[SteelyBob]

And as I stated, I have not driven that route and have no reason to drive it.

I am sure the people that were firing the rockets over there had plenty of opportunity to drive it plenty of times and I am sure they had distances that were accurate enough, given just how "deadly," those Scud missile attacks were. Might as well been the North Koreans firing the missiles, LOL!

So those two points were a random place in the desert in northern Iraq and Tehran - a typical Scud firing from the Iran-Iraq war.

Why would you need to have driven a journey to know the distance when you have the 'x-y' coordinates you keep telling us are so simple?

Why can't you just calculate the distance? Should be pretty easy, right?

Unless...you can't?

I could calculate the distance given those coordinates on a flat chart.

So could you, I'm sure.

You've got the lat/long. What more do you need? Everybody uses lat/long right?

[jimster]

A globe is a map on the surface of a sphere. Whether the earth is round or flat, mathematically only one can have accurate distances, per Gauss's Remarkable Theorem.  You can't represent a scaled version of a curved surface on a flat plane and preserve distance, and vice versa. If the earth is round, you can't make a flat map with constant scale and accurate distance. If the earth is flat, no globe could have accurate distances. Math fact, seen it proved, as have millions (billions?) in math classes all around the world.

[Tom Bishop]

Epicycles, from the wiki page:

Epicycles worked very well and were highly accurate, because, as Fourier analysis later showed, any smooth curve can be approximated to arbitrary accuracy with a sufficient number of epicycles. However, they fell out of favour with the discovery that planetary motions were largely elliptical from a heliocentric frame of reference, which led to the discovery that gravity obeying a simple inverse square law could better explain all planetary motions.

I searched looking for contemporary astronomy using epicycles, but after many pages, I could find only Ptolemy, Copernicus, Aristotle, all history telling the story of how Kepler came up with a better explanation. Zero contemporary references to epicycles. Explained here:

https://www.spitzinc.com/blog/epicycles-and-discovering-bad-theories/

As I asked earlier, do you understand RET? Apparently not

No, actually, it is you who does not know about RET. Kepler used epicycles. This should have been a dead give away since Newton came after Kepler, and used epicycles in the previous quote I gave.

There were still epicycles in Kepler's version. He just reduced it a little more. You can see that Jupiter is on an epicycle in his version:

Dr. Samuel Herrick - https://ia802909.us.archive.org/18/items/the-foundations-of-astrodynamics/The%20Foundations%20of%20Astrodynamics.pdf

“ Physical celestial mechanics may be said to have begun with Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and the laws of force and gravitation. Astrodynamics and mathematical celestial mechanics, on the other hand, date back at least to Heracleides of Pontus in the fourth century B.C. The Greek invention of epicycles and eccentrics was developed into a system by Apollonius of Perga in the third century and Hipparchus of Alexandria in the second century B.C. It was refined and published by Ptolemy of Alexandria in the second century A.D., and came to be known as the Ptolemaic system. It is generally assumed that the epicycle was discredited by Johannes Kepler some 1500 years later, but in point of fact epicycles have persisted in astrodynamics down to the present day, and have extended their domain into other areas of science under the guise of Fourier series! ”

  “ In modern perturbation theory we actually take account of the original epicyclic concept by combining several Fourier series that have arguments based upon different angular variables. ”

[WTF_Seriously]

And for the final freaking time, as has been demonstrated in previous threads, long distance navigation of any sort is broken down into easier to manage short trips, with frequent stops to check systems and position.

Just a simple google and this is shown to be nonsense.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/longest-flights-in-the-world#:~:text=Lufthansa%20repatriated%20German%20citizens%20from,Papeete%2C%20Tahiti%2C%20to%20Paris.

Nothing, and I mean, NOTHING, has fundamentally changed concerning which routes are taken over long distances, either by sea or air, for over 100 years.

The first intercontinental flight didn't occur until 1927.  The first flight over the north pole didn't occur until 1937.  The first commercial polar route didn't occur until 1954.

When you are able to tell the difference between a globe and map, let us know will you?

All globes are maps, not all maps are globes.


I know self awareness is not really your thing, but I'll just leave this little nugget here.

You have no business even commenting in the thread as it is quite clear the subject matter is well over your head.

[RonJ]

@TomBishop

There's a really simple way to end all of this nonsense.  Simply produce an accurate Flat Earth map.  That's all you need to do and this all ends.  It truly is just that simple.

We'll wait.

In turn, we will wait for you to produce an accurate RE map.

I like any WGS-84 chart.  We used them at sea every day.  They were always accurate and always based upon a spherical earth.  If you can find an inaccuracy in one of them then PLEASE tell us.  We need to know to enhance the safety of the ship's & crews out there every day that depend upon them.  Thank You!

You have no clue whether the WGS - 84 chart was based on a spherical earth or not.

ZERO clue.

"Somebody told me they were," is a more accurate statement.

And for the final freaking time, as has been demonstrated in previous threads, long distance navigation of any sort is broken down into easier to manage short trips, with frequent stops to check systems and position.

Nothing, and I mean, NOTHING, has fundamentally changed concerning which routes are taken over long distances, either by sea or air, for over 100 years. That is fact. And none of it, I mean of NONE OF IT, requires RE to work.

Well, when WGS stands for 'World Geodetic System' and that system is based upon a globe then I could say that somebody told me that the navigational charts were based upon a global earth.  Since we used those charts each and every day while at sea to navigate and we always got to our destination safely then you could say that was a satisfactory demonstration of their accuracy and effectiveness. 


Your statement about 'frequent stops' is based upon ignorance, I see.  Just how many international trips have you made across the earth's oceans?  Do you have any navigational training?  I've personally been on countless trips across all the oceans on earth.  Typically we would make a trip from China to the USA and set up the entire voyage plan before even leaving the dock.  That plan would be put into the ships autopilot and once we are clear of the last sea buoy at the departing port we would not stop or even slow down once until we arrived at the destination's entry buoy.  This is how it works on ship's today.  Everything is computerized and all the maps are electronic.  International regulations still say we must have paper charts aboard (WGS-84) and our position is charted at least once an hour.  I don't know which ships make frequent stops to check systems and position, but not even one ship I worked on over the last 20 years ever did that.  This is from personal experience! 

[Tom Bishop]

Tom Bishop, do I correctly understand your position?

"Celestial navigation is allegedly based on the theory that the Round Earth is the center of the universe and that everything is revolving around it."

Where did you get that? Completely wrong. Please take a course in elementary astronomy.

It is you who needs to take some courses.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/01/satellite-nav-1.html

"Man has navigated across the globe by means of satellites for thousands of years – however, until the mid twentieth century, these were not GPS-satellites, but stars. In reality, the sun and the stars aren’t satellites of the Earth, but celestial navigation is based on a precopernican world view (the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe)."

[RonJ]

Tom Bishop, do I correctly understand your position?

"Celestial navigation is allegedly based on the theory that the Round Earth is the center of the universe and that everything is revolving around it."

Where did you get that? Completely wrong. Please take a course in elementary astronomy.

It is you who needs to take some courses.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/01/satellite-nav-1.html

"Man has navigated across the globe by means of satellites for thousands of years – however, until the mid twentieth century, these were not GPS-satellites, but stars. In reality, the sun and the stars aren’t satellites of the Earth, but celestial navigation is based on a precopernican world view (the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe)."

Please do your research before you post nonsense.  Perhaps the first celestial navigators did have a pre-Copernican world view and perhaps many got lost doing so.  Today a celestial navigator takes multiple sightings on some chosen heavenly bodies then uses spherical trig to break the sights down to arrive at a usable position.  The assumption is always based upon the fact that the earth is a sphere.  If that were not so then celestial navigation wouldn't work.  It does work.  I know from personal experience, so the earth must be a sphere.  This has been demonstrated in the Zetetic manner.


I have worked aboard quite a few high tech computerized ships.  Every ship has always had 2 sextants and a full set of paper charts aboard.  This is done because it's a law.  If an official in some country wants to inspect the ships sextants and you don't have them then you won't be permitted to leave the dock.  If something happens to the GPS system or maybe the ship gets a serious lightning strike and knocks out all the electronics then the old fashioned sextants would be the fall back navigation system, even today.  Any navigational officer must also be proficient in using a sextant to obtain a license. 

[AATW]

celestial navigation is based on a precopernican world view (the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe)."

And what shape was it known to be?

[jimster]

RE both epicycles still being used and celestial navigation based on precopernican, straw man, Tom Bishop is misrepresenting RET. Seems like the REs should get to say what RE is. Also seems like a person should know what he is arguing against. We are here arguing with a man who says that celestial navigation is precopernican, astronomers are still using epicycles, and no one knows the distance between major cities, meaning gps doesn't work. I have a feeling FEs rely on gos for their own daily use, but disclaim it for figuring out the shape of the earth.

And yet our expectation of reasonablness and competent mental process leads us to expect to be able to explain and convince him. That a person functioning and accepted in regular life, able to read and write and do arithmetic, remember things, hold a job, have friends, in short function apparently competently in everyday life. could repeatedly reject, dismiss, delude, distort, etc in order to hold on to a belief that makes no sense is alarming and scary. It threatens our collective self image as an intelligent competent species.

 

[Tom Bishop]

Today a celestial navigator takes multiple sightings on some chosen heavenly bodies then uses spherical trig to break the sights down to arrive at a usable position.  The assumption is always based upon the fact that the earth is a sphere.  If that were not so then celestial navigation wouldn't work.  It does work.  I know from personal experience, so the earth must be a sphere.  This has been demonstrated in the Zetetic manner.

Celestial bodies and lights in the sky aren't the earth. Spherical trigonometry means that the sky is spread out around you and says nothing about the actual shape of the Earth. The bodies don't even move at a consistent speed, but speed up as they approach the horizon due to 'refraction'.

There are ways to get your latitude or longitude from the celestial bodies, such as from the angle of the Sun at noon, but all of the FE models also have a longitude and latitude.

celestial navigation is based on a precopernican world view (the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe)."

And what shape was it known to be?

The precopernican world view was a round world that required epicycles. Keep up.

RE both epicycles still being used and celestial navigation based on precopernican, straw man, Tom Bishop is misrepresenting RET. Seems like the REs should get to say what RE is.

They did.

[stack]

...but all of the FE models also have a longitude and latitude.

They do? What models are those?

[RonJ]

Today a celestial navigator takes multiple sightings on some chosen heavenly bodies then uses spherical trig to break the sights down to arrive at a usable position.  The assumption is always based upon the fact that the earth is a sphere.  If that were not so then celestial navigation wouldn't work.  It does work.  I know from personal experience, so the earth must be a sphere.  This has been demonstrated in the Zetetic manner.

Celestial bodies and lights in the sky aren't the earth. Spherical trigonometry means that the sky is spread out around you and says nothing about the actual shape of the Earth. The bodies don't even move at a consistent speed, but speed up as they approach the horizon due to 'refraction'.

There are ways to get your latitude or longitude from the celestial bodies, such as from the angle of the Sun at noon, but all of the FE models also have a longitude and latitude.

I can see that you have NO idea of how celestial navigation really works.  No, all the lights in the sky are not the earth.  Those lights only provide a reference, called a zenith point, on the surface of the earth.  Once you have a number of zenith points you then have to use spherical trigonometry because you will end up with a bunch of triangles that are great circles on a globe.  Here is where it's important to consider the actual shape of the earth.  Failure to do so will have undesirable consequences for the safety of your ship.  All this is from personal experience.  Please do your own research so your answers can become more meaningful.  Right now your comments are mostly incorrect. 

[SteelyBob]

So Tom has said:

There are ways to get your latitude or longitude from the celestial bodies, such as from the angle of the Sun at noon, but all of the FE models also have a longitude and latitude.

And Action80 said this, a little while ago in a different thread:

As if Lat/Long is not an x-y coordinate system, when it clearly is anyway.

...but now seems to be struggling to calculate the distance between a pair of lat/longs, for want, apparently, of some x-y coordinates on a 'flat chart':

I could calculate the distance given those coordinates on a flat chart.

So now is your chance to shine, FE people. Tom, Action80 or somebody...a really simple task for you, given that you agree that lat/long is a coordinate system and that all FE models have lat/long too, which can be derived from celestial navigation methods. All you have to do is demonstrate how you would calculate the distance between two lat/long pairs of coordinates, like the ones I used in my example earlier in this thread. You keep saying it's really simple to do. So do it, and show your calculations.

[nthurd]

The discussion is fascinating, but it is a bit bogged down in unnecessary detail.

Wiki could use an additional page to simplify matters. A list of fake jobs, based on faulty RE model. People working those jobs should realize the error of their ways and do something more productive (an additional list would be nice).

I have some suggestions to start the list of fake jobs: navigator, cartographer, astronomer, sniper, artilleryman, pilot, astronaut, teacher, physicist, rocket scientist, geologist, trucking company managers (they think they can price the jobs by mileage, lol!)... We would know that personal experience coming from these occupations should not be taken seriously.

It would not be necessary to explain time and again to some navigator that they have no idea about the shape of the earth.

But I am struggling with the other list.

Astronomers could switch to astrology.

Armies of the world should switch from artillery to something more accurate. Just imagine the resources we could save!

Teachers are not really needed, there is plenty of material on the internet to do research, each child can educate themselves. Even to become a rocket scientist, it is enough to solve quadratic equations. All one needs to know from scientific papers is to read the sentences containing words "anomalous", "wrong" and "unknown". Scientific method would be much more efficient if simplified to simple Ctrl+f searches.

[Action80]

And as I stated, I have not driven that route and have no reason to drive it.

I am sure the people that were firing the rockets over there had plenty of opportunity to drive it plenty of times and I am sure they had distances that were accurate enough, given just how "deadly," those Scud missile attacks were. Might as well been the North Koreans firing the missiles, LOL!

So those two points were a random place in the desert in northern Iraq and Tehran - a typical Scud firing from the Iran-Iraq war.

Why would you need to have driven a journey to know the distance when you have the 'x-y' coordinates you keep telling us are so simple?

Why can't you just calculate the distance? Should be pretty easy, right?

Unless...you can't?

I could calculate the distance given those coordinates on a flat chart.

So could you, I'm sure.

You've got the lat/long. What more do you need? Everybody uses lat/long right?

I am sure they do.

They also use a point of origin.

[Action80]

A globe is a map on the surface of a sphere. Whether the earth is round or flat, mathematically only one can have accurate distances, per Gauss's Remarkable Theorem.  You can't represent a scaled version of a curved surface on a flat plane and preserve distance, and vice versa. If the earth is round, you can't make a flat map with constant scale and accurate distance. If the earth is flat, no globe could have accurate distances. Math fact, seen it proved, as have millions (billions?) in math classes all around the world.

A globe is not a map and a globe is not necessary for navigation.

End of story.

[Action80]

@TomBishop

There's a really simple way to end all of this nonsense.  Simply produce an accurate Flat Earth map.  That's all you need to do and this all ends.  It truly is just that simple.

We'll wait.

In turn, we will wait for you to produce an accurate RE map.

I like any WGS-84 chart.  We used them at sea every day.  They were always accurate and always based upon a spherical earth.  If you can find an inaccuracy in one of them then PLEASE tell us.  We need to know to enhance the safety of the ship's & crews out there every day that depend upon them.  Thank You!

You have no clue whether the WGS - 84 chart was based on a spherical earth or not.

ZERO clue.

"Somebody told me they were," is a more accurate statement.

And for the final freaking time, as has been demonstrated in previous threads, long distance navigation of any sort is broken down into easier to manage short trips, with frequent stops to check systems and position.

Nothing, and I mean, NOTHING, has fundamentally changed concerning which routes are taken over long distances, either by sea or air, for over 100 years. That is fact. And none of it, I mean of NONE OF IT, requires RE to work.

Well, when WGS stands for 'World Geodetic System' and that system is based upon a globe then I could say that somebody told me that the navigational charts were based upon a global earth.  Since we used those charts each and every day while at sea to navigate and we always got to our destination safely then you could say that was a satisfactory demonstration of their accuracy and effectiveness. 


Your statement about 'frequent stops' is based upon ignorance, I see.  Just how many international trips have you made across the earth's oceans?  Do you have any navigational training?  I've personally been on countless trips across all the oceans on earth.  Typically we would make a trip from China to the USA and set up the entire voyage plan before even leaving the dock.  That plan would be put into the ships autopilot and once we are clear of the last sea buoy at the departing port we would not stop or even slow down once until we arrived at the destination's entry buoy.  This is how it works on ship's today.  Everything is computerized and all the maps are electronic.  International regulations still say we must have paper charts aboard (WGS-84) and our position is charted at least once an hour.  I don't know which ships make frequent stops to check systems and position, but not even one ship I worked on over the last 20 years ever did that.  This is from personal experience!

You are full of it.

Whether or not the stops are ACTUALLY made isn't the POINT.

Every long distance route taken by sea or air has essentially remained UNCHANGED since long distance travel commenced.

None of it was ever based on the idea of a globe.

It was always based on celestial navigation.

Ever since Googleotomy, you have been pushing this ridiculous tripe on the boards and it has always been nothing but an outright LIE of monstrous proportions.

Your schtick is old, worn out. Go lie down in the corner somewhere.

This thread is about ICBM's, which pose a SERIOUS threat to the continued existence of HUMANITY, even though NO ONE has ever seen one used, and even though they do not need RE to operate. North Korea might be able to shoot one past 100 miles any day now.

So pay attention.

[SteelyBob]

I am sure they do.

They also use a point of origin.

What, exactly, do you mean by 'point of origin'?, and how does that facilitate the calculation of a distance between two lat/long points?

[Action80]

I am sure they do.

They also use a point of origin.

What, exactly, do you mean by 'point of origin'?, and how does that facilitate the calculation of a distance between two lat/long points?

Whenever you calculate distance between two point on a x/y coordinate system, there is always a point of origin.

Then it is simply the distance formula d=√((x₂-x₁)²+(y₂-y₁)²)

[Action80]

So Tom has said:

There are ways to get your latitude or longitude from the celestial bodies, such as from the angle of the Sun at noon, but all of the FE models also have a longitude and latitude.

And Action80 said this, a little while ago in a different thread:

As if Lat/Long is not an x-y coordinate system, when it clearly is anyway.

...but now seems to be struggling to calculate the distance between a pair of lat/longs, for want, apparently, of some x-y coordinates on a 'flat chart':

I could calculate the distance given those coordinates on a flat chart.

So now is your chance to shine, FE people. Tom, Action80 or somebody...a really simple task for you, given that you agree that lat/long is a coordinate system and that all FE models have lat/long too, which can be derived from celestial navigation methods. All you have to do is demonstrate how you would calculate the distance between two lat/long pairs of coordinates, like the ones I used in my example earlier in this thread. You keep saying it's really simple to do. So do it, and show your calculations.

If I was struggling with it, then I would not have given the formula for how to do it.