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Flat Earth General / Most ludicrous explanation?

« on: October 19, 2014, 02:16:05 AM »

A question for the old timers...

What's the most bonkers thing anyone has ever said to you on this site? I'm looking for the most ludicrous explanation to a problem you've ever been given.

If you can link to the post that's even better.

Cheers

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Flat Earth General / Re: Post Conspiracy photos

« on: September 11, 2012, 07:18:00 AM »

The problem here is that none of these images are native. They are not the original negatives, nor are they the raw camera data. Pretty much every image released by any organisation is cleaned-up, tweaked and stylised to look more dramatic. At the very least, they're compressed to be available on the web. These are all promotional images and you can extract precisely zero bits of useful scientific data from them.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Priority of Perception

« on: September 11, 2012, 07:00:11 AM »

In regards to the OP, it is odd that the objective reality of an earth that appears flat whilst standing on it is held so highly by a theory than invokes a myriad of optical illusions to explain sunrises, sunsets, the movement of the stars, objects disappearing below the horizon and the curvature of the earth when seen from very high altitudes.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Is the dinosaur paradox final proof of the flat earth?

« on: September 11, 2012, 06:40:53 AM »

The problem is, even if the size of certain dinosaurs does create a problem, it doesn't actually prove the earth is flat. The "paradox" of a dinosaur not being able to support its own weight is the same on both a flat earth and a spherical one. If the only explanation to the dinosaur paradox is that the earth's gravity must have been less, there is no evidence for any mechanism present in Universal Acceleration to account for this change in upward velocity, and the paradox remains.

The only reason you think it's a win is because unlike Gravity, Universal Acceleration is completely made up and therefore you can change any or all of its parameters to suit you, without having to prove it. You can claim anything you like about it and because it's not reliant on any historical evidence or confirmed scientific theory it will always be "true" for whatever you need it to do at the time. It's a magical force that can be anything it wants and therefore will always give you the answer you want to hear.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Is the dinosaur paradox final proof of the flat earth?

« on: September 10, 2012, 10:31:23 AM »

Holden's calculations are based on assumed weights of dinosaurs that are way out of date. More recently, large sauropods have been estimated to be much lighter. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dinosaurs/9312462/Dinosaurs-much-lighter-than-previously-thought.html

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Flat Earth General / Re: Conspiracy motivation

« on: March 02, 2011, 05:56:42 AM »

The problem with all the conspiracy motivations that have been offered up is that they're all circular. You can say the motivation is money, but no one was making any money prior to the conspiracy existing. The conspiracy needs to be in place first for someone to then exploit it and make money out of it. The fact that people don't know the earth is flat isn't (in and of itself) lucrative. The idea that someone in Ancient Greece decided to start a conspiracy that would be incredibly complex and expensive to run - on the impetus that when satellites and air travel become big business in two thousand odd years his ancestors would make a ton of money - is problematic at best.

Centrally - there's no real ideology behind the conspiracy. No one's given or shown me a deeper reason for why anyone would devote their lives to it. When the first conspirators discovered that, much to everyone's ignorance, that the earth really was flat, what was it about this truth that drove them to such incredible lengths so as to deceive the entire world for thousands of years to come? Nothing even approaching this scale has ever been achieved without it have some real deeper meaning to a lot of people, and so far, no one's given me even a theoretical example of what this might be.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Fine, I'll make a new thread for it...

« on: March 02, 2011, 04:58:32 AM »

Can anybody explain how impact craters formed on the underside of the moon, and how loose matter stays on the underside of the moon?

Magic.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Easy way to prove the earth is indeed flat

« on: March 02, 2011, 04:34:56 AM »

First you say travelling 25 knots is the fastest person in the world, and now you are saying 22.6 knots is? 

No, I said:

...25 knots, putting him just shy of the world speed record for a solo, monohulled yacht

(emphasis added)

I'm not sure what the actual speed record is... I think it's around 28 knots.

The maths giving his speed at 25 knots was approximate, which you later refined to 22.6. I don't have a problem with this adjustment as 22.6 knots is still blindingly fast for a one man sailboat even in ideal conditions. I don't feel it invalidates my point - that maintaining such a high speed for so long a time under such difficult conditions would be practically impossible.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Coriolis Effect Proves Earth's Rotation

« on: March 01, 2011, 01:58:12 AM »

I don't, really. I just think it's fun looking at their semantics and stupid excuses.

Anyways, FE'ers seem to be unable to come up with any good reasons for the coriolis effect.

RE victory anyone?

Personally, I would say that international air travel, the weather, the tide, seasons, solar eclipses, celestial navigation, global communication satelites, the ISS, Man on the Moon, expeditions to the south pole, the total absense of any evidence for a global conspiracy of anything in the history of the world ever, gravity and the simple observation that if the earth really is flat then it is designed in such a perculiar way that it makes life easier to think of it as a sphere anyway all constitute wins for RE.

But apparently I'm not the referee, so I guess they were all disqualified or something.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Easy way to prove the earth is indeed flat

« on: March 01, 2011, 01:38:01 AM »

Traveling at 22.6 knots is not outrageous considering we are talking about the fastest person in the world.

Yes, it is totally outrageous because we're not talking about the fastest person in the world. We're comparing the speed of a long distance, incredibly challenging path (one of the most difficult sailing routes in the world) vs the record speed over any distance under any conditions. It's like comparing the world record 100m sprint to average speed of a mountaineer.

As for the semantic argument over what to call the various geometries used in the initial calculation, you're comparing apples and oranges... which is the entire point of the thread. You'd be using a euclidean geometry for the flat earth and a sperical geometry for the round earth. The point is that these two methods produce wildly different values of the same measurements - hence the argument.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Easy way to prove the earth is indeed flat

« on: February 25, 2011, 09:58:06 AM »

@vhu9644:
I am comparing the two geometries, not equating them. They are mutually exclusive.

@PizzaPlanet:
Which particular facet of the argument do you disagree with? I used Euclidean geometry, i.e., 2-D geometry, as specified in the OP. (A circle is 2-D)

@Thevoiceofreason:
You should google expeditions that sail the coastline of Antarctica (cruises have done this), see how long they take, find the distance of the coastline by multiplying the ship's speed (a racing yacht's cruising speed can be up to 100 km/h) by the time the expedition takes, and then compare that distance to the two circumferences listed above. Let me know what you get

Hint: the Earth is round.
Perhaps we could settle for flat-ish?

As I said before, its by no means a constant journey. And I'm not going to read through pages and pages of logs and journals to calculate when they were traveling and how far, just for FE'ers to pick out some stupid reason why its invalid. The point is either method of travel won't tell you beyond the shadow of an FE'ers doubt what the distance is.

For the record, in 2009, the Antarctica Cup was sailed by 32 contestants from all over the world, the basic course of which is a circumnavigation of the Antarctic continent. All 32 vessels were tracked in real time and their position, speed and bearing broadcast on the Antarctica Cup website antarcticacup.com.

For those interested, you can read the complete log of Fedor Konyukhov, the winning competitor (solo, single-hulled) at http://www.covarimail.com/linkfile.lasso?1=116621&2=/userfiles/36_188/File/Konyukhov%20log%20070508.doc

He set a record for solo sailing around the southern hemisphere, achieving it in just over 102 days. As a point of comparison, if the trip really did take him 125,000km around the icewall, to make it in that time he would have had to average around 25 knots (about 50kph), putting him just shy of the world speed record for a solo, monohulled yacht (in any waters, on any day, in any weather).

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Coriolis Effect Proves Earth's Rotation

« on: February 25, 2011, 09:15:41 AM »

No. The Coriolis Effect is the result of the earth being a spinning globe - that is, the equator is the lattitude with the longest circumference and therefore moves faster (in m/sec terms) than any other. This creates a twisting effect in opposite directions north and south of the equator.

On a flat earth, the longest circumference would be the south pole (or whatever point beyond that you decide the earth ends). It would have a similar twisting effect, but everything would twist in the same direction regardless of which side of the equator it was on.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Your stars are all wrong

« on: February 23, 2011, 06:18:37 AM »

This is fairly typical of FET.

See, anyone can invent an explanation involving celestial gears, bendy light or invisible unicorns to describe how this could occur on a flat earth. The problem is that it's massively complex in itself and doesn't remain consistent with the myriad of other theories used to explain away the other problems.

However, when you show them a solution to the problem that avoids all these contradictions, is geometrically provable and is incredibly simple and elegant, they'd rather cry conspiracy and go back to wrestling with their flying unicorns.

That's why no argument ever reaches a conclusion on this forum.

Enjoy your stay.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Coriolis Effect Proves Earth's Rotation

« on: February 23, 2011, 06:02:10 AM »

The Coriolis effect can be explained by the gravitomagnetic effect of the rotating heavens.

I have a few issues with this explanation.

• First of all, gravitomagnetic effects are tiny - they are only really observable on massive scales, like the space around a spinning black hole.
• Secondly, even if it did create a measurable effect, the heavens being above us would put us perpendicular to its rotation. To experience any noticeable gravitomagnetic effect we would need to be on the same rotational plane of the spinning heavens.
• Thirdly, if there was enough mass and a fast enough rotation to produce measurable gravitomagetic effects, the earth would be directly in the path of a supermassive relativistic jet, which it clearly isn't.
• Fourth, it requires an acknowledgement of general relativity, which is incompatible with Universal Acceleration.
• Fifth, the proposed mechanism does not explain the Coriolis Effect in that it would only account for a general twisting of the atmosphere around the central point - not the reversal of atmospheric vortex rotation south of the equator.
• Sixth, the Coriolis effect is not detectable when independent of the earth's rotation. Gravitomagnetic effects should still be in effect under these conditions.
• Seventh, being a relativistic effect (in that it results from the distortion of spacetime) it should have an even effect on all matter and not favour large fluid systems the way the Coriolis effect does.
• Eighth, furthermore, as the gravitomagnetic effect would be uniform across the whole earth, its effects would only be visible from a frame of reference well beyond the earth, in fact, well beyond the gravitomagnetic effects themselves, which would cover an area much larger than the earth.

Like I've said before, you can't proclaim to believe in a giant flat disc of incredible mass but no gravity accelerating infinitely upwards and then invoke Relativity when it suits you.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Very Large Explosions

« on: November 24, 2010, 02:45:15 AM »

Well, according to the Royal Society's report on the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, atmospheric and seismic waves were detected for five days after the initial explosion. I know that doesn't equate directly to sound, but it follows the same principle.

The Royal Society has been shown to throw every explanation they can for various events on phenomena such as this, especially during the time period you cite.

I'm not clear on this counter-argument. Atmospheric and seismic waves were detected for five days - that's not an explanation for anything. It wasn't even the Royal Society that made these observations, they just reported the information.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Very Large Explosions

« on: November 23, 2010, 09:11:46 AM »

I find it highly unlikely that this would occur. Even if the terrain was completely clear, it would take 10.4 hours for sound to travel all the way around a globe the size of the Earth. I would like to see a scientific record in which the people sat around and timed this. I further find this assertion to be unlikely, because the terrain is not completely clear. There are mountains and crap in the way. Lets even say that the sound does go around the entire world. Once it reaches the point of origin, the sound waves are just going to collide with each other and cancel each other out. I am very doubtful of your claim.

Well, according to the Royal Society's report on the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, atmospheric and seismic waves were detected for five days after the initial explosion. I know that doesn't equate directly to sound, but it follows the same principle.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Very Large Explosions

« on: November 23, 2010, 05:25:28 AM »

One interesting feature of VERY big explosions, (such as the TSAR Bomb, the eruption of krakatoa, the Tunguska event, etc) is that the sound waves it produces are powerful enough to circle the earth multiple times. This is because of the geometry of the earth - being a sphere, a sound wave sent off in any direction will eventually loop around and return to its point of origin, assuming it is powerful enough.

On a flat earth, the sound waves would travel out and out forever and never cycle back causing the sounds to fall off the edge of the earth. It's essentially the same problem as circumnavigation, but without being able to rely on magnetic compasses and/or Conspiracy-controlled GPS for explanation.

What could cause this?

To save you all the trouble, I have created a few alternate explanations for you. Just pick your favourite and let me know:

1) Bendy Sound.
2) Sound is magnetic and is drawn into circular paths by the magnetic pole.
3) Giant space mirrors that reflect sound.
4) Refuse to acknowledge phenomenon. Demand I generate multi-megaton explosion in order to record sound as evidence for the effect, and insist that until this is done, it constitutes a "win" for FE.
5) Sound is part of the conspiracy.

Thanks

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: More things wrong with the Sun...

« on: June 16, 2010, 08:06:43 AM »

How does the air know from which direction the light is coming from?

As I said, the air is magnetoresonant horizontally. It will therefore only absorb the vertical component of the light's motion.

Are you serious? It's like you've just found a fancy word (and by the way "magnetoresonant", isn't a real word) and inserted it in a sentence without bothering to look up what it means.

Why isn't this true of all light? Why isn't this true of street lamps?

Why would you assume that it isn't?

It's not an assumption, it's an observation. Street lamps (and every other light source I have ever encountered) are noticably brighter when you get closer to them, regardless of whether or not the light is travelling vertically or horizontally or is over your head or beneath you or to your left or right.

Why hasn't this phenomenon been observed in experiments designed to test the visibility of air (and various other gasses)?

You'd have to ask the experimenters that.

I would, but I think I already know what their answer would be.

Most interestingly, if light from above is more readily "absorbed" why isn't the sky directly above my head a darker shade of blue?

Because it's closer to you. Ordinarily, it would be brighter, just as the Sun would overhead. This absorption causes it to appear more or less the same shade.

You seem to be having trouble grasping concepts like "closer" or "ordinary". The Sun is an object with a definite proximity to another object. The Sky is not - it's not a thing you can measure your distance from, so saying it's "closer to you" is meaningless. And why would the sky "ordinarily" be brighter, other than to validate your argument by means of circular logic?

And last of all, what makes this theory "obvious" or "simple"?

The fact that if the Sun would be brighter when overhead, and it is observed not to be, then something must be getting in the way of the light.

You're saying the solution to "why is the sun not brighter?" is obvious because the sun isn't brighter. When you hear yourself talk, does it make sense to you?

I expected more from you, Parsifal. 

Anyone else have any "serious" suggestions?

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: More things wrong with the Sun...

« on: June 15, 2010, 02:19:57 AM »

Actually the sun is much less intense at setting than overhead at noonday. At noon it is extremely difficult to look at the sun. During its setting the sun is much more diluted and it is possible to look directly at the sun without squinting at all.

As far as the size at sunset goes, it is discussed in the wiki:

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=The+Sun

Thanks Tom, but the point was more that the path of the sun was such that the noon sun should be many, many times brighter than at 2pm or 10am, when in fact it tends to even out during these hours.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: More things wrong with the Sun...

« on: June 14, 2010, 07:50:29 AM »

Must this question really be asked? Obviously, the air simply absorbs most of the light coming straight down. However, the light coming down at a less severe angle is less affected by this absorption.

Just  a few questions:

How exactly does air "absorb" light? What happens to it? Where does all that energy go?
How does the air know from which direction the light is coming from?
Why isn't this true of all light? Why isn't this true of street lamps?
Why hasn't this phenomenon been observed in experiments designed to test the visibility of air (and various other gasses)?
Most interestingly, if light from above is more readily "absorbed" why isn't the sky directly above my head a darker shade of blue?
And last of all, what makes this theory "obvious" or "simple"?

Please show all workings-out.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: More things wrong with the Sun...

« on: June 13, 2010, 02:56:38 PM »

I've always thought Bendy light was funny. If you allow for "Bendy" light, then why not Bendy weather, Bendy gravity or Bendy space? Of course, you keep bending things and soon enough you end up with a Bendy Earth.

I think that's going to be my new scientific position. I subscribe to Bendy Earth Theory.

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Flat Earth Q&A / More things wrong with the Sun...

« on: June 11, 2010, 10:07:18 AM »

Not sure if this has ever been brought up before, but given the path and altitude of the sun in FET, (applying the law of inverse squares) the intensity of sunlight should spike massively in the middle of the day and then drop off sharply in the following few hours. But of course, in reality, it doesn't - it's rather the opposite. Sunshine between 10am and 2pm is relatively even, when according to FET this should be the most intense rise and fall of the day. What's the FE position on this descrepancy?

Commence Flaming/Trolling/Instructions directed to read the FAQ!

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Flat Earth General / Re: New Scientist Weighs In...

« on: May 26, 2010, 03:29:23 AM »

You know... a hole through the centre of the earth would actually resolve a lot of issues on this site.

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Flat Earth General / New Scientist Weighs In...

« on: May 21, 2010, 05:54:19 AM »

Been away a while, but saw something that I thought might be of interest to many people here:

http://www.newscientist.com/special/living-in-denial

New Scientist magazine have devoted an issue to denialism, conspiracy theory and why otherwise intelligent people believe stupid things. I read it all recently and it brought back memories of the FES.

Peace Out.

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Flat Earth General / Re: Hmm, will you make me a RE'ers by answering this.

« on: January 15, 2010, 04:28:46 AM »

look up idea of crystal spheres that ancients like ptolemey observed

So now Ptolemy should be treated as a scientist with authority, eh?

Didn't he do some experiment about the shape of the Earth? Hmmmmm....

Oh, Snap!

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Flat Earth General / Re: Hmm, will you make me a RE'ers by answering this.

« on: January 14, 2010, 05:41:36 AM »

It is a mirror in the sky.

My ice crystal theory is infinitely better than the unproven sky mirror conjecture. ICT is now accepted by most FEers. Please stop damaging FE scholars by posting the same half baked ideas over and over again.

Ok, accroding to ICT - how is Polar Day possible in the Antarctica?

According to ICT angular reflection of the complex geometry of the ice crystals creates a total reflective state.

Um.... okay.

Could you elaborate on that?

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Flat Earth General / Re: NASA and its different Hoaxes to deceive the public

« on: January 12, 2010, 06:53:50 AM »

Also anyone with any brains, can see that they are cheap simulations of a round, rotating globe. Things like this have always disgruntled myself, anyone who looks at these video images, can plainly see one specific spot on these small fake models where a hot-spot lamp light reflection is seen. If these supposed images of Earth were real, a very specific light reflection hot-spot would never be seen. Also they look like they are made of plastic and have a very artificial look to them, with no Earth atmosphere glow at all.

Just a quick contradiction you might want to consider, Truth Seeker. You say the images of the earth look fake, and cite the specific light conditions and a lack of "earth atmosphere glow" but what is your frame of reference for what the earth should look like?

The only point of comparison you have would be other images of earth taken from space, which you claim are also all fake.

So in order to prove that one particular image of the earth is fake, you have to acknowledge that other images are real in order to provide a point of comparison.

Just a thought.

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Flat Earth General / Re: Hmm, will you make me a RE'ers by answering this.

« on: January 12, 2010, 06:38:39 AM »

My ice crystal theory is infinitely better than the unproven sky mirror conjecture. ICT is now accepted by most FEers.

Ice crystal theory?

This I gotta hear.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Shadow Differences

« on: January 07, 2010, 06:18:40 AM »

And what if the light doesn't hit the earth in parallel lines?

The next step would be to explain the deviations.

The deviations are explained by the fact that the sun is close to the earth.

And yet, strangely enough, the brightness and heat at these two points are more or less equal. If the shadows are longer because of how much closer the sun is, wouldn't that mean an increase in brightness and radiant heat as well?

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Flat Earth General / Re: The Conspiracy; Let's Settle This

« on: January 07, 2010, 06:10:36 AM »

So can we now stop arguing about the philosophy of debate (or at least start a new thread for it) and get back to the OP?

That's asking WAAAAY too much

I suppose, when you don't actually have a valid point to argue, the best you can do is argue that you don't have to argue it.