Show Posts
1
Flat Earth Debate / Re: $5,000 for Proving the Earth is a Globe (Modern Mechanics - Oct, 1931)
« on: May 01, 2007, 11:47:59 AM »
Getting the prize:
Philo is out:
Can't claim by geography:
Don't go fly around stuff:
Don't try deductive experiments:
or math:
this is the best one:
Philo is out:
The three commonest proofs that the earth is a sphere were cited by Aristotle in ancient Greece 1800 years before Columbus “sold” the world on the spherical theory, and they are still in use.
“There is not a scintilla of truth in any of them,” Voliva retorts,
Can't claim by geography:
Voliva maintains that there is no South Pole, and that it is 60,000 miles around the southern ice wall. Captain Gunnar Isachsen, the Norwegian explorer, last winter circumnavigated the Antarctic continent in a voyage of about 14,000 miles. Zion says Isachsen may have circumnavigated something, possibly an island of that size, but did not go around the antarctic ice rim,
Don't go fly around stuff:
“They say that Byrd flew over the South Pole,” Voliva said recently, “but there is no South Pole.
Don't try deductive experiments:
Probably the best spherical world proofs ever found were the two discovered by Jean Bernard Leon Foucault, the famous French engineer, when he invented the Foucault pendulum and the gyroscope. The performance of both can only be explained on the assumption that the earth is a sphere, revolving on its axis, but they do not prove the fact within the meaning of Voliva’s prize offer.
or math:
Of course, they deny the existence of gravity, ..but also the formula on which they calculate the rate of “fall” is not true...the Volivalites go on to calculate that the “drop” increases as the square of the distance, and therefore that distance squared, multiplied by eight and divided by twelve will give the drop from the horizon in feet for any distance. Actually there is no formula in spherical trigonometry which can be used to calculate such a spherical triangle for any desired distance. That can be proven very easily by any one who knows plane geometry, for it requires no knowledge of trigonometry to show the error in the formula. If you draw a circle, with its equator and the vertical meridian, giving the north and south poles, and then draw a horizon line at the north pole, you can prove the fact. A flyer starting from the north pole and traveling to the equator, would cover 6,000 miles if the globe is 24,000 miles in circumference. The diameter of a 24,000 mile globe is 7,639.69 miles, and the radius is 3,819.845 miles, so the “drop” from the horizon of the north pole would be the same.
this is the best one:
The Voliva prize probably will remain uncollected unless some future space traveler some day anchors his ship a few thousand miles out in space and takes a movie of a globular world turning on its axis. That seems to be the only way the $5,000 can ever be collected.and that's been done. But that doesn't work either
