The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Theory => Topic started by: BillO on July 18, 2018, 02:51:38 PM
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I have searched this site and cannot find anything about how and when the Flat Earth was formed.
Is there any accepted estimate on when it formed and how that formation occurred?
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I have searched this site and cannot find anything about how and when the Flat Earth was formed.
Is there any accepted estimate on when it formed and how that formation occurred?
not that i have seen either.
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Well, this would seem to be a bit of a stumbling block to the whole FE hypothesis as it seems no one here knows.
"We live on this flat world, and nobody knows how or when it came to be." And you're fine with that?
Is anyone working on it? Does anyone care?
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Well, this would seem to be a bit of a stumbling block to the whole FE hypothesis...
Why?
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Well, this would seem to be a bit of a stumbling block to the whole FE hypothesis as it seems no one here knows.
i dont agree with that at all.
What happened/existed before the Big Bang? no one knows...does that mean the universe doesnt exist?
the age of Round Earth is continually changing over the past 100 years, and thats with the full backing of most scientists working on it...you expect the limited money of FE to have those kind of resources to work on independently verifying the age of the earth? and what bearing would knowing the age have to do with knowing its shape??? much bigger fish to fry here.
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I'm going to side with the FE'ers on this. Not knowing how something came into being doesn't make it any less valid. We don't know how or why matter and energy exist. But that doesn't cause anyone consternation because we all know that they do exist.
According to RE theory, matter/energy has always existed. Doesn't that seem like a cop-out? It does to me, but I accept it because I cannot fathom how the creation of matter/energy would work. Same thing with the 4 fundamental forces.
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Well, this would seem to be a bit of a stumbling block to the whole FE hypothesis...
Why?
Because, the usual course of action in science is that when you throw one theory out to replace it with another, the new one must explain things at least as well as the old one. It seems that is not the case with the FE hypothesis. So, to me, yeah, its a bit of a stumbling block. However, maybe they are working on it. Who knows?
much bigger fish to fry here.
That's actually a good answer. It does make it inconvenient that we seem to have taken a step back, but if they are getting around to it, all is good - or will be.
According to RE theory, matter/energy has always existed.
I gather you are not a proponent of the Big Bang hypothesis then? According to it, matter/energy/space/time (IOW the universe) all came into existence at that point. I'm not entirely sold on it either. The myriad models for it do not all agree and there are great gaping holes to be filled. From my perspective, while we do have a fair idea how the solar system came to be, we are not clear on how the universe did. I do see that as an issue. It's not knowing and the need to know is what drives science forward.
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I'm going to side with the FE'ers on this. Not knowing how something came into being doesn't make it any less valid.
Agree, BUT you do see FE people regularly claiming that any unknown in science is a smoking gun of the while RE jig being up.
You can't do that and then just say "unknown" about really fundamental things about, say, the sun - how it works, what powers it, what causes it to make the orbit they claim it makes and so on.
If science being incomplete is a weakness which shows up RE then how much weaker is FE when almost nothing is known and, worse, there doesn't seem to be much effort to do any investigations or experiments to advance their model.
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If science being incomplete is a weakness which shows up RE then how much weaker is FE when almost nothing is known and, worse, there doesn't seem to be much effort to do any investigations or experiments to advance their model.
Excellent point. The FE course of action seems to be "Look how bad RE is!" rather than "Look how good FE is!". Most of their time is spent trying to manufacture faults in RE rather than trying to make FE complete and consistent with itself and observation. Look at the latest additions to the Wiki. Heck, look at all of them.
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According to RE theory, matter/energy has always existed.
I gather you are not a proponent of the Big Bang hypothesis then? According to it, matter/energy/space/time (IOW the universe) all came into existence at that point. I'm not entirely sold on it either. The myriad models for it do not all agree and there are great gaping holes to be filled. From my perspective, while we do have a fair idea how the solar system came to be, we are not clear on how the universe did. I do see that as an issue. It's not knowing and the need to know is what drives science forward.
I am a proponent of BBT (I'm also okay with calling it a hypothesis). But BBT cannot predict what existed prior to the Plank epoch. Even the events and forces at work during this epoch are questionable because the 4 fundamental forces (weak, strong, electromagnetic, gravity) are not yet established. So we are left with quantum guesses. And since we don't have physics at the quantum level fully sorted out yet, I've held off from forming any opinions.
Most BBT variants do not believe that matter and energy came into existence out of nothing. Not even the "braneverse" hypotheses believe that (those posit we got matter and energy from another "brane"). I have seen BBT sites that claim matter was created during the Plank epoch. But those sites were full of typos and grammatical errors, so I typically read (but then ignore) anything they say that contradicts the more reputable sources.
Most BBTs posit that immediately prior to the Plank epoch (sometimes called the Augustinian Era), all matter occupied a single point smaller than a Hydrogen nucleus.
As far as galactic and star system creation goes, I subscribe to the stellar accretion disk theory. It can be modeled in simulations and consistently produces familiar star systems. While this isn't anywhere near proof, it suffices for me.
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You can't do that and then just say "unknown" about really fundamental things about, say, the sun - how it works, what powers it, what causes it to make the orbit they claim it makes and so on.
Let me give an example of my position regarding this. When Copernicus proposed the Heliocentric model, Ptolemy's model was WAY better. Ridiculously better. Since Copernicus did not have a better model, should he have just kept his mouth shut?
That is why I don't expect FE'ers to have an explanation for everything. The last time their model was getting any serious research funding, the Catholic church was still in charge of all "science".
What I DO expect from FE'ers, is better answers for topics like my angle of the sun post: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10050 (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10050)
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You can't do that and then just say "unknown" about really fundamental things about, say, the sun - how it works, what powers it, what causes it to make the orbit they claim it makes and so on.
Let me give an example of my position regarding this. When Copernicus proposed the Heliocentric model, Ptolemy's model was WAY better. Ridiculously better. Since Copernicus did not have a better model, should he have just kept his mouth shut?
No, but I would expect Copernicus to keep developing his model until it was good enough to challenge the existing one. Good enough for it to be considered seriously and developed further, which I guess is what happened.
There seems to be little or no effort to develop the FE model. And sure, there's no funding for FE research for the same reason there's no funding for research into alchemy, but you don't need funding to do basic research or simple experiments. Many great advances in science have come about by individuals thinking about stuff and experimenting to test their theories about how stuff works. An example. One of the FE beliefs is that the horizon is always at eye level:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Horizon_always_at_Eye_Level
What is strange about this Wiki page is that this quote is used on it to back up the assertion:
"The chief peculiarity of the view from a balloon at a considerable elevation was the altitude of the horizon, which remained practically on a level with the eye at an elevation of two miles"
I've highlighted the word which is the slight weakness in the evidence. And actually, that quote is right. There's a graph here of horizon angle dip against altitude
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/vhmcatpgud
At 2 miles altitude the angle of horizon dip is only about 2 degrees. So it is "practically" at eye level, but not at eye level. The dip is not easy to discern at "normal" altitudes but it's quite possible to measure. In other threads multiple ways have been shown to demonstrate and measure horizon angle dip - none of them would cost much, they don't need funding. I've yet to see any FE person try any of those experiments or devise their own to test this. And yet they stubbornly cling to the belief.
So while I don't expect them to have the model completely figured out yet, it is a bit rich of them to pick holes in RE (some of which are because of their misunderstanding of science) while their own model is so poorly developed and there seems to be so little effort to develop it.
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That is why I don't expect FE'ers to have an explanation for everything. The last time their model was getting any serious research funding, the Catholic church was still in charge of all "science".
Ptolemy's model predates the 'Catholic church' by some time.
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That is why I don't expect FE'ers to have an explanation for everything. The last time their model was getting any serious research funding, the Catholic church was still in charge of all "science".
Ptolemy's model predates the 'Catholic church' by some time.
My intent was not to equate Ptolemy's day to the Catholic church, but to equate the latter days of FE funding with the Catholic church's stranglehold on scientific progress.
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That is why I don't expect FE'ers to have an explanation for everything. The last time their model was getting any serious research funding, the Catholic church was still in charge of all "science".
Ptolemy's model predates the 'Catholic church' by some time.
My intent was not to equate Ptolemy's day to the Catholic church, but to equate the latter days of FE funding with the Catholic church's stranglehold on scientific progress.
What are the "latter days of FE funding"? That's what lay behind my question.
[edit] Brief potted history. Globe earth was first mooted by Eratosthenes (around 3rd cent BC). Ptolemy was the first to develop a detailed model. He was working in 2nd cent AD. Ptolemy’s work was picked up by the Arab scientists 9th–13th AD. From 13th century onwards, this was picked up by the Latin West, when Ptolemy’s ideas were refined. Many of the key figures in scientific progress in that period were members of the Catholic church. So the church had nothing to do with 'FE funding'.
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Why are you expecting a complete model of nature?
The effort to provide a complete model of nature beyond all else was the main issue which plauged the history of science. Read Zetetic and Theoretic Defined and Compared (http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za04.htm).
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Why are you expecting a complete model of nature?
I come from a scientific background. I seek to explain things. I am inquisitive and seek knowledge and understanding for the pure joy of it.
The effort to provide a complete model of nature beyond all else was the main issue which plauged the history of science. Read Zetetic and Theoretic Defined and Compared (http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za04.htm).
The end of the very fist sentence at that page you linked to gives you the answer. "THE term Zetetic is derived from the Greek verb Zeteo; which means to search, or examine; to proceed only by inquiry; to take nothing for granted, but to trace phenomena to their immediate and demonstrable causes. "
However, FE followers claim to be zetetic, but they do not seem very good at it. So much about the concept of a flat earth leaves so many phenomena without finding the cause. Would you like a list?
- What causes the sun to light up and provide heat?
- What causes the sun to speed around at over 1000 miles an hour?
- What causes the sun to stay circling the plain beneath, rather than just flying off in a straight line?
- What causes the sun to change course over a year
- What causes the sun to stay at its altitude
- If the flat earth hypotheses has any validity, what causes it to incorrectly predict the sun's observed angle at sunrise and sunset?
They are only a few of the things concerning just the sun that your zetetic searching has yet to demonstrate a cause for, immediate or otherwise.
You do realize that scientists do not use the meaning of 'Theory' as defined at that page, don't you? The definition there better describes what scientists call an hypothesis. Scientists do not call a thing a 'theory' unless it has been demonstrated over an over again and found to accurately describe nature in some useful way.
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Why are you expecting a complete model of nature?
The effort to provide a complete model of nature beyond all else was the main issue which plauged the history of science. Read Zetetic and Theoretic Defined and Compared (http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za04.htm).
Why are you straw-manning?
The aim of science is to create a complete model of nature but the more we find out the more complicated we realise it all is and the more unlikely it seem that we will ever have a complete model.
But the aim should still be to create one, or get as close as we can. That is what science is trying to do.
If you think you have discovered something so fundamental as the shape of the earth which has been supposed by science for thousands of years being completely wrong then congratulations. You just won a Nobel prize. BUT, you have to do better than resting on the laurels of Rowbotham, a man who wrote a book 150 years ago which has been quite rightly largely forgotten by history. None of his ideas have been accepted by any serious scientist, they are demonstrably wrong and don't stand up to the most basic scrutiny.
You claim to be an empiricist but you refuse to do the simplest experiments or empirical measurements to test anything. I gave an example above of a belief you have which is demonstrably wrong, you have been shown multiple ways of showing it to be wrong and refuse to either try any of them or devise your own experiment even though none of the ways you've been shown would require any significant investment.
No-one is expecting you to have a complete model, but some basic model which bears any resemblance to reality and a sense you are trying to develop that model would gain you some credibility.
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No-one is expecting you to have a complete model, but some basic model which bears any resemblance to reality and a sense you are trying to develop that model would gain you some credibility.
Model? I'd have happy if they could produce a map that works.
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I have searched this site and cannot find anything about how and when the Flat Earth was formed.
Is there any accepted estimate on when it formed and how that formation occurred?
Two people are looking at a shape. One person says it's a relatively flat 2d circle and another person says it's a more round 3d sphere shape.
Then you come along and ask how old the shape is and how it was created. Well these are very loaded questions and the answers would range from
Age: less than 10,000 years. How it was formed: God.
to
Age: Billions of years. How it was formed: Unknown but the big bang theory seems promising.
This variation about the origins and age of the universe are independent of theory about the shape of the earth.
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What are the "latter days of FE funding"? That's what lay behind my question.
[edit] Brief potted history. Globe earth was first mooted by Eratosthenes (around 3rd cent BC). Ptolemy was the first to develop a detailed model. He was working in 2nd cent AD. Ptolemy’s work was picked up by the Arab scientists 9th–13th AD. From 13th century onwards, this was picked up by the Latin West, when Ptolemy’s ideas were refined. Many of the key figures in scientific progress in that period were members of the Catholic church. So the church had nothing to do with 'FE funding'.
By "latter days of FE funding", I meant the last couple of years/decades where a serious scientist considered the world flat. Nowhere did I intend to imply that the Catholic church was funding any of this research. The Catholic church established a number of schools, but most of the astronomers of that time were independently wealthy.
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I have searched this site and cannot find anything about how and when the Flat Earth was formed.
Is there any accepted estimate on when it formed and how that formation occurred?
Two people are looking at a shape. One person says it's a relatively flat 2d circle and another person says it's a more round 3d sphere shape.
Then you come along and ask how old the shape is and how it was created. Well these are very loaded questions and the answers would range from
Age: less than 10,000 years. How it was formed: God.
to
Age: Billions of years. How it was formed: Unknown but the big bang theory seems promising.
This variation about the origins and age of the universe are independent of theory about the shape of the earth.
None of the current theory on how bodies form in space will allow for a flat body. So that part of my question was seeking, though inquiry, what new and wonderful theory the FEs had devised to account for what caused it. The other, on the age, was to determine how fast this enormous flat body they thought up might be now traveling WRT it's birthplace. I was then going to do a follow-up question on what their zetetic efforts had come up with regarding the cause of the acceleration itself. It is apparent, however, that hundreds of years of flat-earth thinking on these matters has not even begun to scratch the surface on some of these questions. Maybe they tried and failed, maybe they did not like the implications such thought processes offered. Maybe they are just not inquisitive enough to even try. Who knows? No one is talking.
They know the earth is flat, they just don't have a clue how that happened.
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None of the current theory on how bodies form in space will allow for a flat body.
Depending on what you believe about the creation of celestial bodies this is incorrect.
-God can create a flat disk in space in less than one nanosecond.
-God can create a flat disk in space in billions of years.
-I see the flat disk rings of Saturn. isn't there some theory about that?
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None of the current theory on how bodies form in space will allow for a flat body.
Depending on what you believe about the creation of celestial bodies this is incorrect.
-God can create a flat disk in space in less than one nanosecond.
-God can create a flat disk in space in billions of years.
I'm atheist.
-I see the flat disk rings of Saturn. isn't there some theory about that?
Other planets have rings too, but none of them are single objects. They are made up of billions of tiny objects.
Here is a Cassini photo of a larger object forming slowly in Saturn's rings. You can see how the material first accretes to a disc, then begins to collapse into the nearly spherical body of the object.
(https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/internal_resources/759/)
Another angle:
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRPJwpwWtHOV6mdPM2rphLNT7cWYYrN6lfdvtpepVaokSYrrf5L)
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Pretty good image quality for Cassini's 1 megapixel 1990's digital camera technology.
(http://www.digitalbirdphotography.com/photoshop/fundamentals/zoom-2a.jpg)
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Mot more than you would expect. That first image is the entire frame from the NAC. the 2d is a unmagnified crop from the same camera.
Below is a 5x magnification of just the object. Not really all that great.
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Other planets have rings too, but none of them are single objects. They are made up of billions of tiny objects.
You could say that about the earth too. The earth is not a single object. The earth is made up of billions of tiny objects like sand, rocks, particles of dirt, water molecules etc.
the facts are that we can observe, in space, things which are relatively "flat" in shape.
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So? I'm not sure what this has to do with this case. Planetary rings cannot be treated like single objects. The earth and other planets can. The particles of and a rock are in psychical contact with each other and their degrees of freedom of motion are limited by that.
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So? I'm not sure what this has to do with this case. Planetary rings cannot be treated like single objects. The earth and other planets can. The particles of and a rock are in psychical contact with each other and their degrees of freedom of motion are limited by that.
There are planets made of gas. A gas cloud shaped like a sphere orbiting a star is a "planet" to you but a flat disk ring of gas is not? Sounds like bias to me. I could just as easily say that the sphere gas cloud is not a planet and the flat disk gas cloud is.
by definition a planet is "a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit around a star." I don't see anywhere in the definition where it mentions a shape.
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The rings are not made of gas. They couldn't possibly be.
There is plenty of information about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Saturn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Saturn)
They consist of countless small particles, ranging from μm to m in size, that orbit about Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.
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by definition a planet is "a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit around a star." I don't see anywhere in the definition where it mentions a shape.
The definition has moved on a bit and does include shape
https://www.space.com/25986-planet-definition.html
There are plenty of objects which fit your definition but are not considered planets, even Pluto has been demoted.
Yes, not every object in the solar system is a sphere but every object above a certain size is because gravity pulls any object above a certain size into a sphere or very close to.
(EDIT: By size I really mean mass)
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The rings are not made of gas. They couldn't possibly be.
This is outright wrong. There are rings of gas around stars and black holes. I would strongly suggest that you stop by a local college and talk to an astronomy professor.
here's one link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk
Here's another:
https://www.space.com/24666-strange-star-chemistry-planet-formation.html
and another:
http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/how-do-planets-form
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by definition a planet is "a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit around a star." I don't see anywhere in the definition where it mentions a shape.
The definition has moved on a bit and does include shape
https://www.space.com/25986-planet-definition.html
There are plenty of objects which fit your definition but are not considered planets, even Pluto has been demoted.
Yes, not every object in the solar system is a sphere but every object above a certain size is because gravity pulls any object above a certain size into a sphere or very close to.
(EDIT: By size I really mean mass)
If planet is defined as a sphere then we are not using the correct terminology in any flat earth model. But the original post was about the age and the formation of the Flat Earth and does not mention a planet. I had thought "Earth" meant the celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit around our sun that we currently live on.
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The rings are not made of gas. They couldn't possibly be.
This is outright wrong. There are rings of gas around stars and black holes. I would strongly suggest that you stop by a local college and talk to an astronomy professor.
here's one link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk
Here's another:
https://www.space.com/24666-strange-star-chemistry-planet-formation.html
and another:
http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/how-do-planets-form
::)
This is a blatant straw man argument. We were talking about this solar system. Saturn in particular.
Your straw men are not at all the same case - on several counts. Three I can think of right off - 1) Formation of planets is a different thing than a planet that was formed 4 billion years ago. 2) those rings are a completely different dynamic/shape/consistency than are the rings around the planets in our solar system. 3) Those situations are basically gas whirlpools spiraling into the main body, thick and fluffy - nothing like our planetary rings which are extremely thin and consist of particulate and coalesced solid matter in long term stable orbits.
I'll state it again, there is no gas in the rings of Saturn or any other planet here and there cannot be.
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This is a blatant straw man argument. We were talking about this solar system. Saturn in particular.
Your straw men are not at all the same case - on several counts. Three I can think of right off - 1) Formation of planets is a different thing than a planet that was formed 4 billion years ago. 2) those rings are a completely different dynamic/shape/consistency than are the rings around the planets in our solar system. 3) Those situations are basically gas whirlpools spiraling into the main body, thick and fluffy - nothing like our planetary rings which are extremely thin and consist of particulate and coalesced solid matter in long term stable orbits.
I'll state it again, there is no gas in the rings of Saturn or any other planet here and there cannot be.
I thought we were talking about the formation of celestial bodies.
You had said this:
"None of the current theory on how bodies form in space will allow for a flat body. So that part of my question was seeking, though inquiry, what new and wonderful theory the FEs had devised to account for what caused it. The other, on the age, was to determine how fast this enormous flat body they thought up might be now traveling WRT it's birthplace."
My response was that flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis. I gave examples of flat, disk shaped, celestial bodies such as planetary disks, and the rings of Saturn. You can chose to accept that flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis or reject it. Either way you got your answers.
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My response was that flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis. I gave examples of flat, disk shaped, celestial bodies such as planetary disks, and the rings of Saturn. You can chose to accept that flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis or reject it. Either way you got your answers.
Accretion disks and planetary rings are not 'bodies'. Accretion disks are temporary and undergoing huge flux and planetary rings are many bodies. None of these are anything like a 'flat earth'. Try setting up shop on and accretion disk or a planetary ring. ::)
I'll stick with my assertion.
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My response was that flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis. I gave examples of flat, disk shaped, celestial bodies such as planetary disks, and the rings of Saturn. You can chose to accept that flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis or reject it. Either way you got your answers.
Accretion disks and planetary rings are not 'bodies'. Accretion disks are temporary and undergoing huge flux and planetary rings are many bodies. None of these are anything like a 'flat earth'. Try setting up shop on and accretion disk or a planetary ring. ::)
I'll stick with my assertion.
Since we don't agree on the definition of the term 'body' I'll rephrase my previous statement.
"flat disk shaped celestial bodies do form on a regular basis." is now chaging to:
"Flat disk shaped things do form on a regular basis.
The flat earth was created in a similar way that the other flat things in space were formed.