[Pancake]

Or are all the other planets round aswell? what about exoplanets?

[Curious Squirrel]

Or are all the other planets round aswell? what about exoplanets?

"Earth isn't a planet, and therefore doesn't follow the rules of planets being round" I highly suggest starting in the wiki, it has this answer and many others to help guide you into the study of this curious idea.

[Pancake]

Thanks for your reply. So all 'planets' are round? How about the (our) moon?

[Curious Squirrel]

Thanks for your reply. So all 'planets' are round? How about the (our) moon?

There seems to be some debate on that within the community. There are issues with it being flat, and issues with it being round, and I've never seen anyone nail down precisely how to fix one or the other. Common thought is that it's round though I believe.

[Pancake]

Here is a picture of the moon I took. You can see its been hit by a big asteroid at the bottom, and the debris field has a curve. Would this not be straight, if the moon was flat? Anyone else care to input on this?

[3DGeek]

Here is a picture of the moon I took. You can see its been hit by a big asteroid at the bottom, and the debris field has a curve. Would this not be straight, if the moon was flat? Anyone else care to input on this?

Wow!  That's a very elegant proof that the moon is round.   Thank you!

Now we just have to worry about why the moon looks exactly the same whether it's on the Eastern horizon, Western horizon or vertically overhead - noting carefully that in different parts of the world, it is all three of those things at once.   If it's 3000 miles above the earth - but 6000 miles away when it's on the horizon - then we should be seeing almost complete opposite sides of the moon from the two moonrise/moonset locations - and the underside of the moon from the "overhead" location.

The only explanation I've heard from this one is that the moon is a hologram projected up there by NASA...for which the English translation is: "DON'T WORRY!  IT'S MAGIC!!!".

Doubtless Tom can make his "alternative perspective" thing fix this problem...he's already tying light rays into pretzels in half a dozen other ways.

[Pancake]

Ok I dont think I believe the hologram explanation, why would they not just 'project' different sides? Why project it at all? Plus doesnt a projector need something to project on to? It would also have to be one hell of a projector to shine so brightly, and so big, 3-6000 miles away.

[3DGeek]

Ok I dont think I believe the hologram explanation, why would they not just 'project' different sides? Why project it at all? Plus doesnt a projector need something to project on to? It would also have to be one hell of a projector to shine so brightly, and so big, 3-6000 miles away.

Hey - I didn't say it was a GOOD explanation!   (And how did this work two thousand years before the invention of the hologram?)

Holograms don't really work that way anyway - you have to be looking into the projector in order to be able to see the hologram.

This idea can only have been cooked up by people who believe that R2D2's hologram of Princess Leia was an actual real thing!

[Pete Svarrior]

Thanks for your reply. So all 'planets' are round? How about the (our) moon?

The moon is round. God only knows what 3DGeek is on about.

[Curious Squirrel]

Thanks for your reply. So all 'planets' are round? How about the (our) moon?

The moon is round. God only knows what 3DGeek is on about.

Another assertion from other sections of the FE community. There are groups who claim it's flat, and others who claim it's just a hologram projected onto the dome. It's always a little mind-boggling (imo) just how many ideas any one section of FE can have.

[Pete Svarrior]

Yes, other FE groups exist and they're very different from us. I'm surprised that I need to explain this, but I'm not going to take responsibility for these other groups. If you have an issue with something they say, take it up with them, not us.

[Hmmm]

Or are all the other planets round aswell? what about exoplanets?

hi, Pancake(that sounds funny! ), you can read my re-translation of a hypothesis, Although it's a big mess with flawed logic, i think it's still a useful information.
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6625.0

[Curious Squirrel]

Yes, other FE groups exist and they're very different from us. I'm surprised that I need to explain this, but I'm not going to take responsibility for these other groups. If you have an issue with something they say, take it up with them, not us.

I mean, someone on this very forum is the one who just recently suggested the moon is a hologram. You were asking what he was on about, my best guess is saying what some other ideas are. It's Q&A, isn't that what should be done here? Answer the question as fully as possible? With no true unified theory on anything, it seems like one should be presenting all of the thoughts on any subject to give the asker research options.

[3DGeek]

Yes, other FE groups exist and they're very different from us. I'm surprised that I need to explain this, but I'm not going to take responsibility for these other groups. If you have an issue with something they say, take it up with them, not us.

Then let me try to explain the "moon problem" to you - perhaps you could explain your personal point of view about it?  You're surely not going to dodge this issue are you?

At some point in time, the moon will be vertically overhead some point on the Flat Earth - right?  Let's suppose that place is on the equator at the zero meridian - right about on the West coast of Africa near the city of Accra.   When someone tips their head back and looks at the moon - what do they see?  Something like this pattern of mareis and impact craters?



OK.  So if the moon is a round ball, then we're seeing the "bottom" hemisphere of it.

Now - suppose we're in London at the same moment in time.  Because the moon is about  4,000 miles to the south of us and about 3,000 miles up - we should be seeing it in the southern skies.   But we're definitely NOT looking at the underside of the moon.  Maybe we can see much more of the top of the moon than can be seen from Accra - and some of the bottom part must be obscured.  So maybe we can't see that giant "splat" that is Tycho crater because it's off on the other side of the moon from where we're looking.

Then, consider someone way south - maybe on the coast of Antarctica (maybe on the Ice Wall) - now, the moon is in the Northern skies - and again we can't see all of the bottom half of it - but Tycho crater should be right in the middle of the moon's disk.

We can go further and imagine views from the East coast of Mexico and India - which would let us see yet different sides of the moon.

We'd be able to see almost all of the moon's surface - and the image of the moon would look VERY different from each place.

Needless to say, this doesn't happen.

Worse still - what about the PHASES of the moon?   If the moon is full in India - then it should be a new moon in Mexico, and a half-moon in London and Antarctica.

The amount of the moon in shadow is (in reality) the same from everywhere that the moon is visible.

Can you explain this?   I don't think so.

[mtnman]

3dGeek, here is another take on a similar problem with the moon.

Imagine the unipolar view (first drawing on https://wiki.tfes.org/Layout_of_the_Continents) with clock marks for ease of discussion. Let's say that the moon is at the 9:00 position to the right, south of North America. The sun is at the 3:00 position, south of India. We are viewing from the U.S. This is where there should be a full moon, right?

If the sun and moon are about 3k miles above the Earth, there will be an angle from the viewpoint on Earth to the sun, and another angle from the viewpoint to the moon. Whatever those angles are, the light from the sun is illuminating the half of the moon towards the sun, and we are viewing from a lower angle. Therefore, we could never see a full moon. It might be nearly full, but never completely round/full.

[Tom Bishop]

Can you explain this?   I don't think so.

I have described the mechanism elsewhere.

This is because the higher a receding body is, the less it turns to its side to perspective. In the Moon's case it is such a great hight that it barely turns at all (it does turn a little, however; look up the moon's daily liberation).

The Ancient Greeks did not really test how perspective works on a large scale, and their math assumes a continuous universe (ie. that the turn will be infinitely slower, and that perspective lines will recede infinitely into the distance without meeting) without any real evidence for that at all.

It is possible to theorize with their math that the moon should turn more than it does, but no real evidence for how things should be at that scale. Does the slowness max out at some point? Do the perspective lines really continue infinitely? These are unanswered questions and an ancient mathematical model is insufficient as an explanation.

If you have a solved rubix cube suspended 1 foot above your head and look upwards you will see its white underside. If this rubix cube then floats across the room you will be able to see its green colored side when it reaches the far wall 30 feet away.

However, if that same rubix cube is instead 1 mile above your head, and it travels across the length of your room, you will NOT be able to see is green colored side. The rubix cube will have hardly turned at all when it gets to a position 30 feet away. You will still be looking at its white underside.

As a object increases its height it will turn slower. We do not know how slow, however. Infinitely slow? Does the slowness become imperceptible or perhaps stop turning altogether at some point? Could it be that an object turns so slow that it reaches the vanishing point before rotating to any significant degree? There is a lack of data because the maximums of perspective theory were never studied.

One could easily claim that perspective scales repressively and slows down to an increasingly infinitesimal pace with increased distance, and that theory would be just as accurate as the theories of the Ancient Greeks who have neglected to provide evidence for the maximums of perspective theory.

Is there any evidence that it changes as you declare it should though? Because if there is I haven't seen you trot it out.

All observations of very distant objects show that they do not rotate as significantly as theorized. The fact that the moon does not turn (significantly), that Saturn does not tilt, and that the stars do not build up and change configuration at the horizon line, is evidence that those assumptions for how perspective should work at large scales is incorrect.

Again you try to twist the point.  Perspective has nothing to do with viewing angle.   If a person is standing in front of you, facing you dead on.  You are not going to see their back.  I dont care if you are 3 inches or 30 feet.  As already proved, the moon is not 3000 miles away.  It's quite obvious to anyone that can think it through.

Your evidence is based on a thought experiment, not what actually happens at large distances.

[Ga_x2]

Tom, you keep bringing up your magic perspective. There are several threads in the debate section in which it has been taken to task, because it's ludicrous. It would show good faith to answer those objections before continuing using it. Considering how perspective works in the real world, the explanation above is gobbledygook

[Pete Svarrior]

Now - suppose we're in London at the same moment in time.  Because the moon is about  4,000 miles to the south of us and about 3,000 miles up - we should be seeing it in the southern skies.

This assumption is false. As such, the rest of your diatribe becomes largely irrelevant. You attempt to confuse people with long elaborate posts (let me once again remind everyone how many times 3DG condescendingly explained how ping works when we pointed out his method is flawed - his methodology caused him to mistake Texas for Japan) in the hopes that people won't pick up the simple contradiction. But your fault is usually concentrated within one sentence.

[Ga_x2]

This assumption is false.

did i already tell you that this debate style isn't helping anybody? (FE and RE people alike).
All the keystrokes spent on personal attacks could have been employed in explaining which assumption you are talking about, because there's more than one there. A couple more in telling why it is.

[Tom Bishop]

Tom, you keep bringing up your magic perspective. There are several threads in the debate section in which it has been taken to task, because it's ludicrous. It would show good faith to answer those objections before continuing using it. Considering how perspective works in the real world, the explanation above is gobbledygook

The thread where I got those quotes from was not responded to. If no one responds to me I win, right? Why not respond to my winning argument?