21

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 07, 2020, 11:17:01 AM »

How is seeing a flat earth not the simplest explanation for its flatness?

Your response of "could be an illusion...." says nothing about what is and is not the simplest explanation. In fact, you are adding more complexities to justify your position.

No wait, "flatness" is not a shape. FEs do no tell us the whole shape of the rock we live upon. Let's compare apples with apples, we have a sphere floating in space on one side, and what do we have on the other side? The unknownable unknown+a flat surface? But now Tom please don't tell me that Occam's razor states that "not knowing" is simpler than knowing.

22

Flat Earth Community / Re: Did Rowbotham use Conspiracy Theories?

« on: June 07, 2020, 10:57:47 AM »

Regarding the OP, since Rowbotham gave many public lectures I don't think he could have blamed a conspiracy against free speech, but I do wonder how many times he was asked how could he explain that in the previous centuries sailors and in general everyone with some interest was believing in a round earth.

23

Flat Earth Projects / Re: UA Circular Motion Theory

« on: June 06, 2020, 10:16:13 PM »

Yes, the acceleration speeds would build up in the circle, but to the rest of the universe there are no drastic (relational) speed changes. Look at this diagram:



In relation to Points A and B the xy coordinates are the same after a complete circuit.

It would be like spiraling into a black hole. The speeds increase locally to extreme rates, but that would be unrelated to the outside universe.

Black holes are very precise objects that exist due to gravity, if you allow for their existence you are basically saying that earth's gravity is mainly due to mass. You cannot admit them in FE models. That said, acceleration in our own framework would still build up and our kinetic energy would be increasing constantly, and that would maybe refute external structures helping the rotation.

But, I LOVE the bucket theory of gravitation! It has many less issues than UA!

24

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Some question that I think could be interesting

« on: June 06, 2020, 09:43:47 PM »

As flat earthers know well, it's not easy to convince a society of what is Truth. People won't accept a scientifically accepted fact that they hate, unless your proofs are Nuclear Weapons or GMOs. Indeed the rest of lesser, difficult to reproduce, results,  aren't universally accepted, like for evolution or particle theories. At that point not-so-good scientists may come up and grab the funding for pleasant truths. Shall we call it "life"?

25

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE maps and Tectonic Plates

« on: April 02, 2020, 11:54:48 AM »

Taking a step back, I just wanted to use the theory of Mountains and Volcanos (here: https://wiki.tfes.org/Formation_of_Mountains_and_Volcanoes) to get some clarity on what flat earth maps are more likely. I am not sure there's an accepted map of how the plates are disposed and the puzzle they compose, but we do know that Mountains and Volcanoes are created from their long-standing activity. So, for example, if we think there is a subduction plate next to the ice wall, there should be some volcano there, signalling the underlying activity. Or, the Pacific Ring of Fire that, in the standard monopole map, is quite straight and not a ring at all, depicting a quite interesting underlying dynamic.

26

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Equinox - daylight/nighttime across earth

« on: March 28, 2020, 10:08:01 AM »

There is an equinox article in the Wiki.

See the links at the end of https://wiki.tfes.org/Sunrise_and_Sunset

The link states "The sun that we see is a projection on the atmolayer. Its image is close to the earth". From this sentence a reader will conclude that pages like https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun don't refer to the actual Sun, but to the distance to the projection on the atmolayer. It should be specified in the latter pages.

27

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Proof of Flat Earth in DFW, Texas?? You decide!

« on: March 25, 2020, 01:10:32 PM »

Sundown -> Sunfar
Sunset -> Sunfar
Sunrise -> Sunnear

Explain, please

FEs all agree that the Sun hovers above us, so as they correctly prefer the term "atmolayer" to "atmosphere", they should also avoid sundown, sunset, sunrise... all terms suggesting a vertical movement of the Sun. E.g., it's difficult for me to parse a FE reasoning like "the sun rise in the atmosphere, over the line of a flat horizon", it would be much better to read " the sun nears in the atmolayer, over a vanishing flat horizon"

28

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Proof of Flat Earth in DFW, Texas?? You decide!

« on: March 25, 2020, 10:22:31 AM »

Yet, in the southern U.S., Venus is visible at 45 degrees -- WAY up in the night sky, after sundown for at least two months STRAIGHT. Tonight, Venus is visible for as long FOUR HOURS after sunset. That means I can see it til ONE O'CLOCK in the morning.

Sundown -> Sunfar
Sunset -> Sunfar
Sunrise -> Sunnear

29

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE maps and Tectonic Plates

« on: March 22, 2020, 11:10:23 PM »

Notably, this should never be the case, and is not the case in RET. You're asking us if there are any maps which conform to an urban myth, and the answer should be "no".

Regarding tectonic plates here: https://wiki.tfes.org/Formation_of_Mountains_and_Volcanoes it is written:

"The Flat Earth's crust is made up of huge slabs called plates, which fit together like a jigsaw puzzle."

So I'm asking if this important bit of information is used to discern the likelihood of a map with respect to another one (some maps are wildly different from others, see: https://wiki.tfes.org/Flat_Earth_Maps) . For example, as GreatATuin is suggesting, if we know that two continents have similar fossils, we can increase the likelihood they were quite close in the past, and that would give the burden of proof back to maps where such continents are too far apart.

It would be just a nice Occam's Razor tool in the toolbox.

30

Flat Earth Theory / FE maps and Tectonic Plates

« on: March 22, 2020, 07:32:06 PM »

What FE maps actually comply with the tectonic plates composition? For example, what are the maps such that South America and Africa can be put one aside the other fitting like a jigsaw puzzle? Apparently the standard monopole model doesn't show that, as the two continents don't look like fitting together at all, but other may do, like the bipolar model. Any other one?

31

Flat Earth Theory / Re: I think you're wrong. Discuss if you dare

« on: March 11, 2020, 08:37:21 PM »

Perhaps I could propose some solution: the sun as we see it is actually a lense of some sort that magnifies a distant radiation source that which we cannot see. This explains why we don’t all evaporate, and also explains the spotlight affect of the sun.

I actually like this. It could be nearby a wormhole connecting us to a real star! It also explains why gravitation from the Sun is so small (despite its possible huge mass). Also, being massless it would give it's hanging on the sky a reason.

32

Flat Earth Theory / Re: I think you're wrong. Discuss if you dare

« on: March 10, 2020, 07:09:25 PM »

Fusion in the sun is a problem... we know how fusion works, and that the sun must be super massive with unimaginable pressure at the core for it to make the heat and light that we know it does.

Yes, on the other side it's not clear where a 32-miles diameter Sun would take it's energy from and how UV rays aren't way much stronger than they actually are, since the supposed proximity of 3000 miles. It's like really powerful nuclear bomb exploding each second at a relatively close distance (so quite a lot of them in a single day).

33

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is agreed upon?

« on: March 09, 2020, 01:41:04 PM »

I'd say the difference is the (relatively) simple model of a spinning globe earth orbiting a distant sun with a moon orbiting it and with the axis of spin inclined does explain observations pretty well. It explains night and day, seasons, the way the celestial objects move in the night sky, eclipses. The FE model has to explain all these things using different and unexplained phenomena. The angular size of the moon and sun should constantly vary in your model for example, but it doesn't. And while our understanding of gravity might not be complete, our model of it does a pretty good job of explaining and predicting the movement of bodies. I don't believe there's a FE equivalent.

Now this makes me think they also agree there's a worldwide conspiracy from the sixties and involving citizens and technician from all around the... world that produces the same kind of pictures in a consistent way.

34

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What is agreed upon?

« on: March 09, 2020, 11:06:17 AM »

I think they do agree on the reality of time zones and usually they think the Sun is quite close to us. I mean, I have never saw a FE denying those two things (and they really deny so many things)

35

Flat Earth Theory / Re: I think you're wrong. Discuss if you dare

« on: March 09, 2020, 11:01:21 AM »

Hey Tom,

Here's that image you PM'd me about.

And, I totally agree.

Answers a lot.

What puzzles me of that model is that:

- it doesn't show how the Sun works as a lamp light on earth but yet illuminates the Moon
- it doesn't show the "shadow object" needed to explain Moon eclipses
- it shows Africa, South America and Australia as quite distorted as they actually are
- it doesn't show how Universal Accelleration should work in practice
- it doesn't show how the Moon and the Sun stay hanging on the sky
- it shows a very tiny Sun and current understanding of nuclear power cannot explain how something so small can be so powerful (and yellowish instead of purely white)
- sun rays would not arrive parallel to earth, implying that shadows of clouds should be much larger than their clouds
- how, trigonometrically speaking, could we ever see a full moon

36

Flat Earth Media / Re: Frozen Lake Proves Flat Earth

« on: March 06, 2020, 10:58:31 AM »

Dr Rowbotham actually accounted for refraction, by pointing out that refraction only exists when the medium which surrounds the observer is different to that which the object is placed. He used two barometers, two thermometers and two hygrometers, all reading the same. He then had the readings taken at different points at different times, and concluded that refraction played no part in the observation.

I'm summing that up in less detail than he included but if you study Dr Rowbothams work you should be able to understand that he was aware of refraction, but using proven methods was able to count it out because it simply wasn't necessary.

That refraction is not the one we're discussing here. Rowbotham doesn't appear to understand that on a globe you'd have layers of air with different densities and that light will prefer to travel on a layer (so having a curved path) rather than going straight to space, as Rowbotham apparently believes.

On the contrary, he proved that the density was the same at the start and at the end, so at the end he just disproved his own mental model of an atmosphere-less ball rather than an actual round planet.

EDIT: Thinking through it reveals a fundamental experimental error made by Rowbotham, shouldn't he have to check the difference in temperature between his point of seeing and the same point but one meter above him? And maybe also two meters and three meters. And the same for the target point and above each flag. That's the density/temperature refraction we're discussing here.

That said, is it *so* difficult to perform such experiments with some meters of elevation, where that offending refraction should have less effect? Just for the sake of  satisfying those pesky REs I mean. Just starting from few centimeters and then going up and up until five meters?

37

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Proof of Flat Earth in DFW, Texas?? You decide!

« on: March 05, 2020, 08:08:05 PM »

Answer #1. This is due to terrain. We're talking about geography, here, not curvature of the Earth. This is evidenced by Totallackey's contribution of the topo map of the area in question. No Flat Earther ever tried to argue that there are no hills or mountains on the Earth. Texas is relatively flat, but there are rolling hills everywhere.

I admit that I was hasty to conclude something without appreciating the terrain. But, by the same token, how can we say that the apparent horizontal flatness (I see that too!) is not hiding a curvature with a certain terrain configuration?

Answer #2. Though I don't see that at all in this photo, this is due to perspective, distance and the vanishing point/line. The same way that light poles appear to rise to the horizon/vanishing line while getting shorter and smaller. Clouds do the same thing as they disappear into the distance, but they shrink and move 'down' toward the horizon.

That wide white horizontal band on the background doesn't look to me as clouds vanishing due to perspective.

My points work better on the sea (as Tumeni pointed out), when I see a clear horizon on the sea I see the horizon abruptly changing into sky and clouds diving down faster than perspective. That of Texas is an interesting photo but maybe something more like frozen lakes give more clarity to the matter of flatness.

38

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Proof of Flat Earth in DFW, Texas?? You decide!

« on: March 04, 2020, 01:56:27 PM »

1. The higher the viewer is, THE MORE CURVATURE WOULD BE EVIDENT FROM LEFT TO RIGHT.

As far as I understand in the wiki they criticize Soundly's photos of Pontchartrain because, they say, if curvature was indeed *so* apparent, our planet would be quite small. I like that comment because it acknowledges the fact that you cannot just watch and see a round earth.

However, frontal curvature is somehow obvious when you start looking at it. In the picture you can notice three evidences:

- The abrupt stop of the horizon details (shouldn't they slowly disappear on a flat earth?)
- The fast downward decline of clouds.
- The cluster of buildings on the left popping out of nowhere, as if their base was hidden.

39

Flat Earth Community / Re: If you could who would it be.

« on: February 26, 2020, 10:49:43 AM »

Put it another way; if any of TFES who routinely contribute to these forums was offered the chance to go, would they accept?

Pete?
Tom?
Baby Thork?
Somerled?
totallackey?

Tom!

40

Flat Earth Media / Re: Frozen Lake Proves Flat Earth

« on: February 24, 2020, 10:22:19 AM »

I like this experiment because it is pretty neat. There are hard numbers and quite clear images. Now let me write as a counterpart to FE. In the experimental settings the experimenters (both in the lake and Rowbotham) carry out a visual observation and then make a comparison with their own understanding of RET, concluding their own thesis. But that understanding is apparently a geometrical sphere without any atmosphere, where light travels in straight paths. Indeed other REs, in their understanding of RET, complain that such effects could be due to refraction, for we can notice in the frozen lake video that lights are blurredd and flickering, and their shape is not restored with the zoom, but this refraction should bother less if the camera was actually put higher on the ground (rather than lower). This kind of refraction wasn't understood by Rowbotham, and it is explained well in this video: