1

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Yes, curvature can be measured and modeled as proven by Blackpool Photo

« on: February 06, 2024, 07:59:42 AM »

Not ever measured or verified as curvature, it’s entirely ignored as not existing, because it doesn’t exist at all.

Two words: Geodetic Surveying.

Sure it’s a ball, it just can’t be mapped as a ball, no big deal!

Can't be mapped as a ball?

2

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Video. Should we see the sun Shrink.

« on: October 23, 2023, 12:00:00 PM »

I seem to remember someone telling me when I objected to the new smart meters that I was just imagining things, and then that the sun itself has microwave radiation (nope, UV to infrared, not microwave).

You believe the sun emits energy only in the IR to UV range and not outside that? Why do you think this is true?

Ummmm, I can literally feel microwave radiation after being exposed to high doses of it thanks to months of oppressive wiring, antennas, and now that damned meter. To the point where I'm finally just outright shutting my door.

Unless you're hugging one, a smart meter's RF emissions are completely swamped by other sources like nearby cell phones (technically not microwaves; much of the RF from smart meters isn't either), WiFi in establishments with a WiFi hotspot (WiFi technically uses microwaves, and some smart meters may also communicate short range via WiFi), and many others.

The sun? The sun's radiation is healing. Even a few minutes of sunlight on my feet reverses the effects of 5G bombardment. I know for a fact that the sun has no microwave radiation because the overall energy of natural radiation is far more soothing. Microwave radiation comes from magnetrons inside such devices, not from "cosmic particles" as the official trade secret story goes.

You sound like someone who has never gotten sunburned or suffered from melanoma.

So that's how you've convinced yourself that sunlight contains no microwave radiation - because sunlight "feels soothing" and you believe you can sense even very low levels of microwave radiation? OK... sure.

Actually, the sun emits a large amount of radiation in the 10 to 30 cm band (part of the microwave  band); how much is dependent in part on the number of sunspots, and we're in a period of increasing sunspot activity, so watch out!

3

Flat Earth General / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker --Flat earth video game?

« on: September 16, 2023, 06:20:27 AM »

Why are we arguing about a fictional world in a video game?

I've been wondering the same thing.

4

Flat Earth General / Re: Most recent advancement in The flat earth model

« on: September 12, 2023, 08:17:12 AM »

Interesting hypothesis. How could we test this?

Here's one possibility: From your illustration, wouldn't we expect an outward acceleration along the equator increasing from zero at the middle and maximum eastward at the east edge, and maximum westward at the west edge? The magnitude of the sideways acceleration would depend on how fast the earth is spinning as well as how far you are from the axis of spin. Are such accelerations observed? If not, is this a plausible model?

5

Flat Earth General / Re: extreme weather forecast

« on: September 06, 2023, 09:55:39 AM »

This is is the future you have planned for us:
1. Birds chopped up in wind turbines
<picture showing wind turbines and dead birds>

I've heard this for ages but haven't seen any hard figures. Do you have any reliable statistics that show this is an actual problem?

I was recently in New Zealand, and there a wind turbine is about 20 meters outside a large native wildlife sanctuary that is successfully re-introducing native birds to the area. When I asked if the turbine blades were a hazard to birds flying out of the sanctuary I got either blank stares or "why do you ask? I've never heard of anything like that." Is this "issue" yet another fabrication?

2. Fish killed by toxic waste runoff from solar panels
<picture of dead fish; cause of death not given>

3. Humans killed what all this electric shit turns out tobe a death trap
<picture of burned car, make and model unknown>

(not to mention those who freeze to death when electric becomes too expensive or inefficient)
<picture of car with cord in snow>

4. Nuclear being one of the suppliers of alternative energy
<fabricated picture with radioactive material scattered around in drums and suggesting nuclear plants emit gobs of smoke>

5. As we try to go meat free (that's a part of all this green agenda), pigs, chicken, and cows all get sent to the gas chamber. Animals literally being thrown in the dumpster because they aren't needed.
<picture purporting to show a cow in a dumpster>

6. Oh right and all this green energy requires huge amounts of wood burning compared to just directly inserting into a car due to all the energy lost in electric lines or conversion. So you bulldoze all the forests
<picture of land being cleared for unstated reason>

None of those images support any of your claims since none have context and some are utter fabrications. Waste of electrons and scrolling.

Versus drilling a few small holes in the ground.

<drawing suggesting smoke is emitted from cooling towers>

Green energy requires huge amounts of wood burning? Sezhoo?

"Versus drilling a few small holes in the ground." Define "a few". Then there are pipelines, tank batteries, toxic produced water to dispose of, roads (often through wilderness) to get to those holes in the ground, etc., etc.

BY THE WAY. An ICE vehicle can be modified so even that is not necessary. You know that scene in Back to the Future, where he's shoving random trash in? Yeah, you could design an ICE car to burn whatever is at hand. Plastic, cola, beer, junk food, whatever. Anything burnable that is. This is the future of ICE. Biomass cars.

Did you know that Back to the Future is not a documentary? It's actually a work of fiction intended to be enjoyed as amusement but not actually believed, and never claims otherwise.

Cola and beer can be burned? There's a new one! Junk food can be burned to produce energy? Show me. Some plastic can burn, but you'd want to be pretty careful because the combustion products can be pretty nasty.

How practical is biomass as wholesale replacement for oil and gas?

In the mean time, anyone actually committed to sustainable oil and gas could make something work with combination fish hatcheries and menhaden oil plants. The mehaden fish is a source of oil that provided we take care of the population as a whole, could solve our oil need without drilling another hole.
<picture of a gallon jug>

Have you put any thought into how much menhaden would have to be used to make enough oil to replace even 1% of the petroleum used daily worldwide? I'll get you started: 1% of world petroleum consumption is about 1 million barrels (~160,000 meters³) per day. How many fish would have to be caught or farmed to produce the equivalent of even that tiny fraction of petroleum use?

This may be the looniest of your loony ideas!

IBut then someone would scream animal cruelty (and I admit, menhaden have suffered plenty for our fish oil supplements), and we'd be back to dependence on Saudi Arabia and such. This is typically how things work. Someone gets alarmed, and we have to do far worse.

6

Flat Earth General / Re: Where does it go from here, say when globe is debunked by mainstream

« on: September 04, 2023, 10:58:32 AM »

How does flat equate to triangular? You're just putting me down without a sense of your own theory.

JB used the triangle to illustrate one of the properties of flat (i.e. Euclidian) surfaces. That's all. Do you disagree that the internal angles of a triangle on a flat plane add up to 180°?

Under the "brilliant" RE;FU theory. Gravity makes things "fall" in an orbit. But that's not how gravity's explicitly defined rules work.

Do tell. Can you show us the explicitly rule defined rule of gravity that says that?

At best the Earth should fall into the sun (as it has way more mass), which is why they have to invent ANOTHER force to explain this behavior.

What is this other force you seem to think is necessary? Orbits subject to gravity alone have been understood since the early 17th century - more than 400 years. No other forces are needed.

As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing outside the Earth...

The universe doesn't care at all about your concerns.

7

Flat Earth General / Re: extreme weather forecast

« on: August 08, 2023, 06:34:26 PM »

If jackB tells you 99.9% of scientists believe the earth is round ball - should you beleive him?

You're talking about the fallacy of consensus.

No, I'm not. As postulated by you, JB is stating what he believes to be a fact. I agree that JB is likely correct about this based on the presumption that true scientists are well educated enough to know that the earth is [nearly] spherical.

If I based my acceptance of that number on "well, gee, lots of other people say that almost all scientists believe the earth is spherical, so I guess that must be right", that would be falling for the fallacy of argumentum ad populum. That's not what I base my acceptance on, however.

If 99.9% of the people in the world supposedly wanted you to jump off a bridge and have fun, should you do it?

I have jumped off bridges, and it was fun. Mind you, I did check to be certain the water was deep and otherwise safe enough to jump into before jumping in every case, even if I had jumped off the same bridge before, because underwater hazards can move.

I didn't need a crowd of people telling me to do that. The consensus would most likely be "don't do it", anyway.

Well, granted, that sort of consensus would be fucking demoralizing, but the point is, NO, you should actually distrust an alleged consensus, and even a real consensus. Two heads are better than one because they give each other second opinions. Because you disagree, I can think through ideas and figure out better ones. On the other hand, two people who agree had better be lovers, because if you're not getting laid for being agreeable, it's pretty tiresome. A committee of people who think exactly the same way, by extension is completely monstrous. Let's shout down any new ideas.

Let's think about this for a moment.

The value of scientific consensus is that it is usually formed because it supports the most plausible explanations of phenomena in the face of knowledge at hand - based on measurements, observations, and theory. It's hard to break consensus, and that's not entirely bad because not all new ideas are of equal merit; ideas that are well supported by hard evidence will gain traction, more time is devoted to ideas that are more promising, and wilder hypotheses gain less attention. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" keeps us from having to spend an enormous amount of time running down every single crackpot idea. Breaking consensus absolutely can and is done more often than is popularly realized, though. It's accomplished by discovering new data that is better explained by a new idea than the old one, or by a new idea that does an equal or better job with the existing data but makes new predictions possible that can be tested and are found to be correct. Once it has been independently verified enough, it usually becomes the new consensus. It takes hard work to do it; that seems to piss you off.

One of the best examples is the old concept initially proposed as "Continental Drift" in early 20th century geology. It was based on what appeared to be obviously matching coastlines and similar fossil records in areas that are separated by large oceans, both of which suggest they were once adjoined. The problem was, there was no other evidence supporting this - none, no evidence whatsoever for continents plowing through the ocean floor, and no plausible mechanism to make such a thing happen. The hypothesis languished until the 1950s and various theories of "vertical tectonics" explaining the formation of mountain belts ruled the day.

During WWII much effort went into the problem of detecting and tracking submarines, and much of the equipment developed - highly-sensitive magnetometers, sonar, and other depth-sounding devices - was later declassified, often given to or sold as surplus for peanuts to scientific institutions, and was found to be very useful for mapping the ocean floors. Also a worldwide network of seismograph stations all using the same instruments was proposed for the purpose of detecting nuclear tests was established and rapidly expanded starting in the 1950s. Data from these facilities could be used to accurately locate earthquake epicenters (and, with improvements in digital computing, earthquake hypocenters, which included depth as well as geographic location).

What the newly-available data showed led to the elegant and completely unforeseen model we know as Plate Tectonics. It was so compelling that it overtook and replaced the old consensus quite rapidly and almost nobody is looking back.

Other rapid paradigm shifts were the emergence, acceptance, and then consensus around relativity and quantum mechanics. There are many others.

You invented fire?!? Mmmm, the committee doesn't like that. Fire is hot! We want to freeze for another couple of centuries.



Consensus is the antithesis of science. Science is about the study of new ideas. The repeated testing, to make sure you understand things right. The submission of these new ideas, which lead to inventions and innovations. And yes, occasionally some very destructive weapons. Consensus by contrast is unhelpful groupthink.

Nope. It's an effective brake on a lot of nonsense, like some of the examples that you suggest next.

It is a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in a room telling people instead of working on building cleaner cars and houses, "Sorry, we're sure that cars and stoves damage the environment so you should walk everywhere, and live in an ice-cold house." Yeah, no. You literally just told me that 99% of people think I should freeze to death.

Can you provide actual evidence that the "bunch of bureaucrats" you hypothesize are 99% of people? I bet you can't.

Friends of Science (FoS) is a non-profit advocacy organization based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The organization rejects the established scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for the currently observed global warming. Rather, they propose that "the Sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change," not human activity. They argued against the Kyoto Protocol. The society was founded in 2002 and launched its website in October of that year. They are largely funded by the fossil fuel industry.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you complaining that this group is part of "the 99%" trying to "freeze you to death"?

Even worse. There are climate scientists (and I use that term loosely), who legit want to make artificial clouds because the sun is hot. Obviously, they've never watched this movie.



In this movie, because of climate hysteria, they spread a chemical known as CW-7, a cooling gas... which sorta kinda works a little too well.

It's a movie (taking your word for it). Part of your problem is that you conflate movies with actual science.

Isn't this the sort of reason having the inertia of "the consensus" is not always bad?

8

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: August 08, 2023, 04:11:06 PM »

Let's look at the real time of sunrise that day.



Sunrise started at 6:48am that day. Sorry guy, your time was AFTER the sun rose...

Where? Your screenshot doesn't say.

Northern Neck in VA. But it doesn't matter, because I further looked up numerous locations and timezones. Because I wasn't content to just an assumption, I kept following the facts, until I was sure.

A reliable conclusion you can draw is that the table posted by DOF2022 isn't for the Northern Neck, Virginia area. That's about the only meaningful one.

What many people miss about doing real research is that it needs to be systematic. Completely random sampling is not systematic. First, study the problem enough to have a good idea of the significant variables, then hold all of them except one constant (or, realistically, as constant as possible) and change the other variable and study the effect of its change on the result. Repeat for other variables as needed. If there is a (are) discernable pattern(s) in the results, refine the approach if needed. Those first results may suggest a previously unsuspected additional variable that needs to be controlled. Repeat as needed.

TL;DR: Most people have no idea how good research is done and would find doing it well requires too much work.

Btw, sunrise seems fairly consistent regardless of timezone. I looked everywhere from NYC to Lose Angeles, nearly 3000 miles away, and the timezone on none of these was at 7am.  Unless you're living in communist China, I'm afraid you're gonna have to accept that the time the sun rose that day started anywhere from 6:27 (LA) to 6:48 (NYC). Oh wait, no, not even there.

You don't have that quite right. Sunrise time depends on both latitude and longitude within a given time zone. From the eastern edge to the western edge of a standard 15° time zone, sunrise time will vary by an hour, ±1/2 hour from the nominal center.

As you seem to have deduced, how far you are from the equator also makes a difference, so what's the point of showing the sunrise time for some unknown location as evidence for sunrise time somewhere else?

To point is to show that the drastically earlier rise time is the standard, not the exception. I looked in Virginia, New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Israel, and tbh until I got to latitudes of London or higher (all the way up to Alaska and such), there was virtually no incidence of sunrise at later than 7am, with the majority at that day being closer to 6am. 

It doesn't matter what "the majority" of locations you tested show if the observation was from one of what you consider to be "an exception".

As I was composing this, JB posted with a better approach to analyzing sunrise times than yours. He controlled for date [one variable] and time zone [another variable], found locations at differing longitudes [test variable] at about the same latitude [another controlled variable], and also at a different latitude [new test variable]. When an odd result cropped up, he reported it and flagged it as questionable. That's an example of how this this sort of research should be done.

15°? No, the number of degrees from my general location in Virginia to California is about 39°, yet there is a difference of only 20 minutes or so.  That should be an hour different, based on what you say but it's not.

No, you misunderstood. Time zones are nominally 15° wide; an hour of earth rotation. California is three time zones west of Virginia, which means that at a given moment, civil time in California is three hours earlier than civil time in Virginia. Thus, if you found a place in CA that had a sunrise at the same civil time as sunrise the same day in Northern Neck, VA, the California sunrise is actually three hours later than yours.

Time zones are designed this way so that a locality's noon is fairly close to their actual mean solar noon. This also has the effect of limiting - but not eliminating - variation of sunrise and sunset times due to longitude within the time zone. This has the effect of allowing most people to begin their day reasonably close to sunrise and finishing their work day with some daylight to spare. If strictly implemented on a rigid 15° scheme, the difference between mean solar noon and civil noon would vary by no more than 30 minutes. Sunrise and sunset times within the same zone are also affected by variations in latitude but mean solar noon is not.

In reality, time zone boundaries are established by convenience as much as strictly by longitude, usually along state lines but sometimes county lines within a state within the US, and between various political divisions in other countries, so they can and do vary quite a bit from the ideal. Some places also observe daylight saving time (a.k.a. summer time in some places) because it's generally (but not universally) popular among people to start their day an hour earlier during periods of early sunrise by shifting civil time by an hour for part of the year, thus avoiding sleeping through an hour of daylight and "saving" that to enjoy in the evening after finishing work.

Based on the season, I typed a city of Canada which is now having sunrise at 5am. Abbotsford, Canada.

If in summer, Canada is having early sunrise, this means in fall and winter there should be late sunrise. Sure enough, that same month, we have a few sunrises as late as 8am.  However, even there, by November 16, there is no sunrise later than 7:20 or so. 7:32? You expect me to believe you live in Greenland?

Did you even notice the one hour jump in sunrise time between Saturday, Nov 6 and Sunday, Nov 7 in your table? What do you think happened there? [Hint] The 7th was the first Sunday in November in 2021.

This circles back to "significant variables." One of them is the selected location's civil time, which all of these tables refer to. The definition of civil time depends on the time zone, and sometimes differs for different times of year in the same place, as happened here. If you want your research to be meaningful, you need to be aware of and control for this.

For reference, Jerusalem in Israel. Nearly the same as the Northern Neck. Longitude does not matter! Only latitude makes any great difference.

<image> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/816868397836926996/1138495266866085948/image.png

Research. Not making stuff up.

You may not be making those sunrise times up, but you're not doing actual research, either, and this sloppy work is leading you to the wrong conclusion.

So when you show me how your silly iPhone says that the sun rose that late on that day, and I find many many countries where it did not, yeah no.

<image>https://i.imgur.com/TSAPFMS.jpg

And get off the floor. You're too old to be embarrassing yourself with smudgy photos. By age 20, I learned to use a camera properly. 

I didn't post that image. It's from someone else. If you're going too jump from replying to one post to replying to another, please start a new post for that different reply unless it's closely related to the ongoing discussion. If the latter, please at least refer back to the new post it responds to. This may help your readers follow what you're talking about. Thanks!

9

Flat Earth General / Re: extreme weather forecast

« on: August 07, 2023, 08:48:10 PM »

If tobacoo funded scientists posted an articlr and open letter stating smoking tobacco doesnt cause cancer- should we believe them?


If covid scientists posted a lwtter stating the benefits of masks and vaccines - should we believe them?

Were those "covid scientists" funded by a source that had a financial imperative in promoting masks and vaccines against good reason? If not, and since virtually all experienced scientific researchers specializing in epidemiology and communicable diseases recommended these, then, yes, I would believe them. If it were, say, a group of nuclear physicists making the recommendation I would seek further advice from others with more relevant expertise.

In your comparison with tobacco, you neglect to mention that a significant number of relevantly-trained scientists did not agree with the ones downplaying the risks of tobacco. As the nature of how Covid-19 spread and how it affected its victims became clearer not many scientists disagreed with the mask and vaccine recommendations. Very, very few who actually were virologists or epidemiologists disagreed.

If jackB tells you 99.9% of scientists believe the earth is round ball - should you beleive him?

That number seems a little low but generally in the ballpark, so, yes.

10

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: August 07, 2023, 07:54:50 PM »

Let's look at the real time of sunrise that day.



Sunrise started at 6:48am that day. Sorry guy, your time was AFTER the sun rose...

Where? Your screenshot doesn't say.

Btw, sunrise seems fairly consistent regardless of timezone. I looked everywhere from NYC to Lose Angeles, nearly 3000 miles away, and the timezone on none of these was at 7am.  Unless you're living in communist China, I'm afraid you're gonna have to accept that the time the sun rose that day started anywhere from 6:27 (LA) to 6:48 (NYC). Oh wait, no, not even there.

You don't have that quite right. Sunrise time depends on both latitude and longitude within a given time zone. From the eastern edge to the western edge of a standard 15° time zone, sunrise time will vary by an hour, ±1/2 hour from the nominal center.

As you seem to have deduced, how far you are from the equator also makes a difference, so what's the point of showing the sunrise time for some unknown location as evidence for sunrise time somewhere else?

Even as far east as China, the latest the sunrise began was 7:01am.

Why would you go east to find later sunrise times? You go west for that - until you cross a time zone boundary. All of mainland China is one time zone even though it spans about 60° of longitude; that's four nominal time zones and Beijing is on the eastern side of the easternmost one. This means that a 7:01 AM sunrise in Beijing would be an after 10 AM sunrise in westernmost parts of China.

In order get a sunrise at 7:40 or so, you would  have needed to live in Alaska on that day.
Not buying it.

Wrong again. For instance, sunrise at Minot, ND on Nov 16, 2021 was at 7:54 AM.

Even London had sunrise by 7:21.

So what? It's pretty obvious that the photograph you're commenting on wasn't taken in London. As already noted, sunrise time at some location isn't relevant to sunrise time in a completely different place.

You can fake all you want, but nothing is a match for real research.

"Real research." LOL.

11

Flat Earth General / Re: This is Why You See The Sun Looked as if was at Horizon in The Morning & Evening

« on: August 07, 2023, 05:53:41 PM »

This is good ol' bendy light. That model was quite popular here a while ago but isn't mentioned much any more.

12

Flat Earth General / Re: NASA EPIC LIES

« on: July 14, 2023, 09:17:27 AM »

I meant that there are many online calculators and such which display position of Mars or JWST or any other observable object to the very high accuracy. Do thiese account for speed of light delay and if no how big issue would that be?

For JWST, I would assume so. But this can be done either by predicting their current location and adjusting for speed of light delay), or position their apparent current location for an observer on Earth or the centre of the solar system.

Different objects will have different effects, as will the time.
For example, consider Mars (as that is what you have brought up).

At its closest it is roughly 57 000 000 km away.
Its speed relative to Earth is roughly 6 km/s.
It would take light 190 s to travel that distance.
In that time, Mars would have moved (relative to Earth) 1140 km.
At that distance it equates to 4 arc seconds.

At its furthest, the numbers change, and it equates to 37 arc seconds.

Conversely, if you go for something like Proxima Centauri (aka Alpha Centauri C), it is moving at roughly 1 arc second per year, and light takes roughly 4 years to get to us so that would be 4 arc seconds.

I did some calculations and came up with the same distances, apparent speeds, and angles for Mars as Jack did.

Going back to the original question:

Also is light year correction applied when observing planets by amateur astronomers? I have seen people pinpoint mars in arcsecond range which would be impossible if it wasnt applied yet i found no evidence it is (on the many sites which list coordinates)

It's unlikely that equipment typically used by amateur astronomers has sub-arcminute go-to pointing accuracy. After accurate alignment and calibration, most commonly available computerized mounts would have pointing accuracy that puts selected objects within a few arcminutes of the center of the field of view, and that is almost always good enough for the intended purpose. Routinely hitting the target within a minute of arc or so would be considered quite good with this class of equipment. Expecting arcsecond pointing accuracy that is affordable by most amateurs is unrealistic.

That said, some astrometric activities that some amateurs actively pursue, like occultation timing - where a solar-system object passes in front of a star or other more distant object and blocks its light - requires exceedingly accurate predictions of the position vs time for the SS object(s) in question; those certainly consider light-time from the object(s) to earth. Quite often, the location of the edges of the "shadow" cast by the occulting object are predicted to within a few hundred meters on the surface of the earth. When you consider earth's speed of rotation, a point at mid-latitude changes position relative to the shadow on the order of 350 m/s, so the change of apparent position due to light travel time is but one important consideration.

The US Naval Observatory's NOVAS library (Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry Software) does indeed include light travel time in its solar-system apparent position calculations. Whether a particular application or table includes this factor depends on the software used to make the predictions, but freely-available software routines to do the heavy lifting to high precision is certainly available.

13

Flat Earth Debate / Re: do you know why the earth is round ?

« on: July 07, 2023, 12:54:46 PM »

Plethora of flat objects in the universe? name some

Spiral Galaxies. Elliptical Galaxies. Planetary Nebulae. Accretion Disks. Saturn's Rings. Protoplanetary Disks. Asteroid Belts.

So-called elliptical galaxies are actually ellipsoidal - they appear elliptical on photographs (2-D projections), where they were first categorized, and the name stuck.

Why do you assume that planetary nebulae are flat? Do you have any evidence supporting this claim?

Spiral galaxies and protoplanetary disks spin and have low density (which means they are decidedly are non-rigid), which means they get stretched in directions normal to the axis of spin. They are still three-dimensional, though. The "main belt" asteroids in our solar system (between Mars and Jupiter) were formed from material in the same protoplanetary disk as the rest of the planets, so most of the asteroids lie near the the ecliptic (the plane of earth's orbit about the sun) - but seldom or never exactly on it - similar to the rest of the planets. The orbits of some asteroids have larger inclinations with respect to the ecliptic than other planets in the system, most likely because they have been perturbed by Jupiter and the thickness of the main belt above and below the ecliptic has been estimated to be on the order of 1 AU. With a mean diameter of about 5 AU, that ain't a flat plane. The outer collection of Kuiper Belt objects (asteroids and minor planets) are decidedly not in a plane, either. The Oort cloud, presumed to be the source of most of the comets that find their way into the inner solar system, is thought to be roughly spherical because comets move in orbits with inclinations w.r.t. the ecliptic varying between -90° and 90°.

Protoplanetary disks are a type of accretion disk. Accretion disks around, say, black holes are like other rotating low-density masses are thinner than they are wide, but aren't truly flat, either.

The material making up Saturn's rings orbits directly above Saturn's equator, as would be expected from conservation of angular momentum and tidal forces. Since this ring system is much, much wider than it is thick, it's the closest you come in your list of "flat things" to actually being flat.

The upshot of all this is that low-density objects like the gas, dust, and small objects (small compared to the size of the whole; yes, stars are small compared to a galaxy) in all of the items you listed behave differently than objects with mass and density high enough to coalesce into near-spheres due to gravity.

Oh the average round earther. Believes in a universe out of faith alone, as its clearly not out of knowledge.

The "average" human accepts a lot of things without knowing details about them simply because they have been shown again and again (and again) that they work.

I know in a very general way how a jet engine works (or at least think I do) but couldn't begin to actually design or build one from scratch. Maybe "they" are lying to me and when I ride in what I'm told is a jet airplane it's really being propelled through the sky by something like invisible dragons, or the whole trip is entirely VR. Those explanations seem utterly unlikely to me based on experience alone, however, and even though I'm ignorant of most of the inner workings of a jet, what I do know about them is entirely consistent with actual experience. Similarly with a number of fields such as medicine, botany, chemistry, and many others.

Physicists and astronomers have been accurately predicting celestial events based on scientific models of the cosmos for centuries now, and the rotating spheroidal earth orbiting the sun has been central to those models, and most people realize that the predictions that affect them actually work, so they're trusted. People more involved with the subject find that most of the finer details unknown to the average person are also entirely reliable, and trust the knowledge they see actually working every day. Some things are known to exist that aren't well explained with current knowledge like details of the motion within galaxies, and it's likely that we'll never know everything, but we're gaining where we can.

So, yes, you might try to argue that much is taken on faith by the average person ("round earther" or otherwise), but at least the round-earther's "faith" is earned by real-life experience of practical results.

14

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Magnetism exhibits a fundamental force, why not one where mass attracts mass?

« on: June 26, 2023, 10:21:32 AM »

This is not tinder, but a physics forum, where you must back up your statements by proofs.

Nope, and nope.

This is a flat earth forum, not a physics forum. Science relies on evidence, not proofs; proof is not possible in science.

Yet again:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/common-misconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof

More recently:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/22/scientific-proof-is-a-myth/?sh=c3a1a182fb1b

15

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: May 19, 2023, 09:59:52 AM »

Only fielding this question.

How come the sun and moon don't actually appear to get smaller when they set if they're getting more distant?

When even the sky and stars are actually a hot lady being held up by a very lucky dude, talking about one holograph like it's something novel is proof you are very gullible.

You're babbling again.

I'm just saying, look at where his hands are.

That has exactly what to do with holographs (or holograms)?

Because they aren't ever getting closer or further away.

Why did you omit the claim I was responding to? Here it is, highlighted for your convenience:

I was on the beach about two to three days ago, and the coast could be seen. Standing straight ahead, you can draw a straight line across the horizon. Earth is flat and not a sphere. I could then turn in place and rather easily draw a dome around myself. Heaven and earth is a bellows. I could walk for a day, and I would never get any closer to the sun or moon, nor would it get more distant from me until it set. Actors are holding these images in the parapet, and you are gullible enough to think they are the real thing when you see the shadows.

Is it getting further away when it sets, or not? You go on...

They are angling out of sight.

At the start of the day, the sun is at a horizon in the process of rise. I want you to picture a circle where you're standing inside another circle. One of these is the zone of perspective, the other is the sun's orbit. Now, within this circle, when the sun arcs towards us at the beginning of the day, no matter where we are, we see it moving from 0° to 1° where we can just see it at the horizon. Over the course of the day, it moves gradually from 0° to 15° then 45° then 90°then eventually at 180° it drops from sight. It never dips, it never rises, so it never moves closer or farther. But it appears to dip as it is moving past us, and appears to rise as to moves overhead towards us. Same elevation, different angle.

How are the parts highlighted in red consistent with each other?

Orange: which circle? There are two, remember?

Green: how can that apparent angle change if the distance from you never changes and the elevation never changes? How could it ever reach the horizon at all if its elevation is above you?

Does any of that make sense even to you?

Moving on...

Visibility is like the area where two circles cross each other. Outside angular range, you can't see a damned thing. And no, you can't really extend angular visibility. It's like that experiment where they were able to see the flashlight when someone lifted it (supposedly "proving" RE). You have to "lift" the sun in order for it to be seen after it angles out. No amount of telescopes can see it after it sets. Round Earthers say this is because it has gone around the Earth. Sorry but uhhh the timing you gave for Earth's spin doesn't pan out. What really happened is that it angled outside of the sky. If you want to actually understand this (instead of just arguing), draw several lines. One is the ground below. You can pretend it's a hill if it makes you feel better. Two lines on either side for a convergence point where the ground and sky meet the horizon. You should draw your stick figure in the center and have the upward lines match eye level. Draw a line straight across between these upward and downward lines, representing the horizon. Place  the sun in the center too, between the two lines heading downward, above the horizon. Now, create an -> arrow before and aftee the sun.
If you did it right, the sun is at noon position, and you can see that as it travels straight across (actually it has a horizontal arc, but let's simplify so you can understand), it appears to rise in relation to the horizon and the onlooker, then appears to fall. Eventually, down hits up as it meets the horizon, and no more sun. Whatever position the sun is, the telescope can't see it.

Rather than trying to describe what you propose that someone else draw, how about drawing it yourself and posting your drawing here? That word salad makes no sense whatsoever.

16

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: May 17, 2023, 07:37:39 PM »

Pffft about astronomers working with sidereal days.

Mathematicians can work with can work with pi, but strictly speaking the number number doesn't exist. It's a construct used in order to measure the square of a circle. But you don't need to do that. You just divide a circle into four 90° parts. And then use 4 instead of 3.14. "But it's more accurate." But is it though? An irrational number, when you clearly can see that a circle has  four distinct ninety degree zones? Just replace 3.14 with 4 and deal with the fact that everything will be slightly different. As long as you measure wheels or circles the same way every time, you measure a circle with a radius of 6 as (4 * 2r) = 48, while everyone else gets 36.(something). If you must have accurate to existing models, use a perfect triangle (120 degrees) and use the number 3. Nix the decimal point.

Huh? How long is the arc with some radius, r, spanning a perfect 90° or a perfect 120°? How much metal do you need to manufacture circular tubing with a certain diameter and length? People (obviously not you, but you aren't the only person) need to know these sort of things. Good luck finding this without good ol' pi.

Similarly, sidereal days are a construct to fill a giant hole in the round Earth theory. If we trace the path of a circle rotating at the same rate all year, day and night become inverted at 180 degrees (6 months). That is, if I were to spin around a table, eventually my back would be to the table. That is, if we look at a day that the sun rises at like 6 and sets at 6, in summer, 6 months later, the sun should rise at 6. Oh yes, sidereal days are convenient. But they aren't real.

What time does some star rise on that first day? What time does it rise a day later? A week? Month? Do you think its rise time suddenly jumps by 12 hours after half a year? Spoiler: it doesn't.

Sidereal days exist not because they're "convenient", they exist because that's the rate earth actually rotates with respect to the observable universe.

Then you try to justify how satellites can be in space but somehow have trouble being picked up when they blanket the area. Mmmhhmmm.

Not "somehow". The limitations of radio frequencies used in satellite communications are well known.

Similarly, light can blanket an area but if there's something blocking it, where you happen to be can be much darker or completely dark. Is it possible to have a darkroom inside a brightly-lit building? The answer, in case you don't realize it, is yes. Why is this hard for you to understand.

[/color]

While electromagnetic waves can travel through some surfaces, like walls, it is generally thought that “earth’s curvature is a direct block to line-of-sight communication. When enough distance separates the two radio stations so that their antennas fall behind the curvature, the Earth itself blocks the transmitted signals from the receiver.” This fact confused the father of radio, Guglielmo Marconi. On 12 December 1901 he was able to make the first long distance Morse code wireless communication between St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, and the Poldhu Wireless Station, Cornwall, England. That radio signal was transmitted a distance of more than 2,000 miles across the Atlantic ocean. Such a transmission is an impossibility on a spherical earth. Indeed, it would be blocked by a 126 mile high bulge, if the earth were a sphere. Because Marconi thought the world was a sphere, and he understood that radio waves travel in a straight line, he was at a loss to explain how the radio waves traveled more than 2,000 miles on a globular earth.

He didn't know about atmospheric ionization.

Modern science has come up with all sorts of convoluted theories to explain such long distance radio transmissions, because they cannot allow it to be known that the earth is flat. The most prevalent theory is the ionosphere bounce theory. Under that mythology, radio operators can talk to people on the other side of the supposed spherical earth, not because the earth is flat, but because their radio signal bounces off the thin upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere.

Think about it logically. Under the ionosphere bounce stratagem, radio waves travel through the atmosphere until the atmosphere gets extremely thin (it is then called the ionosphere), and when those radio waves reach that thinnest part of the atmosphere, they bounce off and return to earth. Now, the modern scientists are not sure where the bouncing takes place, because the height of the ionosphere ranges from 50 miles to 600 miles in altitude.

The flaw in your idea is: if the earth were flat, why doesn't worldwide line of sight radio communication work all the time at many wavelengths?

It doesn't work like this at all. Ham radio operators and shortwave radio listeners know the general patterns - shorter wavelengths are more effectively reflected by the ionosphere during daytime, especially during periods of greater sunspot activity, when there's more ionization caused by solar radiation and particle bombardment. Longer wavelengths work better at night and at times of lower solar activity because they are more easily reflected by the weaker ionosphere than shorter wavelengths, but they are more effectively absorbed by a stronger ionosphere.

Does that make sense? No.

Obviously not to you. News flash: reality doesn't care what you understand and don't understand.

Radio waves, like light waves, are electromagnetic waves, and thus follow similar rules of refraction as they travel through the atmosphere. In most cases, the atmosphere refracts electromagnetic waves, it does not bounce (i.e., reflect) them. But reflection of radio waves as an explanation for long distance radio communication is not out of the question. The issue is what is reflecting the waves. It certainly cannot be reflected by a thin upper atmosphere. There must be something with much more physical density.

Or interacts with it more strongly, like an ionized layer of atmosphere.

The modern myth of the ionosphere-bounce theory is completely impeached by the practice of what is known as moon-bounce, or earth-moon-earth (EME) communication.
 Moon-bounce communication or EME is where radio operators, including amateur radio (ham) operators, bounce radio signals off the moon. The moon is supposed to be 238,900 miles from earth. Think about this logically; if the ionosphere, which is the atmosphere that is at a height of 50 to 600 miles from the earth’s surface is supposed to reflect radio signals back to earth, how can those same radio signals pass through the ionosphere and travel all the way to the moon, which is supposed to be 238,900 miles from earth?

As alluded to earlier, different wavelengths of electromagnetic waves (wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency) are affected differently by the ionosphere. If the frequency is high enough (wavelength is short enough) the ionosphere is basically transparent. Do you know the wavelength bands used for moonbounce? Do you know what wavelengths comprise the world-spanning so-called "shortwave" (shortwave, aka "high frequency" or "HF" is a misnomer now but is still used because that's what it has always been called; it was shorter than the "midwave" band where AM broadcast radio among other things reside when these things were originally named)? You might want to look these two items up. Are they the same? Do you think the difference (if any) may be at least part of the reason one is used for moonbounce, satellite communication, and NASA's communication with APOLLO, and the other for worldwide communication?

Either we have never been on the moon because real communication with it is impossible, or the ionosphere bounce theory is bogus and the Earth is flat. Or both are true. I pick both.

I pick neither. This is what's known as the fallacy of False Dichotomy. The reader is presented with a limited choice of possibilities but it fact there are (sometimes many) others, including the correct one. "Have you stopped beating your dog? Yes or no?" is a common example. The choices omit the obvious possibility "I never have beaten my dog" so neither proposed answer applies.

Like, for instance, NASA communicated with the Apollo program astronauts using frequencies that are not significantly affected by the ionosphere.

Are you suggesting that there's a world-spanning hologram? What were satellites before the age where holograms of any size existed?

There have always been holographs.

Holograms were invented in 1947 but only perfected after the invention of the laser in 1960.

But the actual word? Originates in 1623.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holograph

You were talking about holograms. Now you change to holographs and offer a definition of holograph. Those are different words and refer to different things.

Was this another lame attempt at deflection, or deception? Regardless, it didn't work.

It gets worse. Lao Tzu talked of how heaven and earth is a bellows. Do me a favor and sit in the inside of a chimney, and you'll see what he means. There is chimney wall in all directions. Plato compared reality to a cave where actors wave objects at the parapets which are reflect by the cave fire, while about three prisoners are chained to the wall. Ancient Egypt has this art.

What are you babbling about here? Are you claiming that crude 2-D drawing is somehow related to:

We literally live in an age where holograms can make anime characters look fully 3D.

Honey, that illustration ain't what's called "anime" and it sure as heck ain't 3-D. It doesn't even recognize perspective.

I was on the beach about two to three days ago, and the coast could be seen. Standing straight ahead, you can draw a straight line across the horizon.

Good on you! How do you know it was really a straight line you "drew"? Did you look at it and think "that looks straight", or did you trace it with your finger? Neither of those is very precise. You were looking at a segment of a circle - the part of the horizon you can see at once - almost exactly on the plane of the circle; if your eyes were exactly on the plane the circle would look exactly like a straight line. The difference was too small for you to notice it.

Earth is flat and not a sphere. I could then turn in place and rather easily draw a dome around myself.

That's what you think. So what?

Heaven and earth is a bellows. I could walk for a day, and I would never get any closer to the sun or moon, nor would it get more distant from me until it set. Actors are holding these images in the parapet, and you are gullible enough to think they are the real thing when you see the shadows.

How come the sun and moon don't actually appear to get smaller when they set if they're getting more distant?

When even the sky and stars are actually a hot lady being held up by a very lucky dude, talking about one holograph like it's something novel is proof you are very gullible.

You're babbling again.

[Edit] Correct nested quote.

17

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: May 16, 2023, 11:20:29 AM »

Now since you've piled questions on me like steaming loads of shit, how about I dump on you instead?

The fact that we can't observe sidereal days. That all days set and rise more of less the same.
The fact that we can't observe water ever sticking to a ball. We have all this "science" ironically based on what we can't know.
The fact that gravity never has been proven in any meaningful way that couldn't be explained by other existing forces.
If we have all these satellites as you say, ummm why do we still have extensive fiberoptic systems, land-based broadcast towers, etc? Shouldn't something way in the sky blanket the area with coverage? Yet the signal seems to crap out when you travel to mountains above the towers. And it seems to go down with rough weather which shouldn't affect anything in space.
We literally live in an age where holograms can make anime characters look fully 3D. Prove you actually saw the ISS.

I can't think of more offhand. Sorry, but I'm not like a bitter housewife holding on to a list.

In order:
"The fact that we can't observe sidereal days. That all days set and rise more of less the same."

Bullshit! Astronomers routinely observe and work with sidereal days. The reason a given star transits every 23h56m4.1s and the sun transits every 24h00m00.0s on average is the difference between sidereal and mean solar days. That 4 minute difference can be observed when a telescope on a good mount is set to track at the mean solar rate instead of sidereal rate; over a period of a few hours, there can be noticeable drift - up to about 1/8 degree (that's a lot to an astronomer) in three hours if you're tracking at solar rate when looking at a star or sidereal rate when looking at the sun.

You could see this, too, without much more than an accurate timepiece if you could be bothered to try - it's not even that hard but does require a modicum of effort. Note the time a bright star rises in the night for a week or longer. After one week it rises almost half an hour earlier (7 × 3m56s = 27m32s). After a month it rises two hours earlier. Six months later, the star rises 12 hours earlier in the day.

This also shows the second part of your assertion is wrong. Rising and setting times are clearly not the same for stars; they change completely over the course of a year.

They aren't even approximately the same for the sun if you are away from the equator. In mid and high latitudes, sunrise and sunset times vary by hours at different times of year. In polar regions the sun doesn't rise or set at all on some days. In case you're confused about the reason for this, it's because the earth is spherical and unrelated to the difference between sidereal and mean solar time.

"The fact that we can't observe water ever sticking to a ball. We have all this "science" ironically based on what we can't know."

By "observe water sticking to a ball" I presume you mean a spherical object - something like a basketball, handball, pool ball, bowling ball, etc. - near the surface of the earth. Try this: take a basketball (etc.) and spray it with a hose, or leave it outside in the rain, or dip it in a water-filled basin (if it floats and can't be submerged, rotate it so it gets wet all over). Does the outside of the ball stay wet until the water evaporates after being removed from the rain, spray, or tub? Congratulations... you have seen water sticking to a ball.

Note that this water is adhering to the surface because of electrostatic forces, not gravity. The gravitational effect of the minuscule (compared to the earth) ball is completely negligible compared with the gravitational force of the enormously large (compared to the ball) and nearby earth. No matter... you claimed "we can't observe water sticking to a ball", but "we" do and you can if you actually try.

"The fact that gravity never has been proven in any meaningful way that couldn't be explained by other existing forces."

What other existing forces? The fundamental forces known in physics are electromagnetic, the strong and weak interactions, and gravity. All of these have different characteristics so they cannot be substituted for one another. All of them have been well characterized, however, and the behavior of real objects due to their effects can and are be accurately predicted up to galactic scale. "Proven?" Ain't possible in science.

I'll break up the next set of claims:

"If we have all these satellites as you say, ummm why do we still have extensive fiberoptic systems, land-based broadcast towers, etc? Shouldn't something way in the sky blanket the area with coverage?"

Everything is a compromise; some things are better in some ways and worse in others in terms of cost, coverage, bandwidth, and convenience.

Fiber optics have enormous bandwidth compared to RF-based systems but require a lot of infrastructure to install and maintain.

Receivers for terrestrial broadcasts are cheap to manufacture because the received signal strength is comparatively high and the frequencies involved are relatively easy to work with. The limited range of broadcast antennas is both an advantage and disadvantage: it's a disadvantage because you obviously need more of them to cover a large area, and remote places where you can't build towers (like the oceans away from land and other very sparsely-populated places) won't have any coverage; an advantage because the same part of the spectrum can be shared by different transmitters without interference if they're far enough apart, which makes up somewhat for the comparatively limited bandwidth - this is a basic operating principle of the cell phone system: it's based on varying, but limited size "cells" of coverage depending on how many phones are expected in a given area - the same limited spectrum can be reused in different cells that are far enough apart that one can't hear signals in the other; cells that are closer together use a different part of the spectrum so they don't interfere with each other.

Satellites, as you note, can have large "footprints" (cover large areas at the same time). But they are expensive to manufacture, operate, have limited lifespan, and cannot be serviced once launched. If they are in geostationary orbit, they have to be so far away that the received signal level on earth is so low that they require accurately pointed large high-gain antennas, extremely sensitive receivers, or both, which adds to cost and inconvenience; they also have to support very high bandwidth so they can provide a lot of different programming at the same time, which requires higher frequencies, which require more sophisticated (i.e. expensive) equipment to transmit and receive (and see below for other less-desirable effects). If they are in low or medium-height orbits, they can provide stronger signals at the receiver, and each satellite may not need as much bandwidth to be practical so they can use lower frequencies and cheaper hardware, but they move fast and have smaller footprints so the entire system must be more complex and requires a lot more satellites to provide adequate coverage at a given location.

"Yet the signal seems to crap out when you travel to mountains above the towers. And it seems to go down with rough weather which shouldn't affect anything in space."

Remember those "other effects" mentioned above? Here they are. The very, very short wavelengths necessary to make broadcasts from high orbits mean the signals don't penetrate or go around obstructions like mountains at all and are limited to strictly line of sight - if you can't see the point in the sky where the satellite is because there's a mountain in the way, you probably can't receive its signal, either.

The satellites are in space, but the signals must travel through the atmosphere to reach the ground. Those uber-short wavelengths (which are necessary to make the economics work) are more strongly attenuated by water droplets in the air than longer wavelengths used by terrestrial TV and radio are, so thick cloud cover can reduce the signal strength to below the level needed to receive.

Satellites are about the only viable option for mid-ocean communications other than shortwave radio, which has its own serious limitations.

Everything is a compromise.

"We literally live in an age where holograms can make anime characters look fully 3D. Prove you actually saw the ISS."

There is that word "prove" again.

The evidence that it's what it is said to be, a satellite in low-earth orbit is the fact that its location at any time can be predicted based on nothing more than six numbers describing its orbit, its apparent position from a given spot on earth is exactly as predicted, its apparent position from even a relatively short distance away changes enough to be consistent with its calculated distance from the observers, and when viewed and photographed through telescopes it looks like it's described. There are hobbyists that watch for ISS transits of the moon and sun. To be successful doing this requires being in exactly the right place within a few kilometers and watching at the right time within a fraction of a second. See https://transit-finder.com/ for examples of predictions for ISS and Tiangong. If there's a lunar transit predicted for near where you are, get the latest prediction, find a spot on the predicted path, and watch for it. If it's near dusk or dawn you don't even need a telescope because you should be able to see the bright satellite pass right "through" the moon. If it's well before or after dawn or dusk, you will need a 'scope and accurate time because the satellite won't be visible (it's in earth's shadow so it's dark) until it wooshes in front of the moon briefly; you will need accurate time so you know exactly when to be looking - don't blink! 

Are you suggesting that there's a world-spanning hologram? What were satellites before the age where holograms of any size existed?

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Flat Earth General / Re: FES = Controlled Opposition

« on: April 23, 2023, 12:48:35 PM »

[What is ironic about this method of verification is that as soon as you provide straight line of motion using directional gyro (so that we could determine whether there is a parallax or not due to the alleged rotation of the earth) you can see right away that there is no rotation of the earth since if the earth rotated then the pointer on the directional gyro would make 360 turn per day... However, since we are at the stationary earth directional gyro doesn't indicate any rotational motion whatsoever...

Good gyroscopes routinely show rotation of the earth. This is well known. Toy gyroscopes don't, or not very well, because they have too much friction; this interferes with the detection of the small torque caused by the slow rotation of the earth.

Gyroscopes are not sensitive to straight-line motion.

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Flat Earth General / Re: FES = Controlled Opposition

« on: April 23, 2023, 08:09:38 AM »

However ZIGZAG argument is still very interesting in many ways...

If you straighten your curved line of motion on a rotating earth then stationary celestial object which you observe (the sun) will go (apparently) Right-Left during the day and Left-Right during the night (if you could see it during the night (hence Arctic circle /Polar day))... If you standed on a motionless earth then there would't be any difference since the sun would go Left-Right apparently and actually all the time (24/7) as it happens in our reality...

Since the sun is so far away this difference between GC vs HC scenario would't be obvious for ordinary observer at Arctic circle during the Polar Day but it would be noticable for those experts who would devise an experiment (in all necessary details) to determine whether the earth rotates or not.

Once again...

Your "ZigZag" is parallax. How much parallax would be expected when viewing the sun from opposite points in the Arctic or Antarctic Circle?

Radius of earth = r_e = 6700 km.
Radius of polar circle = r_p = r_e cos(66.5°) = 6700 km × 0.3987 = 2762 km
Distance to sun = d_s = 150,000,000 km
Half parallax angle = a₂ = atan(r_p / d_s) = atan(2672 km / 150,000,000 km) = atan(1.781×10^-5) = 0.0010°
Full parallax angle = a = 2 × a₂ = 0.0020° = 7.2 arcsec.

This is about 0.4% of the apparent diameter of the sun. This small parallax is superimposed on the sun's 1° daily change in position relative to celestial coordinates due to earth's motion, also 0.4% of this movement in 12 hours. You're right that it's too small to notice casually. Since this angle is so small, and with no visible background stars to compare its location with, it would be fairly difficult (but likely not impossible) to measure at all. It would be easier to measure closer to the equator because it's up to about 2.5 times larger. There is no reason to doubt that it's really there.

The moon, on the other hand, exhibits up to about 2° of parallax over half a day since it's so much closer. This is easily observed even with relatively inexpensive amateur-grade equipment.

20

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: April 12, 2023, 02:08:35 PM »

They're just wrong.

The only conspiracy is with NASA. That's a company that is  actively making the big bucks. Telescopes and compasses, any stuff that is about them is just markup and inflated advertising. The big fraud is in satellite and the NatGeo "maps of the stars". We're still just cavemen barely in infancy in flight. You'll see the steady progression of flight speeds, then all of a sudden they'll talk of rocket stuff, and you'll jump from 1200 mph to 4000 mph, then all the way to 17,500 mph. Right...

More on this below.

So I trust wikipedia but I always ask myself if results seem plausible.

This is a very good approach.

They don't. They seem doctored to cover a narrative. Such speed should be creating massive shockwaves, breaking the glasses of anyone nearby the takeoff (just as moving past the mach speed creates a sonic boom). Instead large crowds can sit at a distance waving their flags and looking with binoculars  while this flies away at an apparently slow speed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record
So at 60 mph, you are going a mile a minute. From the road, the car disappears fairly quickly. Same for a plane going at 360 mph or 6 miles a minute. But at 291.6667 miles a minute, you'd expect to blink and this thing would be out of sight. So how is it that we can see a trail of flame moving at around the same speed as a regular old plane? You can actually see it fly off. It's not ripping through the atmosphere at 48 times the speed of a regular plane.

You seem to think that a launched rocket will accelerate from zero to maximum velocity instantaneously, or nearly so. They don't because they can't. This may be why you are so perplexed by what actually happens.

In reality, rockets bound for earth orbit and beyond accelerate very slowly at first because the engines must lift the entire mass of the rocket body, payload, and all the fuel needed to reach its intended state (position and velocity) straight up. As the flight progresses, the velocity increases because there is enough thrust to accelerate the total mass (velocity = acceleration times time), and if nothing else changed it would continue to slowly accelerate.

But things do change. For one, all the fuel and oxidizer consumed and ejected at high velocity out the back cause the fuel mass to decrease. This decrease of mass allows the same amount of thrust to accelerate the rocket, payload, and remaining fuel more and more rapidly as more and more fuel is consumed (thrust is force, and force = mass times acceleration, so using simple algebra we see that acceleration = force divided by mass; a constant force (thrust) divided by a decreasing mass produces increasing acceleration). Another factor is that a payload destined for orbit must have a large horizontal velocity relative to the surface, so the rocket will change pitch from the vertical trajectory needed to clear the launch tower and other obstacles to an increasingly horizontal trajectory as the altitude increases. Doing this means that it doesn't have to spend as high a percentage of its thrust fighting gravity, making the acceleration increase even more rapidly, so it gains velocity even faster.

The upshot is that when it's leaving the launch pad it's not traveling very fast at all. By the time it has accelerated to Mach 1 and beyond, it's pretty far away, pretty high (so the air is thin, which mitigates the strength of the sonic boom), and in this case, well out into the Atlantic where there aren't many people to have their glasses broken, and the ones that are there are pretty far away from the rocket, so the sonic boom is diminished.

So like yesterday I was watering plants, and I noticed the sun being out was casting a rainbow  so using the  hose, I traced out a perfect perfect angled circle in the air. Tday, I found a second one on the ground where sunlight was actually hitting (well behind the garden I was supposed to be watering,but SCIENCE). We have proven the rainbow's path is based on angle of sunlight, as both times it was around 9 or10, and that it's endpoint is also circular.

More on this below.

So like, you know how the guy (it doesn't MATTER what his name is) in Egypt saw those shadows and concluded the Earth must be round? Well the reason I don't bothsr with his name is that he's an idiot who didn't bother with follow-through. Is it simply round (it is), or is it spherical (not proven).

It's Eratosthenes. He already knew from observations made by himself and others that the earth was a sphere. What was not previously known was its size. His follow-through was to use the data from his  shadow experiment to make the first accurate determination of the spherical earth's circumference.

"... didn't bother with follow-through." Bullshit!

After that brief diversion, I guess you're back to rainbows...

Yeah it's a round disc. Just as the sun is a round disc hitting us at an angle.
Okay, lookit. What we know from observation here. The rainbow was a flat circle in touchdown point, and an angled flat circle in the air. There was no lumpiness on the ground (we're not seeing ground as flat when it is "really" spherical), and I was not able to find a side rainbow by spraying around at cross-angles from the original angle in the air. We are definitely not able to prove the Earth is round from this (though not able to disprove either). You know what we can prove?

The sun's light comes from God and not itself.

"But bulma, that's outrageous!" Yes, but I'm afraid it's true. You see, both in the point where it casts on the ground, and the point where UV waves travel through there is a big O, a circle that is hollow in the center. No, I didn't see a solid rainbow of light where the sun touched down (and it was farther back than I expected). It was a flat directed light like you'd get from a spotlight (rather than the sort of light you'd get from from an uncovered lightbulb). This is the sort of light that hits the moon at angle and causes its phases. But even a spotlight has a center. What could cause it to have a large gap in the middle of the rainbow?

...Oh.

You see, if the sun was casting its own light (as everyone in NASA claims, showing elaborate pictures),

every rainbow you see should be a solid disc. But if the sun is a backlit from another source, the sun is bright but only actually casts light around its edges.

[Emphasis added, images shrunk]

That's a rather bizarre way of getting there, but the fact is that rainbows actually are discs. You just haven't noticed.



See the lighter color inside the rainbow? That's the result of a bunch of overlapping "supernumerary" rainbows inside the main one. The effect is somewhat subtle, but can be seen by in the right conditions if you look for it. It appears in some old paintings, so the artists noticed and rendered it; artists tend to be more observant and detail-oriented than most people, but now that you know to look for this, you can see it, too!

Explanation of that image:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supernumerary-rainbows-jb.jpg

21

Flat Earth General / Re: What are the aurora borealis lights on a FE.

« on: April 02, 2023, 07:29:57 AM »

Do you not find it odd that you have a north pole and a south pole but then have magnetic poles?

Do you mean "do you find it odd that you have north and south magnetic poles in different locations from the north and south geographic poles?"

If that's what your question means, then no, I don't find it odd. Why should they be exactly co-located?

22

Flat Earth General / Re: Pics of Another Sunrise Impossible on Flat Earth

« on: March 30, 2023, 09:10:56 AM »

The sun isn't below some imaginary curve. If the sun could be seen from more than 90 degrees around a ball, as your shitty picture claims, you would only have six hours of darkness each day! That is, you have it visible far below the ninety degree line. Extending out to where that sun is, that's an 8 to 6 (h
10 hour) night at the North Pole where he's standing on the ball, where from my experience not on the poles, days are more like 6 to 6.

"More than 90°" by no means implies how much more than 90°. It could be 91°, or 90.1°, or any angle greater than 90°.

Btw, nobody I know (you don't count) has visited the so-called "South Pole" so we cannot confirm the same there, but for months of the year, there is 24 hour sunlight in the North Pole. There is no possible way to account for this in a ball model, as either it curves vertically, enabling him to see a sunrise from that position, or this is completely bogus position of the sun, which should have him standing sideways and the sun near the 90 degree angle, crossing towards him. In a flat Earth model, 24 hour daylight is easy to account for. The North Pole is at the center (the "South Pole" is a rim), and when the sun gets far enough north, sunlight is cast all day. Your model just proved that you literally can't understand your own theory.

The "midnight sun" at the north pole is easy to explain in both spherical and north-pole-centered flat earth models. The difference is that the explanation works at both poles of the sphere, but does not work at all at the rim of that flat earth model, or any other that I'm aware of. This is one of the more compelling bits of evidence against the flat-earth model.

Your description of sunrises and sunsets at the north pole is not correct. The sun doesn't rise vertically at the poles (either of them); rather, it skims the surface around the horizon for a number of hours at the equinox while slowly but continually getting higher in the sky until it reaches about 23.5° above the horizon at the solstice, then slowly drops while continuing to circle the horizon for the next three months, reaching it at around the next equinox.

I worked in Antarctica for three months years ago. We arrived at McMurdo Station on October 20th, the last sunset was October 24th at McMurdo's latitude (about 78° S). After that, the sun just circled the sky all day and "night", getting highest above the horizon to the north at around local noon and closest to the horizon to the south around local midnight. In mid-November, we moved to our remote field station at about 84° S. From there, the sun continued to circle the sky, never setting for the duration of our stay, and remained up all day and night when we returned to McMurdo in mid-January and departed the continent about a week later. This is all exactly as would be expected based on the spherical earth model.

23

Flat Earth General / Re: ChatGPT Proves Curvature

« on: March 28, 2023, 11:59:53 AM »

I was just curious if anyone tried to ask ChatGPT 4 if it could prove curvature by explaining how far a 6 ft. tall person could see if they were standing on the surface of a ball with a 4K mile radius. If it gave the expected answer of approx. 3 miles, what would that imply?

That would imply that it's programmed to use the same math that we have been using for ages. Paraphrasing Jack: just because it comes to a conclusion about something doesn't mean it's true.

24

Flat Earth General / Re: How could science research be improved?

« on: February 19, 2023, 09:07:49 AM »

Science that doesn't yield results, or which causes issues needs to go, at least until the kinks are worked out.

That's easy to say but hard to do in a rational way.

The problem with this attitude is "results" (presumably meaning "beneficial, practical uses") of a discovery sometimes come years or decades after the discoveries themselves.  Similarly, "issues" and "kinks" (i.e. "problems") often aren't manifested for a long time after something had been deemed "useful". Frequently an interesting finding with no immediate benefit is followed by further research that leads to things that are later considered essential.

"That's a very interesting demonstration Dr. Shockley, but we'll kill this project if it fails to be sufficiently profitable immediately." Dr. William Shockley invented the transistor in 1949.

25

Flat Earth General / Re: Cool Mission?

« on: February 01, 2023, 10:26:59 AM »

I have been driving.  Seen a flash of lighting and heard the static it causes on the radio at the same time.  Then heard the resultant thunder clap whole seconds later on.  What’s the rule of thumb.  Each second between the lighting flash and hearing the thunder is about a mile in distance.  Seven second gap between seeing the flash of lighting and hearing the thunder means the lighting was about seven miles away.

Sorry.  A little real world proof radio travels faster than sound.

Minor correction: each second between lightning flash (or crackle on the radio caused by it) and hearing its thunder is about 1,000 feet in distance. This is because the speed of sound in air is a bit over 1,000 feet per second and speed of EM radiation is almost a billion feet per second.

The rule of thumb is five seconds difference between flash and boom is about a mile.

Hearing the crackle on radio at the same time you see the lightning flash says that light and radio waves travel at the same speed or so nearly the same speed that you can't tell the difference. The sound of thunder generated by that same lightning stroke arrives noticeably later, indicating that sound travels noticeably slower.

26

Flat Earth General / Re: South Pole is Fake

« on: January 12, 2023, 10:31:32 AM »

Okay, trying to cut through all the distraction, the south pole on Google Earth looks wrong, covered in low res imagery and some odd quirks of shape, which would make sense if it was a false depiction. Am I understanding that argument?

Yes, that was my point. It looks weird and fake, and at the the distance that other borders are visible (Antarctica is supposed to have named "towns")

but at that distance, we instead get fog. And no such names ever appear. Just weird shapes and weirder coordinates.

McMurdo Station (not "town") shows up just fine on Google Earth. Lat -77.846°, Lon 166.670° (negative latitude is south, positive longitude is east). It's labeled and everything. Just type those numbers into Google Earth's search box (just the two numbers separated by a space or comma is fine, no need for the degree symbol, but do pay attention to the negative sign) if you still can't find it. I've been there. It's real.

And yes, you seem to have missed the meeting. Or just are able to use your eyes. The other folks seem like "Nothing is weird, nothing is weird, nothing is weird, nothing is weird..."

What's weird is that you can't find McMurdo on Google Earth and then loudly complain about it here.

27

Flat Earth General / Re: Cool Mission?

« on: December 13, 2022, 09:59:30 AM »

Btw, the average spaceship is supposed to travel around 25,000 to 40,000 mph. 140 million miles away? Based on the distance to Mars, this takes about 15 years.

Btw, it takes several minutes to even take off. I have a hard time believing even the 25,000 mph estimate.

 I've looked at the actual amount of time it would take to get to Mars.

Having a spot of bother with basic arithmetic?

You totally botched it.

5 to 8 months, if you do the calculation correctly.

Since you can't even get a simple arithmetic problem correct, (and then base an entire belief system on it) your credibility on mathematical or scientific "analysis" is pretty well shot.

Thanks for playing, but now it's time for you to let the grown-ups talk.

"mph" means miles per hour. It looks like bulmabriefs used those numbers as miles/day instead of miles/hour and got, not surprisingly, an answer 24 times too large. Oops.

But, hey... what's an error by almost one and a half orders of magnitude among friends, right?

I'm not sure what "several minutes to even take off" means. It takes years to prepare a complex mission for launch. At launch time, the rocket engines will usually start and run for a moment to stabilize before actual liftoff, but not minutes. If bulmabriefs is talking about the slow rise of the whole rocket assembly from the launch pad for the first few seconds, well, so what? What matters is the velocity at the end of the burn, not the velocity at the start of the burn, which is zero (relative to the launch pad).

28

Flat Earth Debate / Re: See? The Sun Ain't Have Constant Speed

« on: November 23, 2022, 01:46:41 PM »

Altitude numbers is different BUT the LATITUDE is the same:  6.2° S.

This is incorrect. You need to check again. Be more careful this time.

This makes a question: Is the altitudes numbers valid, or can timeanddate.com be a reliable reference?

The altitude numbers are right (per Stellarium). The difference in solar altitude at local solar noon for these two cities is what is expected, given their latitudes.

At least for globe model, it will be disqualified if the day time is different for two locations with the same latitudes.

Are they really at the same latitude? Check. What timeanddate.com shows is what the globe model predicts.

BTW, the sunrise/transit/sunset times are shown by timeanddate.com with a resolution of one minute. Working in minutes instead of hours:

Jakarta:
Sunrise  5h × 60 m/h + 26m = 326m
Meridian 11h × 60 m/h + 38m = 698m
Sunset 17h × 60 m/h + 51 = 1071m

Morning sun: 698m - 326m = 372m = 6h 12m
Afternoon sun: 1071m - 698m = 373m = 6h 13m
Day length = 1071m - 326m = 745m = 12h 25m

Medellin:
Sunrise  5h × 60 m/h + 53m = 353m
Meridian 11h × 60 m/h + 48m = 708m
Sunset 17h × 60 m/h + 42m = 1062m

Morning sun: 708m - 353m = 355m = 5h 55m
Afternoon sun: 1062m - 708m = 354m = 5h 54m
Day length = 1062m - 353m = 709m = 11h 49m

Both differences are one minute, the limit of your resolution.

For Jakarta on Nov 22 daylength listed in the table is 12h 25m 21s, which rounds to 12h 25m. This is 14s longer than the previous day and 13s shorter than the next.

For Medellin on Nov 22 daylength listed in the table is 11h 48m 48s, which rounds to 11h 49m. This is 11s shorter than the previous day and 11s longer than the next.

Your calculated 0.016h differences between morning and afternoon lengths in the same city are mostly rounding errors due to the times specified to the nearest minute [and truncated to 0.016h = 0.96m = 58s in your calculations but are actually one minute, which is why it's better to work in integer minutes instead of decimal-fraction hours]. In reality, morning and afternoon differ by a few seconds (probably around 6 seconds), not a full minute, with a shorter morning, longer afternoon in Jakarta, and longer morning, shorter afternoon in Medellin. The rounding errors happened to break in the right direction for both cities on this particular day, but wouldn't always do so.

Besides... how could there even be sunrises and sunsets if the earth were flat?

29

Flat Earth General / Re: Clockwise and counter clockwise start trails theory

« on: November 15, 2022, 01:47:03 PM »

You may have come across that in the "northern" hemisphere the star trails go one way..  "southern" hemisphere they go another.  It is provable that water is magnetic.  It is provable that water can be used as a lens to produce a "reverse image" effect..  it is provable that the north pole is magnetic..  what my theory is, is that the moisture in the air is effected by the earths magnetic field. And around and past the equator into the southern hemisphere the magnetic fields strength and shape allows for the atmospheric moisture to behave like a lens creating the reverse motion image. 

A lens will produce an inverted image, but the direction of rotation in the image will be the same as the direction of rotation of an object itself. For instance, if you look through a lens at the inverted image of an arrow that is pointing, say, up and to the right and rotating clockwise, the image will point down and left, but also rotate clockwise. You can demonstrate this for yourself using a magnifier and something like a pen or your finger.

30

Flat Earth General / Re: Why don’t things just float down to earth if no gravity.

« on: November 15, 2022, 11:06:10 AM »

When everyone tells you there is gravity, you assume it is so. But let's say you calculate for a rollercoaster ride.

The equation at the very heart of all these calculations is a quadratic equation: ax2 + bx + c = 0. When a roller coaster designer needs to make calculations, she starts with a very basic formula: distance = (initial velocity) (time)+ 1/2 (acceleration) (time)2.

<word salad>

Now even though gravity is conspicuously absent in this formula...

It's not absent.

The equation at the very heart of all these calculations is a quadratic equation: ax2 + bx + c = 0. When a roller coaster designer needs to make calculations, she starts with a very basic formula: distance = (initial velocity) (time)+ 1/2 (acceleration) (time)2.

The relevant term is emphasized for your convenience. In this context the acceleration is due to the force of gravity on the mass of the accelerated object (the rollercoaster and all it's carrying, here). Since the force of earth's gravity is proportional to the total mass of the object, and force = mass × acceleration [Newton's second law of motion], then force / mass = acceleration, so acceleration due to earth's gravity is constant (for practical purposes), independent of the mass of the falling body, since its mass divides out.