1

Flat Earth Q&A / Occam's Razor

« on: November 13, 2006, 09:10:55 AM »

Good point, but force gravity is the simplest way to understand an incredibly complex mechanism.  For all practical purposes, Fg = G*m1*m2/r^2 for masses smaller than the moon at speeds significantly less than light.  

The source of gravity is mysterious, but it's effects are real.  How else would we have been able to measure the constant G by experiments concerning the attraction between lead balls?  Is this any less believable than dark matter accelerating the Earth up ad infinitum while the sun, moon, planets, and stars are held up by some sort of mechanism.  Where does the energy come from?  What is it that holds up the sun?  The Electro-weak force might work if it didn't rely on the Earth's magnetic field to be immensely more powerful than has ever been measured.  The strong nuclear force decreases over far too short a distance to explain the sun not falling into the Earth.  And we're out of forces.

2

Flat Earth Q&A / Benefits for the government lieing

« on: November 13, 2006, 08:10:11 AM »

You need to delay shipping across the Northern Hemisphere to maintain the "illusion" that the equator is the widest spot on the planet.  Any other way, it would take several times the trip to go from Brazil to South Africa (9 hours 10 minutes) as from New York to London (8 hours).  Flight times, shipping times, and all other forms of transportation times are reasonably consistent with a round Earth.  You don't see a huge North to South increase as you would if the Earth was a flat circle (the South Africa time I showed Earlier would have been approximately twice that of London's, which it obviously isn't).  

That is the single, biggest problem with flat Earth theory.  To explain this, people must be actively slowing down while crossing the Northern hemisphere.

As for the short cut over Antarctica, it isn't done for the same reason they don't fly over the arctic.  If they mess up, they're dead.  I'm just mentioning various things that people would HAVE to do deliberately to not reveal to themselves that the Earth is flat.

You're thinking in terms of a non-conspiracy world. If you make an effort and actually understand how big the conspiracy is, you'll see that all those things are insignificant. You think money matters to an organisation that has the entire world convinced that the shape of the world is different to what it is?

I told you that money wasn't the deciding factor so much as wars.  For things to work the way you claim, both Japan and the US deliberately attempted to lose the World Wars to preserve this conspiracy.  So did the British and French in their Wars for America.  So, Beast, your final answer is that all of history has been a farce.  Step back and see if this is reasonable.  It isn't.

3

Flat Earth Q&A / Question

« on: November 13, 2006, 07:46:08 AM »

The cost to launch a satellite is on the order of 10s to 100s of millions of dollars.  This is paid to everyone making the satellites, rockets, launchpads, insurance companies, and hundreds of other people involved.  Unless you believe the IRS is in on the conspiracy as well, there's nothing to pocket, and no single part is nearly enough for hush money.

You never answered a couple of impossibles there.  People claim to track the satellites from ground to orbit.  Wait, of course they're in on the conspiracy.

And there's a big difference between missing some minor headlines about balloon research and missing hundreds of orbital balloon launches.  You dismissed the question instead of answering it.

Why haven't corporations just go out and say how their balloons can perform the functions of satellites at a fraction of the price, therefore ignoring billions of dollars in expenses bribing everyone at NASA?

4

Flat Earth Q&A / Theories on theories

« on: November 13, 2006, 07:35:59 AM »

He said, letter for letter "No 747s were hijacked on 9/11."

What does that sound like?

Any rational person listening to this would think that he is denying 9/11 ever happened.  If a person knew Engineer well (as no doubt you two do), then perhaps they would come to the conclusion he was talking about the classsification of the planes.

I assumed nothing, I merely read.  Beast, I will reply to what you mean if you say it clearly.  Curt, dismissive sentences with no explaination merely elicit the wrong reply.  I say, "Say what you mean".

5

Flat Earth Q&A / Theories on theories

« on: November 12, 2006, 08:14:34 PM »

DG.  It's a gut reaction.  When I hear someone say "no 747s were hyjacked on 9/11", I get angry.  I don't say into "Hmmm, what were those planes anyway?"  The first thought to my mind is that he was denying any planes were hyjacked.  If he wished to say that they were 757s and 767s, then he should have said as much.  Until Engineer posts otherwise, I still believe that is what he meant.

Considering that this forum (and this thread in particular) is about conspiracy theories, I find it completely relevant.

6

Flat Earth Q&A / Benefits for the government lieing

« on: November 12, 2006, 08:06:08 PM »

You evaded the question, Beast.  If you believe that the government is supressing all this information, there must be some reason.  Besides, if half the planet is in on it (or actively denying, believing it is round while operating as if the world was flat. Ie: delaying shipping in the northern hemisphere, never deliberately flying over Antarctica as a short cut, conveniently ignore the giant, high altitude balloons posing as satellites), then you aren't really talking about a conspiracy as much as a big joke pulled on the other half of the world.  The problem is, if there is never a big reveal, a joke is worthless.  

Consider the costs associated with this.  Not just money, money's unimportant in the long run.

This includes wars lost: the British not reinforcing and supplying their troops during the American Revolution, critical supplies lost during the trans-Atlantic WWII trade since they slowed down to keep the illusion of a round Earth, doubling the time they were at the mercy of the Wolfpacks.  Reinforcements slowed down in the WWII Pacific theater; all travel times are consistent with round Earth distances both to Midway and to the Phillipines, so the US had to have slowed down reinforcements to the Battle of Midway, risking the entire war to keep up a joke.

This conspiracy has passed ludricous to the realm of sheer STUPIDITY.

7

Flat Earth Q&A / Flat Earth Model

« on: November 12, 2006, 07:51:59 PM »

Alright, you caught me in a slip up.  Yes, the "magnetic south pole" is near the north, since north ends of magnets point north (and thus the north geographic pole is the south magnetic pole).  

However, what about the "magnetic north pole" in Antarctica which is on solid land.   It is as indisputable as the Arctic magnetic pole.  To stop the magnetic field, getting the "all directions are North" effect would require a large magnetic field eminating from the Antarctic pole, which is obviously NOT on the edge of the Earth as humans have visited it countless times.    

Therefore, to explain this on a flat Earth, there MUST be two magnetic fields,one going from the edge of the Earth to the north pole and one eminating from the Antarctic magnetic pole going in all directions to who knows where (probably also the Arctic magnetic pole) which would create the magnetic distortion I explained in my last few posts.

8

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Cold Fusion

« on: November 12, 2006, 04:14:24 PM »

I have heard the Round Earth theory came Aristotle, not Pythagoras.

And cold fusion just doesn't work.  You need to force two protons extremely close together before the strong nuclear force takes over.  I haven't heard about muon catalysts, but the problems you describe explains why it hasn't been taken advantage of.  The "Cold Fusion" people were idiots, claiming you could cause fusion from a pot on a stove.  Their argument itself was nonsense, "no chemical reaction could create this much heat", which is laughable in itself.  After a short burst of interest, almost every serious scientist has left this where it belongs, in the garbage.

Hot fusion is great, safe (aside from the whole 100,000 degrees farenheit thing), and a nice way for energy.  If you can start is up and contain it without using more energy than you gain.

9

Flat Earth Q&A / Benefits for the government lieing

« on: November 12, 2006, 04:01:56 PM »

Any serious answers?  Beast has a point that there may be no point, but we are talking multi-billion dollar annual expenditures here by people who have no reason to maintain it and one compelling reason not to, profit.

It's not just the government, it's every sailor on the planet.  It's every freaken person in the Southern hemisphere.  It's the media.  It's every geologist, meteorologist, cartographer, physicist, engineer, and navigator on the face of the Earth in every country of the Earth on every political and economic divide (including bitter enemies such as US, China, USSR, and all the people who are in the various camps before and after the World and Cold Wars) conspiring together to convice us the Earth is round.

We need to know a compelling reason for a conspiracy numbering in the billions over the course of millenia to keep a fundamental property of our planet secret exists.  This really isn't possible.

10

Flat Earth Q&A / Theories on theories

« on: November 12, 2006, 10:36:26 AM »

There were four planes hyjacked on September 11th, 2001.  You just dispute who they were hyjacked by.  It was either Al Quaeda or the US government.  

If it was Al Quaeda, then it played out more or less like what the government says it did.

If the feds did it, then why the heck didn't they just fly the dang planes into the buildings?  They had to hyjack the planes, murder everyone on board, and probably kill a whole lot of their own people as witnesses, so why wouldn't they just fly the dang plane into the dang building?

There is as much evidence as can possibly be given that the world trade center was hit by a 747 (the second building's hit is indisputable given the videos we have).  

There is also a decent amount of evidence that a plane hit the Pentagon.  The "global hawk" theory is a joke.  The only evidence for it is an outline drawn on a gas station's camera that vaguely resembles a global hawk plane.  However, have the outline is still there three frames later.  *Gasp*  It's the tree line, not the outline of the plane.  A cruise missile would not explain the bodies and massive amount of aluminum at the crash scene (there is no aluminum in the Pentagon's contruction).

The towers collapsed as the steel slowly gave way in the heat (we actually proved this was possible in material science class).  As a mechanical engineer, you know all about creep (put a weight on something and it will slowly stretch, like a piece of taffy, just some things stretch faster than others), and how it is massively exponential with temperature (piece of steel that lasts a thousand years at room temperature, lasts about a couple of hours at 1000 K).  No bombs or explosives necessary.

The Pentagon attack is consistent with what would happen if you hit a 747 into a fortress.  Heavy local damage, but mostly intact.

I have seen all the "evidence" produced for the 9/11 conspiracy, and it is founded on poor logic, misunderstanding of the basic nature of the attacks, taking minor flaws and mistakes and throwing them out of proportion.  The only part that makes any sense is questioning about the lack of damage to the Pentagon that I have attempted to explain earlier.

I would prefer to take this to another forum.  This is for the Flat Earth theory, not 9/11 theories.

11

Flat Earth Q&A / Theories on theories

« on: November 12, 2006, 09:06:03 AM »

There aren't any stars in NASA's Apollo pictures, WE DIDN'T GO TO THE MOON.

There wasn't a huge 747 hull in the Pentagon, when a car crashes into a building, it's mostly intact.  IT WAS A CRUISE MISSILE.

Our gut responses can fail us at times.  When we see something that contradicts our ideas of correct outcomes, there are two reactions, re-visualize out idea of a correct outcome, or demand that it was a mistake/lie.

In the above, the camera settings were to take a picture of a guy dressed in white illuminated in brilliant sunlight, not of the dim stars behind them.  Therefore, the stars are massively underexposed and don't show up.

A plane is not a car, a plane has much less matter per volume than a car. When a car hits a retail shop at 20 miles an hour, it smashes through the front window and stops, breaking a whole bunch of stuff, but the car itself is more or less intact.  When a 747 hits a bulletproof, bombproof, reinforced concrete wall with kevlar lining at 500 miles an hour, the thin aluminum skin shatters, the engines take the path of least resistance, folding in with the wings (after they hit the wall), and smashing through the main hole that was caused by the nose and a couple of interior walls as well.  The huge intakes and nozzles are ripped to shreds, and you are left with something not much bigger than a car engine, of which we have photographic evidence.

12

Flat Earth Q&A / Question

« on: November 12, 2006, 08:48:07 AM »

So why make up the satellites?  It makes no sense to make up satelites when you have no need for them and just publically use balloons.  

There is a simple explanation where the satelites we see are shot up into space and orbit the Earth doing what everyone claims they do, and a complex explanation, where the satelites are shot up nowhere (there is no way that a standard satelite rocket could hold a balloon of that size, they don't save much fuel by not going into space), are taken care of by explosives or whatever in the upper stratosphere so they don't fall back to Earth (which is impossible since there are amature astronomers who track those things from launch pad to orbit).  Then, in secret, giant balloon-based broadcasting equipment is launched (also impossible, nothing that big can be kept secret when so many people have to know and could give the story of the century to the media), and are somehow not dectected as they maintain geosynchronous orbit (also impossible, as shown above).

So, according to Occam's razor, you have two choices, a rational one that assumes the Earth is round, or an impossible one which the government and businesses have no real reason to enact while keeping up the satelite facade.  It costs tens of millions to launch something into orbit, a cost that is impossible to hide due to all the people recieving money (money has to come from somewhere), and probably a million or more to create one of your arial platforms.  Why didn't they just say "Satellites are too expensive, our arial platforms can do the work for a fraction of the price"?  Why don't they do that now?  Maintaining satellites is not necessary for your flat-Earth conspiracy, and it makes a whole lot of holes and opportunities for people to look into.

Rational or irrational, impossible, and ludicrous.

13

Flat Earth Q&A / Flat Earth Model

« on: November 11, 2006, 07:27:42 AM »

Alright, let me break it down for you.

Fact: There is a single magnetic south pole on physical land.

Fact: If there was a continous North pole to "Ice Wall" magnetic field, the magnetic south pole would massively and noticably disrupt the Earth's magnetic field so that compasses north, south, east, and west would be obviously deflected for hundreds of miles.

Fact: There is no such deflection.

Therefore, the flat-earth model fails to explain the magnetic south pole.

Now, is anyone going to try and explain the phases of the moon, the setting sun, or why no one has broken the conspiracy as mentioned in my first post?

14

Flat Earth Q&A / Question

« on: November 10, 2006, 10:59:50 PM »

I apologize for my poor wording, though I fail to see what I was mistaken about in my reference.

It is utterly impossible to have massive broadcasting equipment.  The maximum balloon height ever was 140,000 feet, and that was an extraordinary feat.

You know that density I calculated (.03 grams/Liter).  Refute that while I explain how big this baloon of yours would have to be.

Broadcasting equipment with range of >30 miles straight down, plus a minimum 100 mile radius on the ground.  That's not light, at least 50 kg.  Propellers to keep it stationary and solar panels to power it are at a bare minimum (and this is very, very generous), 10 kg, not that it matters.

That's 60 kg.  To keep that amount up, you need a size of 2,000 cubic meters.  Assuming a perfect sphere, that's 7 meters in radius, or 14 meters in diameter.

But, that's not all.  You also need the balloon.  Nylon isn't heavy, but you need a lot of it.  Say, 1 mm thickness.  I know that most balloons aren't that thick, but most baloons don't stay up for decades at a time.  The density of nylon is 1150 kg/cubic m

.03 = (60 kg+ 1150*.001*4*Pi*r^2)/(4/3 Pi r^3)

The solution is that the radius is almost 12 meters.  Therefore, the balloon is At MINIMUM 20 meters across.  That is supported by A METRIC TON of nylon.  Even if there is no additional load, you need 11.5 meters of radius for the balloon to keep itself airborne.  Did I forget to mention that I'm not counting the weight of the 1500 of cubic meters of helium in the baloon?  Now, tell me how dozens or hundreds of 60 foot wide balls aren't showing up in everyone's telescopes and binoculars.  Heck, you might even be able to see those with the naked eye.    They should be observable everywhere, but they aren't.

Need I go on about how ludicrous your balloon concept is?

15

Flat Earth Q&A / Flat Earth Model

« on: November 10, 2006, 10:12:29 PM »

Basic field mechanics, nothing exists in a vacuum.

If you have a large magnetic field and stick a smaller magnet, it doesn't just affect the local area.  The field lines are is noticably bent along the entire path.  For example, on the diagram below, the south magnetic pole is an X and the field lines are shown by the \|/ characters with periods for spacing.  Now, these lines should normally be parallel (woe to the limits of ASCII drawing).  However, the south magnetic pole causes bending of the lines inward.  In reality, this would be a smooth bending of the lines, and due to the relative strength of the southern magnetic pole (to completely override the rest of Earth's magnetism), the bend would be noticable for hundreds of miles in all four directions.

.|...|....|....|...|.
.|...|....|....|...|.
.|...\....|.../....|.
..\..|...|...|..../..
...|..\...|../...|...
...|...|..X.|...|...
...|../...|..\...|...
../..|...|...|....\..
.|.../....|...\....|.
.|...|....|....|...|.
.|...|....|....|...|.

That's what I'm meaning.

16

Flat Earth Q&A / Flat Earth Model

« on: November 10, 2006, 02:53:36 PM »

That makes no sense whatsoever, and you know it.  There is a proven, done on TV a hundred times, irrefutable North magnetic pole and South magnetic pole on physical land.  Unless you are suggesting that all the TV cameramen, actors, announces, pilots, and everyone else who did these documentaries and science TV shows are in on the conspiracy, you have a problem.

You have the southern pole where all the magnetic lines begin, and the northern pole where all the magnetic lines end.  Draw lines between them that go from North to south without noticable variations and I will accept it.

If you say that the southern magnetic pole is merely one variation in an otherwise perfect north pole to ice wall continuum,  then you have a problem, why don't we see massive bending of the compass lines east and west of the straight pole to pole field line?  It would be immediately obvious if the compass didn't point North along a certain latitude.

I'm sorry if I'm getting technical, but this is high-school level electrical physics that is being ignored here.

17

Flat Earth Q&A / Question

« on: November 10, 2006, 02:44:26 PM »

Engineer, you know as well as I do that anything in the atmosphere at that height would need a good sized fuel expenditure to maintain steady location.   Fuel is heavy, especially for lighter than air equipment.  Textiles and plastics are one thing, but keeping that much helium within a balloon like structure is not pheasable.  Not to mention the size those things would have to be to support massive broadcasting equipment.

180,000 ft.  Nice, round number, and utterly impossible.  Remember freshman physics?  It's coming back to bite you.  There's this little thing called density, and you cannot have something float above a certain height due to the lack of air to push up.  You are looking at less than a single kPa at that height.  That means that your baloon's density must be below (PV = NRT, M/V = MM * P/R/T (.01 atm* 29 g / T/ .0826) .03 grams/Liter.  That's impossibly small.  The size of the balloon would have to be fantasticly large to stay airborne.  No matter the color, it would be noticeable above the clouds and from its shadow.  Now you are talking dozens, hundreds of them, with no photographic proof or even suspicion.  This isn't even laughable anymore it's getting annoying.

18

Flat Earth Q&A / Flat Earth Model

« on: November 10, 2006, 02:25:18 PM »

In the Flat Earth model of a circular Earth, the field lines would be from the outside of the planet in.  There couldn't be a magnetic south without having massive distortions on the other side of the globe.  I can't draw on ASCII and don't have time to draw a jpeg, but it is impossible to have a southern magnetic pole (aside from the rim of the planet), where the field goes even approximately straight north.  However, there have been numerous documentaries on the magnetic south pole, therefore it must exist. Such a pole on a flat Earth would cause tremendous magnetic disruption, making compasses useless on the other side of the planet.

19

Flat Earth Q&A / If I could ask the President one question...

« on: November 09, 2006, 09:39:00 AM »

Seven days before there was even a morning and evening?  Has anyone heard of poetic license?  They tend to use it a lot in the Bible.

20

Flat Earth Q&A / Stars in the southern hemisphere

« on: November 09, 2006, 07:50:50 AM »

You are ignoring the point.  If the stars were on a single dome, then they would rotate around the center (ie: the north pole or on the Truman Show, the center of the dome).  However, the point is that there are two stationary points, North and South poles that can be seen from the northern and southern hemispheres respectively.

In the Flat Earth concept, there is no South pole, so rotating stars would spin faster the further south you go.  No matter how you lay out the geometry, either the stars in Chile would zip overhead or the relative angles between the stars change nightly (a ludicrous concept because of the constellations).  Neither is the case.  Therefore, the Earth cannot be flat.

Basic scientific method, come up with a hypothesis, and if the data doesn't fit, trash it.

21

Flat Earth Q&A / Flat Earth Model

« on: November 08, 2006, 09:14:57 PM »

Alright, let's get this straight.  The Earth is a flat disk, North Pole at the center, with the sun at moon more or less above the equator, moving North and South with the seasons and traveling East to West around the entire globe once per day.  Pretty decent model that explains the days and seasons.

Now, let's include the facts.

Phases of the moon.  The half moon is easy to demonstrate (moon and sun about same altitude), as are the 3/4 moons (sun lower than the moon), and crescent moons (sun higher than the moon).  However the full moon would require the moon to be much higher than the sun (to get illumination on its entire surface).  If the full moon was further away, then it would be significantly smaller.  The sun must be stable or we would observe massive monthly temperature fluxuations (I'm talking 20-50 degrees C).  Therefore, it must be the moon which moves.  However, the full moon is not noticably smaller than the lesser moons.  This problem was what led Aristotle to first propose the round Earth concept (it was not Columbus, who merely debated the size of the Earth).

The setting sun.  The sun on the horizon appears larger than the sun overhead.  The Flat Earth proposal is that the sun goes so far away that it appears to set.  However, that would involve a shrinking sun, not a growing one.  The round Earth explanation for this is that the longer atmosphere (due to the angle) expands the sun's position like a flashlight farther from the focus.  Also, more of the yellows and higher spectrum colors are absorbed, causing the red hue.  In the flat Earth explanation, one would expect a different effect, where the sun expands and then shrinks below the horizon, not a continuously growing sun which sets.

The conspiracy.  The number of people involved are truly enormous, involving every sailor, navigator, and pilot south of the equator for the past three hundred years at least.  It is impossible to hide the fact that a trip from South Africa to Australia takes over half again as long as a trip from Vietnam to Algeria (comparing the radii from the North Pole).  In fact, the accepted round earth theory says that the Algeria-Vietnam trip will take longer due to being at the equator.  Thus, this conspiracy will also have to include every scheduling manager on the planet, many of whom have a vested interest in NOT following it.  If it takes X amount of time to ship something from South Africa to Argentina, then it should take 1/2 X to ship something from New York from London.  That means, to keep the round-earth conspiracy alive, they must deliberately and knowingly moving across the Atlantic at half speed.  Slowing down service is not condusive to profit, so anyone who broke the unwritten rule would immediately snap up huge shares of business in the busiest shipping markets (US to Europe and US to China) on the planet, quickly becoming too public for the government to shut down.  Therefore, the conspiracy of people who know or are consciously ignoring the truth must number in the billions

In short, these are the reasons why the Flat Earth Model Fails.  Explanations?