1

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 10:46:00 AM »

Why are you asking me to stop posting?  Last time I checked, this was a debate forum.  You're also being awfully rude.  If you're going to get huffy and offended constantly, maybe you should be the one to back away for a bit.

Light acts as a wave because we observe interference and diffraction, which are wave effects.  It also acts as a particle because we observe effects like the photoelectric effect.  It acts as either a wave or a particle depending on the nature of the observation.  And I know what geometrical optics is, I've done ray tracing, as anyone who's taken an introductory physics course has.

Nice textbook copypasta. But I did not ask you how we know light behaves as a wave or a particle, I asked you under what conditions is one more prominent than the other.

Clearly the particle properties of light are more prominent in the quantum regime, i.e. at the atomic scale. 

At your request, I'm going to back away from this forum for a while so I can actually get work done.  Debating isn't fun when you're being insulted.

2

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 10:29:47 AM »

Why are you asking me to stop posting?  Last time I checked, this was a debate forum.  You're also being awfully rude.  If you're going to get huffy and offended constantly, maybe you should be the one to back away for a bit.

Light acts as a wave because we observe interference and diffraction, which are wave effects.  It also acts as a particle because we observe effects like the photoelectric effect.  It acts as either a wave or a particle depending on the nature of the observation.  And I know what geometrical optics is, I've done ray tracing, as anyone who's taken an introductory physics course has.

3

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 10:17:55 AM »

Photons are actual particles, and they are also waves.  Are you familiar with wave-particle duality?

In addition, if Fermat's principle suggests that light propagates in a straight line unless the medium it propagates through changes, how does bendy light agree with it?

4

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 09:56:41 AM »

Parsec just seems to enjoy catching people in logical miss-steps instead of actually debating a topic.

5

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 09:51:51 AM »

where did i say light's speed is not changing?

light does not accelerate! ray paths are not particle trajectories.

It's nice to see that you completely misunderstood my statement. Please refrain from using Fermat's Principle, as you clearly have no idea what it reflects and how it is derived.

I admit I did misunderstand you, but rest assured that I understand what Fermat's principle is, as it is the principle which governs refraction, among other things.  If light is travelling a long distance through the same medium, Fermat's principle would suggest that the light should travel in a straight line until it enters a different medium.  This is how I came to the conclusion that bendy light is at odds with the principle.  Only at the interface between two media does the path of light change.

6

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 09:38:04 AM »

If you're referring to refraction in a medium, I wholehearted agree that the speed of light is different within the medium than without.  Bendy light doesn't seem to have anything to do with refraction, though.

7

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 09:35:57 AM »

where did i say light's speed is not changing?

light does not accelerate! ray paths are not particle trajectories.

8

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 03, 2010, 09:29:03 AM »

because the speed of propagation is not the same at all points.  

But you said yourself earlier that light does not accelerate, and that the only thing that's changing is the path direction.  If the speed is changing, it's accelerating.  Make up your mind.

Or are you referring to refraction?

9

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: I have A question

« on: February 03, 2010, 09:17:46 AM »

The various kinds of atoms and molecules that make up the air (Nitrogen, Oxygen, CO2, etc.) are mostly transparent because they don't absorb much visible light.

Atoms aren't transparent.  

Not even even the atoms in a pane of glass are transparent.

Where did he say they were transparent? He said they were mostly transparent. Which they are, since atoms are mostly made up of empty space.

lrn2reeeeeeeed

I don't think that the empty space is what makes atoms transparent.  Rather it would be the way that the atoms interact with photons of different wavelengths.  Certain wavelengths will be absorbed, others will be absorbed and emitted while others will have no interaction at all.   This where opaque, translucent and transparent are pretty much defined.

This.  Thank you.  Though scattering, as I've said repeatedly, does play a part (and is actually used quite extensively in spectroscopy, most notably in Raman scattering), albeit a small part.

10

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: I have A question

« on: February 03, 2010, 07:54:54 AM »

How the hell Tom makes it through daily life when he keeps changing rules, definitions and anything else to suit his immediate needs is beyond me.  If air is not transparent, I would like Tom to name one thing that is.

Only empty space is transparent. There is no such thing as transparent matter.

*sigh*  Tom, if matter allows light to pass through unobstructed, then, by definition, it is transparent.  You also have to realize that transparency is also a function of the wavelength of electromagnetic energy.  Skin and other soft tissues are relatively transparent to certain wavelengths while bone is opaque to the same wavelength.  This is how x-rays work.  By the same token, air is transparent to visible wavelengths, but opaque to far ultraviolet.

It's also opaque to far-IR and mm radio radiation.  I would imagine that the main evolutionary reason our eyes are sensitive to the range of wavelengths that they're sensitive to is because of the fact that it's one of the few bands of radiation short of radio that the atmosphere is transparent to.

11

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Neutrino Detection Hardware

« on: February 03, 2010, 07:49:42 AM »

The cats and dogs vs. snakes argument isn't valid, because dogs and cats and snakes became the way they are due to the exact same biological process of evolution.  Neutrinos do not necessarily have to behave like photons because they are governed by different processes.  The behavior of photons is governed by electromagnetism (in the standard model, photons are the electromagnetic force carriers), while the behavior of neutrinos is governed largely by the weak force.  However, there is some overlap between the two forces, which is why the unifying electro-weak theory of Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam is needed to derive the energy spectrum of the neutrinos, as the derivation that ERTW posted earlier shows.

12

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: I have A question

« on: February 03, 2010, 04:22:15 AM »

The various kinds of atoms and molecules that make up the air (Nitrogen, Oxygen, CO2, etc.) are mostly transparent because they don't absorb much visible light.

Atoms aren't transparent.  

Not even even the atoms in a pane of glass are transparent.

You can only "see" something if visible light is absorbed by or reflected off of a medium.  If you have a gas of atoms that have no absorption lines in the visible spectrum, light will pass right through the gas mostly undisturbed, though as I mentioned above a very small portion of the light will scatter off the atoms.

You're thinking about matter the wrong way here.  Atoms aren't tiny little billiard balls of a certain color floating around in space.

13

Flat Earth General / Re: Hey, James!

« on: February 03, 2010, 04:02:17 AM »

What's your point?  One type of nerve detects thermal energy leaving the skin, while another detects thermal energy entering the skin.

Both types of receptors are measuring external conditions.

Okay, again, what's your point?

14

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: I have A question

« on: February 02, 2010, 06:27:53 PM »

Air particles are not transparent. The space between those particles is, however.

The various kinds of atoms and molecules that make up the air (Nitrogen, Oxygen, CO2, etc.) are mostly transparent because they don't absorb much visible light.  Light does scatter from these particles though.  The light is scattered by them more at some wavelengths than others, which is why the sky appears bluish during the daytime (shorter wavelengths tend to scatter more than longer ones).  The amount of scattering is small though, as the relative transmission of visible light after traveling horizontally through the atmosphere is still 50%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmosph%C3%A4rische_Absorption.png

I'm not trying to prove anything with this post, I just thought I'd throw my two cents in, as atomic and molecular absorption spectroscopy is my specialty.

15

Flat Earth General / Re: Hey, James!

« on: February 02, 2010, 05:54:31 PM »

What's your point?  One type of nerve detects thermal energy leaving the skin, while another detects thermal energy entering the skin.

16

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 02, 2010, 05:38:34 PM »

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about the Fermat principle.  If light tends to travel in the path that minimizes time of travel, why would it bend in an arc?

17

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 02, 2010, 01:05:03 PM »

If you want to be taken seriously here, you should refrain from personal attacks.  Parsifal is definitely not an idiot.

18

Flat Earth General / Re: The picture that explains all.

« on: February 01, 2010, 07:39:08 PM »

But if you play with JPEG effects in photoshop, you can get the sun to look like a studio light!!! 

19

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 01, 2010, 06:53:36 PM »

What part of "Astronomers have mapped out the entire southern celestial hemisphere" don't you understand?  That's exactly what those surveys I posted have accomplished.

How can they have mapped out the entire southern celestial hemisphere if they haven't observed it from all possible locations? How can they be sure that it would appear the same everywhere?

Because from any good vantage point on the Earth, one can see half the celestial sphere, from the zenith (90 degrees altitude) to the horizon (0 degrees altitude) and all around (0-360 degrees azimuth, measured NESW from the meridian, which is an imaginary arc connecting the zenith to the north horizon).  Given the time of day and latitude, one can convert altitude and azimuth to right ascension and declination.  Because the celestial sphere rotates around the Earth, one can map out the same portion of the celestial sphere from anywhere at the same latitude.  This is how the VLA, in NM, was able to survey the entire sky north of -40 degrees declination.

Because the shape of the Earth is a relatively simple one.  It's an oblate spheroid.  If you really can't see how straight light propagation with a round, rotating Earth, consistent with the existing laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, is simpler than a flat Earth with bendy light, which contradicts both gravitation and electromagnetism, then I'm not sure what to say to you.

Bendy light contradicts neither gravitation nor electromagnetism.

Bendy light doesn't contradict gravitation, but a flat Earth does.  Bendy light does, however, contradict electromagnetism, which has no provision for the kind of dramatic bending required for a flat Earth to appear round.  Only in GR do we observe bending of light, and even for things as massive as the Sun only a miniscule amount of bending is observed.  Astronomers, however, can use a process called gravitational lensing to observe objects extremely far away.  In this case the object bending the light has to be immensely massive, such as a galaxy cluster or a black hole.

20

Flat Earth General / Re: Hey, James!

« on: February 01, 2010, 03:36:46 PM »

Well, not really.  If an object has low thermal conductivity, but is being held at a temperature of 500 degrees C, you're not going to feel "cold" if you touch it.  You're going to feel the thermal conduction from the object from your hand, even if it's small.  However, if an object is near room temperature, it's going to feel "cold" as your hand transfers heat energy to the object, cooling your hand, as your hand is above room temperature.  In conduction, heat always flows against the temperature gradient.  The higher the heat conductivity, the "hotter" a higher temperature object will feel, and the colder a lower temperature object will feel, as heat will flow faster against the temperature gradient.  

21

Flat Earth General / Re: Hey, James!

« on: February 01, 2010, 02:49:46 PM »

Well, anybody who uses the term "cold light" obviously doesn't know a thing about thermodynamics.  Photons carry kinetic energy, and cold is the absence of energy.  I'm pretty sure James and Tom are the only ones who have advocated this nonsense though.

22

Flat Earth General / Re: The picture that explains all.

« on: February 01, 2010, 11:36:26 AM »

You still have it in your cache.  The site has protection against image hotlinking.  You need to download the image, put it on photobucket or something similar, and then re-post it for the image to show up.

23

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Sunrise And Sunsets as described in the FAQ

« on: February 01, 2010, 09:27:41 AM »

That would only be true of the perspective effect.  The bendy light would probably account for the difference in shape.

24

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 01, 2010, 06:32:29 AM »

So what were you hoping for?  A floating observatory in the middle of the atlantic ocean?  You must not understand how astronomy works then.

I was hoping for justification for this claim:

They have the entire sky mapped out about a million times over.

Since you either cannot or will not provide any such justification, I expect you to retract that statement.

What part of "Astronomers have mapped out the entire southern celestial hemisphere" don't you understand?  That's exactly what those surveys I posted have accomplished.

You're proposing an alternate model to explain something which is already explained perfectly by a much simpler model.  A scientific model which is more complicated, but doesn't offer more explanatory power, is automatically an inferior one.

How is a curved Earth any simpler than curved light?

Because the shape of the Earth is a relatively simple one.  It's an oblate spheroid.  If you really can't see how straight light propagation with a round, rotating Earth, consistent with the existing laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, is simpler than a flat Earth with bendy light, which contradicts both gravitation and electromagnetism, then I'm not sure what to say to you.

25

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 01, 2010, 05:01:07 AM »

It is both a definition and a law.  If a particle does not have those properties, it isn't an electron.  It's part of the standard model of particle physics.

Then the question still stands; why is there more than one of them? Why are there all these electrons around which are exactly the same?

It's just one of the many different kinds of fundamental particles created in the Big Bang.  For more details, you may want to talk to a particle physicist.

You asked for a study that is mapping out the sky above buenos aires and cape town.

No, I asked for an observatory which is mapping out the sky midway between Buenos Aires and Cape Town.

 

So what were you hoping for?  A floating observatory in the middle of the atlantic ocean?  You must not understand how astronomy works then.

If you honestly believe that the Earth is round, then you must concede that the current model for sunsets and sunrises is far, far simpler than magical light bending which has no real evidence.  The model works, and it is wonderfully simple.  Why arbitrarily change the shape of the Earth and make the behavior of light more complicated?

My opinions are irrelevant in this thread.

Yes they are.  You're proposing an alternate model to explain something which is already explained perfectly by a much simpler model.  A scientific model which is more complicated, but doesn't offer more explanatory power, is automatically an inferior one.

26

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: 'Bendy Light' Discussion

« on: February 01, 2010, 04:36:54 AM »

Yes it is.  The standard model defines the electron as a fundamental particle having a lepton number of 1, a charge of -e, a spin of 1/2, and a rest mass of 0.511 MeV/c^2.

That is a definition, not a law.

It is both a definition and a law.  If a particle does not have those properties, it isn't an electron.  It's part of the standard model of particle physics.

Here's one such survey of the entire southern celestial hemisphere in the near and far IR bands, using a telescope in Chile:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/nn7048r272urg224/

Here's another survey of the southern celestial hemisphere:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n16100615j6l9579/fulltext.pdf?page=1

In the radio regime, the NRAO has conducted a survey of the ENTIRE SKY north of -40 declination (the skies above both Cape Town and Buenos Aires are at about -34 degrees declination)  using the Very Large Array:

http://www.cv.nrao.edu/nvss/

None of these are valid answers to my question.

Yes they are.  You asked for a study that is mapping out the sky above buenos aires and cape town.  These all cover that region of the sky.

Parsifal, since you have let it be known that you are not actually a believer in FET yourself, would you care to explain to us why you do not actually believe it?

As ERTW pointed out, this is irrelevant.

If you honestly believe that the Earth is round, then you must concede that the current model for sunsets and sunrises is far, far simpler than magical light bending which has no real evidence.  The model works, and it is wonderfully simple.  Why arbitrarily change the shape of the Earth and make the behavior of light more complicated?

27

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How did the flat earth form?

« on: January 31, 2010, 05:25:29 PM »

Interesting though that we're pretty sure how the round earth formed.  Planets are thought to coalesce from the dust and debris surrounding a young star as it itself forms.

28

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Sunrise And Sunsets as described in the FAQ

« on: January 31, 2010, 11:06:25 AM »

Yeah, I actually didn't notice that until after I posted.  Sorry about that.

29

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Sunrise And Sunsets as described in the FAQ

« on: January 31, 2010, 10:45:53 AM »

And when the Earth supposedly 'spins', don't you move away from the sun?

Not really.  The difference in distance between an observer and the Sun from noon to sunset is pretty much negligible compared to the Earth-Sun distance.  That's why I'm not sure bendy light can explain why the Sun does not appear much smaller at sunset than it does at noon (in fact, because of atmospheric refraction, it appears slightly larger).  The bending of light would correctly show the Sun moving down and intersecting with the horizon, but wouldn't it also be getting smaller and smaller as it sets, as the beams of light are diverging from an object farther and farther away?  That is, unless rays of light coming from different parts of the Sun curve with different radii in order to conserve the angular size of the Sun.

30

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Under FET why does gravity reduce as you dig down further.

« on: January 31, 2010, 08:33:27 AM »

No, the explanation will likely involve general relativity.