[ExplorerJade]

Okay, here's the thing.
According to the FE theory, the Earth moves upwards due to a constant acceleration caused by dark energy/the Davis plane.
Since as it is mentioned in the Wiki that the Davis Plane theory is still in progress, I'm going to assume that the dark energy is the explanation most Flat Earthers agree on.
Dark energy was discovered by two international teams that included astronomers.
But, according to the sub-topic on this website- The Cosmos- it states that astronomy is 'pseudoscience', the reason being that astronomers cannot experiment to prove their hypotheses.
And also, on the same page and I'm pretty sure on every other page on this website, it states that experimentation is required to prove a hypothesis (which I agree with).
"Without experimentation, the steps of the Scientific Method are unable to be fulfilled. The researcher of the science is left in the dark to build one hypothesis upon the next: A 'house of cards' model of nature without solid empirical foundations. - https://wiki.tfes.org/Astronomy_is_a_Pseudoscience
Do you see where I'm getting with this?
So, doesn't it seem almost hypocritical when you create a theory (in this case, the dark energy theory) based off of hypotheses made by astronomers?

If there are other theories on universal acceleration, please let me know.
I'm merely trying to understand how the Flat Earth Theory works and I'm simply confused due to all this contradicting points.

[Pete Svarrior]

Dark energy was discovered by two international teams that included astronomers.

The FE term "Dark Energy" is not to be confused with dark energy as defined within astronomy. While both refer to a largely unknown force, they are not one and the same.

Do you see where I'm getting with this?

No. If you want to make a point, make it. We won't be trying to guess.

[Regicide]

I also have some doubts over the Universal accelerator. If the earth were really accelerating constantly at approximately 9.8 meters per second^2, then from a halt it would reach the speed of light in just under a year. Does this mean that FET denies the speed of light as a universal speed limit? I know that there is some disagreement in the community over this, but this is a problem that has to be avoided somehow.

[Clyde Frog]

It’s only a problem if you are mistakenly under the impression that something is somehow prohibited from undergoing constant acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Which would put you at odds with long established theory from some great scientific minds, but you’d be far from the first person to plant a flag on that hill just to die on it.

[Regicide]

It’s only a problem if you are mistakenly under the impression that something is somehow prohibited from undergoing constant acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Which would put you at odds with long established theory from some great scientific minds, but you’d be far from the first person to plant a flag on that hill just to die on it.

I'm unsure as to why you think that I am mistaken. You have made a statement but failed to provide any evidence. What theory, what scientists? I'm honestly unsure as to whether this is authentic or a joke. The speed of light in a certain medium is a speed barrier that cannot be surpassed, numerous experiments have proved this. One such example is the phenomenon of Cherenkov radiation, which is the blue glow observed in nuclear coolant pools. Light travels much slower underwater than in a vacuum, so nuclear material can emit radiation that would be traveling faster than light in water. This cannot happen, and so the particles emit photons to release energy.

If you are referring to linear acceleration, then I am right. An object is prohibited from undergoing linear acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Acceleration is change of velocity. For a linearly accelerated flat earth to match empirical observations of gravity, the world would have to constantly increase it's velocity. At some point, in this case just under a year as I previously mentioned, the world would reach the speed of light. The idea of the speed of light then has to either be dispelled with, which contrasts with observations, or has to be somehow overcome. The acceleration cannot be changed, because that would result in a perceived change of gravity. The speed of the earth cannot be changed, because then everyone would smack into the ceiling at the speed of light (which would be quite a sight).

If you are talking about centrifugal acceleration, on the other hand, there is quite another problem. Centrifugal acceleration is observably different from gravity. Just watch this amazing video by Tom Scott:


Flat Earthers and Round Earthers generally agree that linear acceleration and gravity are indistinguishable. That's the only reason the idea of a universal accelerator works.

However, since a centrifugal accelerator is distinguishable from gravity, a centrifugal accelerator cannot be used. No matter how much the inconstancies are removed by scaling up the contraption, they will still be there.

[iamcpc]

Okay, here's the thing.
According to the FE theory, the Earth moves upwards due to a constant acceleration caused by dark energy/the Davis plane.

I first had an issue with UA because I'm able to sense acceleration and I don't sense the ground i'm standing on accelerating up.

Pete had offered a pretty sound explanation that, being born into this acceleration, you would not be able to sense it the same way you can sense other acceleration which, to me, made perfect sense. Sound logical explanation.



Another thing is that i'm not able to sense the acceleration of other things. Just myself. If a ball suddenly started accelerating toward me and I was not looking I could not sense that. If I was blindfolded in a car I could still sense the acceleration of the car.


Then I fell down today. When I fell I DEFINITELY sensed acceleration which I had previously discussed. This, to me at least, shows that I am the one accelerating down because i'm unable to sense the acceleration of objects outside of my body.

The same thing happened when I jumped off the diving board. I didn't sense that I was floating weightless. I sensed that I was accelerating down toward the water. I wonder how this observation is possible in the UA model.

[Clyde Frog]

It’s only a problem if you are mistakenly under the impression that something is somehow prohibited from undergoing constant acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Which would put you at odds with long established theory from some great scientific minds, but you’d be far from the first person to plant a flag on that hill just to die on it.

I'm unsure as to why you think that I am mistaken. You have made a statement but failed to provide any evidence. What theory, what scientists? I'm honestly unsure as to whether this is authentic or a joke. The speed of light in a certain medium is a speed barrier that cannot be surpassed, numerous experiments have proved this. One such example is the phenomenon of Cherenkov radiation, which is the blue glow observed in nuclear coolant pools. Light travels much slower underwater than in a vacuum, so nuclear material can emit radiation that would be traveling faster than light in water. This cannot happen, and so the particles emit photons to release energy.

If you are referring to linear acceleration, then I am right. An object is prohibited from undergoing linear acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Acceleration is change of velocity. For a linearly accelerated flat earth to match empirical observations of gravity, the world would have to constantly increase it's velocity. At some point, in this case just under a year as I previously mentioned, the world would reach the speed of light. The idea of the speed of light then has to either be dispelled with, which contrasts with observations, or has to be somehow overcome. The acceleration cannot be changed, because that would result in a perceived change of gravity. The speed of the earth cannot be changed, because then everyone would smack into the ceiling at the speed of light (which would be quite a sight).

I'm quite certain you can't demonstrate that you are right, because doing so would violate General Relativity, which I strongly suspect is the very theoretical framework you are referring to when you say nothing can travel faster than "the speed of light" (which you probably meant to call simply c, or the vacuum speed of light, but whatever it doesn't matter). The issue is that you are defining the speed of something either against some sort of a preferred FoR (which doesn't exist) or from some independent observer's FoR, which is necessarily going to be different than that of an observer standing on the surface of a constantly accelerating disc.

So. The ball is in your court. If you'd like to disprove Relativity, have at it, but you own the burden of proof if that's the path you want to go down. I'll pick Einstein in this particular battle of wits though. At least he knew his own model.

[Regicide]

Before I go on, Dave, I am unsure as to what you are arguing. Your arguments seem to support a round earth, which is what I support. Are we beating a dead horse, because I am an RE supporter. We seem to be arguing the same point.

[Pete Svarrior]

Then I fell down today. When I fell I DEFINITELY sensed acceleration which I had previously discussed. This, to me at least, shows that I am the one accelerating down because i'm unable to sense the acceleration of objects outside of my body.

The same thing happened when I jumped off the diving board. I didn't sense that I was floating weightless. I sensed that I was accelerating down toward the water. I wonder how this observation is possible in the UA model.

It sounds to me like you misunderstood what I said previously. You can certainly feel your own weight. Lie down on your back and you can feel your back pressing against the floor (and vice versa). Sit in an accelerating car* and you can feel the car seat press against your back. That's all that "feeling acceleration" is in everyday scenarios.

What you felt when you fell was a brief experience of weightlessness/free-fall. This, too, can be colloquially described as "feeling acceleration", but it's a wholly distinct phenomenon. It sounds to me that by using an ambiguous term, you accidentally drew an equivalence between the two.

In the free-fall scenario, it follows from Einstein's Equivalence Principle that you cannot tell the difference between yourself falling down and yourself being perfectly still in an ever-accelerating body of air. To disagree with this principle is not to highlight an "issue" with UA - it's just a case of dismissing modern physics based on nothing other than a flawed intuition. You cannot claim to support RET while discarding some of its core aspects.

* - technically, the car would have to be accelerating at a perfect constant rate for this analogy to work, which might not be very easy to ensure in practice

As for Regicide: your question is already answered in the article on Universal Acceleration. In short, your impression of how acceleration works is rooted in classical mechanics, which doesn't provide reliable results at relativistic velocities. You need to read up on Special Relativity to be able to argue this reliably.

[existoid]

you cannot tell the difference between yourself falling down and yourself being perfectly still in an ever-accelerating body of air.

I'm not so sure.

Thought experiment -

Imagine you are blindfolded and placed on a chair on a platform near the top of a tall, empty silo. The chair is attached to silent bungee cords.
There are also fans below.

You are told that EITHER the platform will be silently and swiftly removed, and you'll fall OR the fans will blow air that is accelerating at exactly 9.8 m/s squared (or whatever it is).

The bungee cords have been engineered to slow your descent and stop at a specified gently rate, and the fans would slow the airflow at the same rate.

Do you believe you would definitely not be able to tell whether you were actually falling, or whether there was simply a body of air accelerating around you?

(I've probably gone a little overboard and could have made this thought experiment a little simpler). 

Is this yet another body of science that FET will have to contend with?  (not referring to a "science of falling"    but biology and our understanding of the inner ear that tells us about balance, motion, acceleration of our body).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_(sensation)

[Pete Svarrior]

This analogy is not appropriate. In order to correctly simulate this, you'd have to find a way to switch gravity/UA off and on on demand. Bungee cords, platforms, or any other form of suspension won't do it.

Unfortunately, it is you who will have to "contend" with physics to make your claim work. Namely, the Equivalence Principle. If you find a way to disprove this principle, you will have completely destroyed the foundations of the Round Earth Theory. Aside from being an own goal, I somehow doubt your chances of success.

Your anecdote on the inner ear makes things even more complicated. You're no longer just discussing free-fall (which was already too complex for you to appropriately work with), but you are now introducing additional momenta and rotation. If you want to rely on that particular sensation, you'll have to adjust your experiment to include those factors. Notably, this is another case of abusing ambiguous terms - falling over is not free-fall, but you chose to refer to both as "falling".

This discussion will be useless unless you choose a scenario and describe it accurately. Mixing them up, or picking and choosing from completely different scenarios, is not going to help you understand the physics here.

Note that none of this touches on FET, not yet. We're just discussing high school physics.

[Regicide]

It is also worth noting that the inner ear cannot, in fact, notice free-fall due to gravity or a UA. The latter because there is no acceleration and the former because the fluid in your inner ear is accelerating due to gravity at the same rate as you are falling. Like Pete said, this is not relevant to RE/FE debate.

However, Pete,  Equivalence Principle is not a foundation of Round Earth Theory, unless I'm somehow mistaken. I agree that, since none of us are Einsteins, it will be nigh impossible to disprove Equivalence Theory. However, Equivalence Theory is unrelated to either school of thought.

Any further discussion of Equivalence theory would not only be beating a dead horse, but also beating a horse that belongs to neither of the beaters and is actually a donkey.

[Pete Svarrior]

However, Equivalence Theory is unrelated to either school of thought.

This is untrue. The consequences of the physics behind EP are essential for either model to work. If you prove that it doesn't actually work, you've disproved RET.

Sadly, the horse is far from dead. So far, we have two people here who claim that EP doesn't work, and then we have you who thinks Lorentz transformations don't apply. We can't have people claiming to defend RET while just throwing physics out the window.

[Stagiri]

It’s only a problem if you are mistakenly under the impression that something is somehow prohibited from undergoing constant acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Which would put you at odds with long established theory from some great scientific minds, but you’d be far from the first person to plant a flag on that hill just to die on it.

I'm unsure as to why you think that I am mistaken. You have made a statement but failed to provide any evidence. What theory, what scientists? I'm honestly unsure as to whether this is authentic or a joke. The speed of light in a certain medium is a speed barrier that cannot be surpassed, numerous experiments have proved this. One such example is the phenomenon of Cherenkov radiation, which is the blue glow observed in nuclear coolant pools. Light travels much slower underwater than in a vacuum, so nuclear material can emit radiation that would be traveling faster than light in water. This cannot happen, and so the particles emit photons to release energy.

If you are referring to linear acceleration, then I am right. An object is prohibited from undergoing linear acceleration for an arbitrary length of time. Acceleration is change of velocity. For a linearly accelerated flat earth to match empirical observations of gravity, the world would have to constantly increase it's velocity. At some point, in this case just under a year as I previously mentioned, the world would reach the speed of light. The idea of the speed of light then has to either be dispelled with, which contrasts with observations, or has to be somehow overcome. The acceleration cannot be changed, because that would result in a perceived change of gravity. The speed of the earth cannot be changed, because then everyone would smack into the ceiling at the speed of light (which would be quite a sight).
(...)

Actually, as TheRealDave has mentioned, that wouldn't be a problem, at least according to Einstein's theory of relativity. It just depends on how you look at it.

Let's suppose there's an outer space where one's somehow free from the influence of the UA. In that outer space, an observer is watching the FE being accelerated by the UA. Let's call him Adam. Let's also say that Adam has a really god eyesight and so is able to oversee the entire trajectory of the FE.

From Adam's perspective, the FE is accelerating and thus gaining speed. As you've correctly said, no object with mass - and the FE definitely has mass - can achieve the speed of light. So, as the speed of the FE in relation to Adam's FoR gets closer and closer to the speed of light, the acceleration starts to noticeably decrease. The FE could accelerate for eternity but since the acceleration diminishes it would never reach the speed of light, just get closer and closer to it.

However, that's just what would seem to be going on from Adam's perspective. For an observer living on the FE, let's call her Eve, things would be different. She lives on the FE and she is accelerated along with it. Her FoR is non-inertial so she experiences the inertial force of gravitation. However, in her FoR, the FE is in relative rest, there's no speeding up and so there's no getting close to the speed of light. So from Eve's perspective, this could go on for ever even as the inertial force of gravitation stays constant.

[Stagiri]

(...)

If you are talking about centrifugal acceleration, on the other hand, there is quite another problem. Centrifugal acceleration is observably different from gravity. Just watch this amazing video by Tom Scott:


(...)

That difference would diminish if you increased the radius of rotation. For a radius large enough, it could be too small to observe. Also, in the video it's said that you would gradually adapt.

[Clyde Frog]

Before I go on, Dave, I am unsure as to what you are arguing. Your arguments seem to support a round earth, which is what I support. Are we beating a dead horse, because I am an RE supporter. We seem to be arguing the same point.

No, you were arguing that an object cannot undergo constant acceleration indefinitely because it would eventually exceed c, therefore the Universal Acceleration model for FE is impossible.

You began with a false premise, your argument is unsupported. I'm basing my response on the same set of principles you invoked when you brought up the universal speed limit.

[Regicide]

If you look at some of my replies to Pete, I acknowledged this misunderstanding.

[Groit]

There's only one way to test this, and that is to build a rocket, accelerate it upwards at around 3g until it reaches a velocity of a little over 11 km s^-1 relative to the surface of the Earth. If the rocket escapes the Earth carries on into space with the same relative velocity then RE gravity is correct. If however, the Earth slams into the back of the rocket after some period of time since the Earth is accelerating, then FE Universal Acceleration is correct.

All we need now is a rocket 

[Pete Svarrior]

There's only one way to test this, and that is to build a rocket, accelerate it upwards at around 3g until it reaches a velocity of a little over 11 km s^-1 relative to the surface of the Earth. If the rocket escapes the Earth carries on into space with the same relative velocity then RE gravity is correct. If however, the Earth slams into the back of the rocket after some period of time since the Earth is accelerating, then FE Universal Acceleration is correct.

This, once again, defies the equivalence principle or the definition of gravity under the FE model - it's hard to say which one because you provided very little information on your actual reasoning. Whenever you say that you've found a way to distinguish things that are indistinguishable by definition, you probably did a dumb.

In short: no, FET does not go against the idea of escape velocities.

[Groit]

In short: no, FET does not go against the idea of escape velocities.

Is there anything in the wiki on this?