561

Flat Earth Community / Re: Is it irrational to believe Flat Earth?

« on: October 10, 2018, 05:15:04 PM »

I came across this website and was originally surprised to see people who still believe the earth is flat.  I did a few quick 'back of the envelope' calculations to try to get a perspective on the situation.  Say the earth was the size of a basketball. To continue on with the comparison, a typical human would have to be the size of a virus.  A real virus is too small to be seen with the typical optical microscope.  If you were that virus your basketball 'earth' would look quite flat in any direction you chose to look. The virus could have been taught a flat earth curriculum as well.  In this hypothetical case it would not be irrational to believe in a flat earth.  Now assume that the virus would get on an airplane and fly to the other side of the basketball 'earth'.  Still the typical virus would experience little to change his perspective.  In both cases the Flat Earth paradigm would perfectly match the senses.  On a practical basis there would be little reason to believe anything else.  Now if that virus started to work for a company whose profits depended on hauling cargo from California to Shanghai but kept ending up in Hong Kong, then it wouldn't be too surprising if that virus might look into finding the reason for the difficulties.  After consulting with some classic virus scientists some navigational instruments were tried that were based on the radical global basketball design.  Even though these designs seemed 'crazy' at the time, they seemed to work and the company thrived.  The virus was promoted to chief engineer and could pay for his new car.  In this second case it would be completely irrational to ever again believe in a Flat Earth again.

562

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The use of Polaris for celestial navigation proves a round earth.

« on: October 10, 2018, 03:18:37 PM »

Early navigators could use Polaris to determine their latitude and their compass to proceed East or West, providing they were in the Northern Hemisphere.  What the compass didn't tell the navigators was just how far East or West they were, in other words, what was their longitude.  Such information could be critical to a sailor approaching the coast of California on their Easterly journey from China.  You needed a sextant sighting from other stars, a very accurate clock, and an ephemeris to obtain your longitude.  The first global sailors didn't have an accurate clock or ephemeris so just engaged in the procedure of  'running their Easting or Westing down'.  In other words the sailor would put the ship on the known latitude of their intended destination and proceed straight East or West until they found land.  When they were approaching the coast many indications were seen.  Clouds or land birds were some good indicators.  Some would even keep several land birds in a cage and release one if they thought they were near land.  A released land bird would fly up and circle the ship until it saw land and then proceed off in a straight line toward it.  Of course the 'birds eye view' was a bit farther at altitude because of the curvature of the earth and the sailors knew it and took advantage of that fact.   Today we don't need to do any of those things, but I have often seen shore birds on the container ship flying around and getting scraps of stuff laying around on the deck.  After we left the dock some would depart and fly off towards the shore.  Others would stick around too long and be trapped.  Usually they would die do to lack of fresh water.  Even today, modern sailors, and probably birds, believe in a global earth. 

563

Flat Earth Theory / Re: <Side perspective>: FE secret key

« on: October 10, 2018, 04:44:46 AM »

At sea the earth appears to be perfectly flat.  However you see the spherical nature of things just every so often.  A lot depends on the weather.  After spending half my life (literally) at sea for the last 20 years, the most spectacular visual representation of the spherical earth is the view of Mt Fuji in Japan coming out of the open ocean.  Mt. Fuji is about 12000 feet tall. The top is over two miles above sea level.  That means you can see Mt. Fuji 100 miles out at sea.  At that distance the nearest shoreline is about 40 miles away.  The mountain just appears to grow out of the sea with no other land visible.  Now it takes an unusually clear day for you to see that but sometimes we would get lucky in the winter if it was especially cold.  After a couple of weeks at sea with no other view except the ocean a nice sight like that can really make your day.

564

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Horizon is Always at Eye Level

« on: October 10, 2018, 04:27:34 AM »

Checkout the theory of operation of the sextant.  You will find there that there is a height of eye correction needed in your measurement.  On the last ship I was on I think the height of eye was about 130 feet.  That meant if you were standing on a bridge wing taking a sighting with your sextant you had to compensate the measured angle with the height of eye.  If you were to be on a small sailboat taking a measurement at the identical time as someone else on a large ship you would get a slightly smaller measured angle because you are closer to the level of the horizon on a small sailboat.  What you are actually measuring is just the angle of the navigation body above the horizon and a very specific time.  You need the time very accurately because the earth rotates under the star.  When you have an angle from your sextant and your time to the second you can enter the navigation charts (ephemeris) with this data and determine the zenith point of the body that you just measured.  The zenith point is that point on the earth that is directly below the body.  Once you have that position you can make a mark on your chart and draw a circle with a radius determined by the measured angle.  Now after all that work all you have is a line of position.  Your ship's position should be somewhere on that line.  To get your actual position you will need to repeat the same procedure on another star, planet, or the moon.  After you plot the second body you will have your position where the two lines cross.  You could also 'shoot' the sun and determine it's highest point in the sky by measuring it at local apparent noon.  This will give you some information about your position as well.  Few people do this aboard ship these days except for the maritime academy cadets who need to learn celestial navigation as part of their training.  GPS is the primary means of navigation, but using a sextant can teach you a whole lot about the Sun, moon and stars and they way they behave.  This all assumes that the earth is a sphere. Finally, the Horizon is not at eye level.  On any practical measurements the angle difference is very small but if you don't compensate for your height of eye above the horizon your determined position could be off by several miles.  That's no problem unless you are trying to avoid that spot where the rocks are only a few feet underwater.   

565

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: What Would You Do?

« on: October 10, 2018, 12:29:39 AM »

All I would need to decide would be a plum bob and a scale to weigh myself.  If the earth were a disk then the gravitational field would be much different than it would be for a sphere.  The gravitational force is a vector.  That vector is pointed towards the center of gravity.  A sphere has it's center of gravity at the center of the sphere so the gravitational vector is always normal to the surface and would be the same anywhere.  Of course there are small variations on the earths surface because the density of the earth is not totally uniform, but the variations are relatively small.  If the world were a flat disk, then the center of gravity would be at the center of the disk.  To see the effect just take a plate and try to balance it on your finger.  The only place that would happen is in the center of the plate.  If the center of the earth disk happened to be in Omaha then the gravity force vector would be straight down at that point.  You would expect a plum bob to hang straight down at that point as well.  If you took the plum bob to near the edge, the force of gravity would fall off and the plum bob would hang at an angle to the surface of the earth an tend in the direction of Omaha.  Additionally, the force would be less because you are farther from the center of mass.  The gravitational force depends on the masses involved and the distance to the centers of both masses.  It wouldn't be all that bad to live on a flat disk earth.  If the doctor said that you needed to loose weight all you would have to do is move farther out toward the edge of the disk and you would weigh less.  Of course you would also tend to walk at an angle because the force of gravity would also pull you towards the center of mass.  Given enough cycles of evolution the human species could develop people with different length legs to compensate.  Unfortunately that would mean some people would only be able to walk in a circle clockwise and others counter clockwise.  I think that I would prefer the spherical world myself.  How about you?

566

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The use of Polaris for celestial navigation proves a round earth.

« on: October 09, 2018, 08:22:52 PM »

When I started learning to navigate using a sextant I had to also learn spherical trigonometry.  Standard flat surface trig just doesn't work when you are trying to find your position on earth using the elevation data you get with a sextant.  Makes you wonder just why that is.  Oh, you have to project the lines on a globe then use spherical trig to get a usable estimate of your actual position.  Try that using a flat earth model and see how fast you get lost while actually at sea. 

567

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 09, 2018, 06:59:24 PM »

I have a great idea to raise money for the Flat Earth Society.  You can view the KVH satellite communication advertisement video and then sue them for false advertising.  They clearly say that they have many different satellite communications vessel stations that can provide phone or internet to you while you are on your boat.  I would testify that I have used the KVH system on ships before and have used both the phone and internet services they advertise.  Of course if they really don't have a satellite system with all the geosynchronous satellites they claim, then they would be liable for a substantial fraud claim.  Additionally, the shipping company that I worked for was paying them about $ 9500 a month for the service.  I saw the bill when the system was first installed.  If there are no real satellites up there, that indicates fraud. 

568

Flat Earth Media / Re: Chicago Skyline Not a Mirage Experiment

« on: October 09, 2018, 05:49:01 PM »

The video was interesting but doesn't prove anything.  The phenomena illustrated could happen if the world were flat, or round.  It wouldn't make any difference.  Light exhibits electro-magnetic wave properties of a very high frequency.  I have seen other electro-magnetic waves in other frequency ranges do pretty much the same kind of thing.  Time lapse photos of the same view of across the lake to Chicago over a period of many months would tell you a lot more.  It would answer the question of whether what you were seeing is normal or just a transient phenomena.   When I was a kid I used to tune our old TV across all the channels just to see what I could pick up.  We only had two local stations at the time, but every once in a while I could watch a Chicago TV station 180 miles away.  I was lucky to get a reasonable picture from Chicago once or twice every couple of months.  Now a computer program can predict when such things are likely and amateur radio operators take advantage of such things.  I have been a Ham, myself, for over 50 years but I don't usually engage in hobby communications much anymore.  My job kind of ruined the hobby. It seems to me that when you have a NASA video, or a video from any other source that shows a global earth that those videos are deemed fake and/or photo shopped.  Why trust any video when there are other more scientific ways to prove that the earth is a globe. 

569

Flat Earth Community / Re: RE believers - why are you here?

« on: October 09, 2018, 04:53:39 PM »

It should be possible for anyone to do a simple experiment with a cheap laser pointer, table, and a basketball.  You could simulate what happens when the sun shines on a flat surface(table) and a spherical surface (basketball).  Play around with these items a bit and then compare what you see with what you actually experience while on the planet we call earth.  There are some other things that can be seen, but those things are not usually experienced by most people and takes and engineering background to understand.  I've seen many things that would actually be better if the earth were flat, but the engineering of those expensive things were all done with the global earth paradigm in mind.  If the earth were actually flat many business men have sure spent countless millions on equipment they don't need.  A really good flat earth engineer could make a fortune if he could show how his inventions using the simplified technology could save those millions.   

570

Flat Earth Community / Re: Global Positioning System

« on: October 09, 2018, 03:41:17 PM »

I would agree that a GPS system could be constructed using a whole bunch of aircraft, but it wouldn't be practical.   The logistics of operating the fleet of aircraft necessary for good coverage of the earth would be substantial.  Additionally, they would have to have a place to takeoff and land.  Multiple countries now have GPS systems and I have personally used the American and Russian ones in the middle of all the earth's major oceans.  Multiple airports, world wide, would be necessary and they would also have to be kept a completely secret as to their location.  Pilots would know of their presents because sooner or later they would have to be given vectors for avoidance purposes when the GPS 'aircraft' had to return to land for service.  Additionally GPS orbits are published and the speeds necessary to complete those published orbits are way beyond any known aircraft types.  There's just too many 'facts' about the system that I've seen with my own eyes to believe that the system is not composed of satellites.  For someone that only uses the GPS in a car or to do a little geocaching, or Pokemon hunting I could see where it really wouldn't matter much.  As for me we depended on accurate GPS position data for our very lives while at sea.  We took the operation and maintenance of our GPS receivers seriously.

571

Flat Earth Community / Re: RESEARCH - Do you agree with this statement? Your main reason for believing

« on: October 09, 2018, 02:58:10 PM »

I was thinking about all the evidence that is on the side of my global earth beliefs.  It has been difficult to come up with something that you can easily see and hold in your hand.  Last night I thought of something.  My job as a merchant marine officer exposed me frequently to a technology that you don't usually see much of anywhere except on ships and airplanes.  On my final ship, before I retired, we had two very expensive gyro compasses.  This technology was very important and the azimuth outputs were very important because they drove other devices such as the autopilot, the electronic maps, and the radars.  If you do a little basic research on the subject, you can see that the operation of these devices depends on the earth rotating and basically being round.  Each year our gyros had to be overhauled so they would provide reliable operation.  Because of this, I've had all the parts in my hands and have become familiar with the operation of this equipment.  The main argument here is that the gyros were compact, self contained units and were only influenced by the basic forces of a rotating round earth.  It has been said that seamen engage in the worlds second oldest profession.  That may be true but things are getting very high tech these days.  An actual seaman would be controlling the helm less than 10 percent of the time.  Mostly the autopilot was steering the ship and the gyro compass was giving azimuth information to the autopilot.  It won't be long until autonomous ships will make our jobs obsolete.  Kongsberg already has some proto-types out there.  You can be sure that they also will be depending on a good gyro compass to keep the robots on course.     

572

Flat Earth Community / Re: Global Positioning System

« on: October 09, 2018, 12:50:59 PM »

Your phone could be capable of receiving 15 different sats, but you probably wouldn't be receiving usable signals from all of them simultaneously.  The GPS 'birds' are in continuous low earth orbit and cover the whole earth.  Only a certain combination would be visible to your phone and in use at any given time.  On a large ship we usually have the antennas mounted on a railing just above the bridge.  This makes them easy to get at in case of a failure.  Because of this, some of the antennas could be blocked in certain directions by the stack or the radar towers.   We have to be careful because the microwave radiation from the radars can interfere with the GPS signals in certain circumstances.  In any event, we usually receive usable signals anywhere in the world and even use differential GPS while near land for additional accuracy.   

573

Flat Earth Community / Re: Is it irrational to believe Flat Earth?

« on: October 09, 2018, 04:15:55 AM »

Most people who have a regular land based job don't have any reason to even think about whether the earth is flat or round.  In my case the subject is vital to the jobs I've had in my 50 year career.  Now I'm a retired Merchant Marine officer and I sailed world wide.  I've been around the world a couple of times, in each direction.  Earlier I was considering being a airline pilot and did earn a commercial pilots license, but the shipping companies paid a whole lot more so I went to sea.  That doesn't mean that I didn't fly much.  I had my own electronics business for 23 years and flew my own airplane often on business.  The first five years of my career I worked for the local TV station as a transmitter engineer.  Having said all of the above I've learned some stuff that only makes sense if you think about it and if the earth is a globe.  My local TV station has a 1000 foot tower not far from where I'm currently living.  I used to work there 50 years ago.  The TV station spent a whole lot of money putting up that big tower because they knew that the higher they went the more watchers they could get and the more that they could charge for advertising.  A global earth model would mean that their nominal coverage are would be approximately 40 miles.  In a flat earth model that coverage would have been a whole lot more.  When I was flying my own private plane I would often cruise at about 7 to 9 thousand feet.  In those days (before GPS) I used the VHF VOR system for navigation.  Typically a VOR station could be used at about 100 miles at the altitudes I used.  This was due to the curvature of the earth.  A flat earth would have afforded me the luxury of tuning in a station near my destination, rather than flying from station to station.  When I went to sea I worked on large ships.  Usually the length was from 750 to 1000 feet.  Our height of eye was about 130 feet above sea level.  You could usually see the mast of another on coming large ship appear at about 15 miles away. We had the use of more than our eyes and a telescope.  The last ship had 3 separate radars.  Our 10cm radar would usually see the ship come over the horizon before we could see it with our eyes.  It would appear as a very weak target and grow in size and strength as we approached the other vessel.  You had to be a bit closer to see a smaller fishing boat.  That same radar could see Mt Fuji in Japan at a much larger distance because it was a lot higher.  Even mount Fuji would appear to sink into the sea as we departed Japan.  You would loose site of the port city way before you would loose side of the mountain, even though the mountain was farther away.  These types of personal experiences could not be reconciled with a flat earth theory.  Don't get me wrong, a flat earth would be a whole lot easier for everyone in a lot of ways, but unfortunately, my personal observations didn't match that theory.  I was never afraid of falling off the edge of the earth.  Maybe because as a kid, we lived overseas and traveled the world during vacations.  My sister picked up the same tendencies and was in Antarctica a couple of months ago and actually returned home without any difficulty.       

574

Flat Earth Community / Re: Global Positioning System

« on: October 09, 2018, 01:50:26 AM »

I am a licensed commercial pilot and now also a retired Merchant Marine officer.  GPS is used in both venues for navigation.  You probably could use airplanes to transmit GPS information, but it probably wouldn't be practical.  While operating in the middle of the Pacific ocean it is not unusual to not see another vessel for a couple of days on the transit between China and California.  Usually we can receive signals from 3 to 5 GPS transmitters.  The expense and logistics for using airplanes for such a project would be excessive.  All this expense just to provide location information for a handful of ships doesn't make much sense.  Satellites would be much cheaper, and more reliable.  Of course, if there's a dome over the ocean, then satellites wouldn't be possible.  In any event the position data we get is very good.  Even the position info I get using my iPhone matches what I see on the regular ship's GPS receivers.  We usually follow a great circle route, weather permitting, while on the 7000 mile trip.  This kind of a route makes no sense on anything but a global earth.   

575

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Observing The Sun

« on: October 08, 2018, 04:55:21 PM »

I have observed the sun under a couple of different scenarios.  First on a trip from Southern California to Asia in the winter.  We left Southern California by ship and headed mostly Northbound towards Alaska.  We transited from the Pacific Ocean into the Bering Sea near Unimak Island.  The ship proceeded going North West bound for a while before turning in a more Southerly direction.  I did notice a very pronounced shortening of the day.  Since I was a ships crew member I was expected to be on the job at 7:45 AM each morning, it was always dark when I got to the bridge.  While we were at our farthest Northerly position I noticed that it would be dark outside until about 10 AM and we would have a sunset at about 3 PM.  As we continued South towards Japan and China the days got much longer and we were back to our normal day and night routine.  A trip along the same route during the summer would be different.  The sun would not set until way after supper, maybe not until about 10PM and it would be very bright outside in the very early morning.  Two facts seem to leap out of my actual observations on many trips of a similar nature.  The ship proceeded on a very strange circular route far the the North as it was the shortest distance between California and Asia.  Shipping companies stay in business because they haul their cargo over the shortest distances possible to save on fuel and deliver the goods in the most profitable manner.  Additionally, since the earth is a globe and the axis is tilted at about 23 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic, we see a very noticeable difference in our daylight hours during the 10 day journey.  The strange route we usually took was called a great circle route and only makes sense if the actual earth is a sphere.  You can convince yourself of this by using a globe and a piece of string.  All I know is what I've seen for myself.  We had tables of the time of sunrise and sunset.  Those tables depended on the day of the year and the latitude of your position. It's nice to see the sun rise out of the sea just at the precise time the table said it would happen.  I don't know how anyone could fake that.  A flat earth would be easier for a seamen in several ways, but alas, it's not the way we see it.

576

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 01:59:23 PM »

The article points out the problem with a global satellite system.  Commonly used INMARSAT satellites are over the equator.  We used them daily, along with another companies 'birds' to communicate.  The biggest problem with those is that they only work to about 70 degrees North or South latitude.  This is due to the curvature of the global earth.  A flat earth with a dome above it would be a good idea and would be easier for every seaman to communicate, even near the poles.  Alas, this is not what a seaman actually experiences with his own two eyes.  All our charts are based on a global earth.  We navigate, daily, with these charts.  What we see outside our windows matches what is seen on the charts.  If it were not so, we would run aground, loose cargo, and get fired from our job.  How could we not believe in a global earth?   

577

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 05:11:52 AM »

Just who put up the dome over the earth?  How long has it been there?  Was it a government project?  Who does the maintenance?  Where is the mounts on the Earth?  I presume that it's somewhere around Antarctica.  Somehow I was never given these answers in school.  Perhaps a change in the educational system will be required.

578

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Shooting stars

« on: October 08, 2018, 04:48:04 AM »

Maybe sometimes we get space junk that breaks thru the dome.  I remember when I was a kid, a long time ago, living in a far away place, we were outside sitting in the grass watching an outdoor movie.  You did that kind of thing in the 1950's.  Suddenly we saw a 'shooting start'  It actually hit the ground very close to me and I remember seeing it bounce after hitting the ground.  A lot of people ran up to where the 'object' was on the ground.  My mother kept me from getting too close.  That probably was a good thing because it was still glowing red hot.  Any object like that had to come either thru the dome or was part of it.  In either case the dome would require plenty of maintenance due to the constant damage that occurs to it.  Just who is responsible for doing that?  Maybe a government contractor.  It would be a good job opportunity if I ever need a job again.   

579

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 04:38:04 AM »

If the earth is flat and there's a dome above it that will reflect my data signals back to the earth then I wouldn't have to switch to a different 'satellite' while on the trip to Asia.  I should be able to lock onto a single spot on the dome and that spot should be visible to my satellite dish's signal anywhere on the flat earth.  That scenario would really make my job easier.  Additionally a dome over the flat earth would require a very good mount.  I'm sure such a mount would require maintenance like any other mechanical device.  Who is doing the maintenance ?   They probably require plenty of engineers and would be a good job if my pension fund goes bankrupt in a couple of years.

580

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 02:29:42 AM »

Don't believe that the GPS system is ground based.  While at sea you could be 1000 miles from the nearest land.  The GPS antennas are directional and we always point the antennas straight up when mounting them on the ship.  When doing this we are able to receive the signals from 3 or 4 of the many GPS satellites that are in orbit above the earth.  If the earth were flat, we could always see the same satellites on our whole trip, but this isn't the case.  Satellites come up over the horizon, provide us with our position data, and then go down into the horizon while another satellite takes it's place.  There is a whole satellite constellation out there for us.  If it were not the case, we would then have to resort to the old technology of the sextant, which we still carry aboard ship.  Even while using the sextant you have to believe in the spherical earth, or that system wouldn't work either.  All this comes from my every day work experience, not something that I read in a book, or saw on the internet.  If someone believes this is a hoax, please tell me.  I still have many friends at sea trying to make a living for themselves and their families.  They might need to know what the true facts are so to protect them from any potential danger.  I'm just a retired Merchant Marine officer and I sit at home now collecting a pension.