I am not looking to debate this topic; just looking to hear and understand what the state-of-the-art FE response
to this experiment is/would be....
...it strikes me that there is an incredibly simple experiment that one might do to test whether the Earth is flat. And
I am surprised but I don't think it's really been used by either side. Maybe I'm being totally dumb and forgetting
something but what is the FE response to:
Assume someone is standing on the beach, facing the ocean and has a pair of binoculars. Further assume there is
an oil platform some 7 miles seaward. And a cliff that is about 60 feet high. (I'm thinking of a particular spot in
Southern California.)
Here's the whole experiment.
1. I stand at the base of the cliff - essentially sea level - and try to spot the oil platform using my binoculars.
I either succeed or fail.
2. I take the foot path up the cliff and am now at elevation 60 feet and about 10 feet more inland from where I
was before. I use the same binoculars to try and spot the oil platform. I either succeed or fail.
I have two questions and I'm only interested in soliciting answers, you have my word that I won't quibble or
debate the answers. I'm just looking to understand how the FE community would respond.
Q1: Would the FE community expect the outcome of both steps to be the same? In other words, if I can't see
the platform from sea-level then I won't be able to see it from 60 feet up?
Q2: If the results of the experiment showed that I couldn't see it from sea-level but could see it from 60 feet
up, then what would the FE explanation for that be?
Thanks for any information and help!
Vision-over-water experiments are totally useless. Both sides of the debate can point to dozens of them that alternately prove and disprove either theory.
The reason the don't work is that there are too many confounding factors:
* The tides mean that the oceans aren't flat over large scales.
* While atmospheric refraction is typically negligible - that isn't the case for light rays that come very close to the surface of water because the refractive index of air changes with humidity and temperature - and that close to the water, both are changing VERY rapidly. This can cause anything from a subtle a bending of the light rays to things like mirages and fata-morgana effects - or perhaps no effects whatever. Without very careful and accurate measurement of temperature and humidity over the first foot or two of air above the ocean - all bets are off.
* The FE'ers claim "magic perspective" which they alternately use (or don't use) depending on whether the results match their expectations or not. Without pinning them down to how this magical thing works - all bets are off.
Honestly - I give up with vison-over-water experiments. Sure they are easy to do - but the results are NEVER going to solve this matter conclusively either way. You just get junk science.
There are MUCH simpler ways to decide this. A comprehensive statement about how photons pass from the sun to the eye during a sunset is a sufficiently conclusive proof...which is why the FE'ers are carefully dodging this question.