on trans-oceanic routes never comment on the fact that the entire flight happened overland).

The degree of desperation will cause these people to pile on more and more and more crazy and unprovable theories and incoherent and self-contradictory explanations.   Defeat one - and another even crazier one will pop up.

Just follow Tom Bishop's posts over the last three days to see how desperate this man is to hold on to an utterly defeated idea...but again, this is a guy who believes that high doses of vitamin C will cure Ebola and AIDS and that cancer can be avoided by eating green peppers.

Some people...