1

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Trip to antarctica

« on: May 11, 2009, 06:35:59 PM »

Hi there, I haven't posted on this forum in some months, to be honest it had all but slipped my mind.

About 6 weeks ago I got home from my station in Antarctica, it was an amazing trip, such a beautiful place. Sorry, no ice wall... but a lot of penguins It's taken me a long time to get used to darkness again.

I could provide photos and meteorological reports (the reason for my trip) but I would just be met with disrespect and called a liar, so I won't waste my time. Frankly I just feel a great swell of pity for anyone that is so intent on justifying their inept world view that they would embrace this FE notion in the face of the overwhelming evidence, by inventing alternative optics and physics, and a conspiracy that seems to include everyone bar the FE community itself.

If you're that intellectually and emotionally invested in the shape of the earth, and indeed the shape or size of Antarctica is a point of your argument, I invite you to see the immense, beautiful place. Living in New Zealand I'm lucky enough to have been there twice in my life at little expense to myself.

If anyone has any legitimate curiosity, I'd be happy to answer questions.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Trip to antarctica

« on: August 14, 2008, 04:02:43 AM »

regardless, i intend to document as much of the trip as possible.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Flat Earth map

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:53:32 AM »

So... just for the record, you don't believe the sun is ever up for a 24 hour period in Antarctica, right?

Nope. It's not.

So assuming you won't accept testimony, web cams or any other sort of evidence (believing it to be fabricated) but you do accept that people can visit Antarctica, how's about you travel to it and experience 24 hours of daylight for yourself?

i'm going in December, when it will be light for 24 hours, as it was last time i went. would you like me to take pictures? you wouldn't believe them anyway

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: The way your water goes down your sink.

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:50:51 AM »

have you actually tested it?

fill a regular vessel full, let the water settle and observe the prevailing rotation as it drains, i can tell you from my southern hemisphere perspective, if the water is still, it always drains clockwise. cant say as i've ever been bored enough to do it in the northern hemisphere.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: The way your water goes down your sink.

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:37:08 AM »

the only FE answer i've seen, is toilets flush by their design.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Please explain to me...

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:24:05 AM »

I think I see the ice wall in Tom's picture!

I accidentally deleted my post just as you were replying to it. I've posted the image again below.

[Earth Image]

Oh yeah, definitely flat. 

Here's an unedited version:



It was leaked a while back by an employee at the Johnson Space Center. It's an image of the earth taken by Space Shuttle Endeavor from it's maiden flight on May 7th 1992, at an altitude of 195 nautical miles. This photograph was taken from a 35mm camera with a diagonal of 43 mm. It uses a normal lens of 50mm focal length. No zoom is applied.

i'll let you look as far as you want into the maths here, but if that's from a 35mm camera, and it uses a 50mm lens, there will be distortion outside of the vignette edge, that's why on closer inspection that image appears to reveal a concave earth, as if we lived in a bowl.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: The way your water goes down your sink.

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:16:17 AM »

in addition to the above, a simple repeatable experiment: in any equatorial country, take a vessel of water, like a bucket with a plugged hole at the bottom, sprinkle a few floating visible particles, the example i saw used matches. stand a few yards north of the equator and let the water pour out from the bottom, observe the rotation of the particles. repeat on the equator, and again a few yards to the south. it's astounding but that's all the distance you need to observe the Coriolis effect.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: A question for the REers.

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:11:52 AM »

i'm aware it's something of an old horse, but the unexplained remainder is that all mass would be either be getting lighter, or we would have temporary spells of weightlessness.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Long period comets

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:07:33 AM »

intelligent debate is one thing, name calling is just unnecessary.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: A question for the REers.

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:06:09 AM »

How does gravity work again?

Is this why you believe in FE? Because an upward accelerating earth makes more sense then an unexplained gravity?

despite the fact accelerating at 1G would have us moving at the speed of light inside a year - impossible - or the alternative, we're accelerating at less than 1G, in which case all matter on earth's face would we getting lighter.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Line of sight

« on: August 14, 2008, 03:01:59 AM »

*applause*

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: What, if anything, would constitute proof?

« on: August 14, 2008, 02:52:29 AM »

And any photographed or video evidence could be faked. I see.

You realise that's not much of an argument, of course. And that "How do you know you didn't dream it?" could be used to try and disprove anything. As such ... not a lot of fun in debating with you.

On the contrary, it makes debating that much more interesting if you know there's never going to be a clear cut winner.

no, it makes it a waste of time. intellectual masturbation, to put it crudely.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: A question for the REers.

« on: August 14, 2008, 02:45:36 AM »

sorry, i posted this earlier mate, i guess it got lost in all the rubbish replies. some simple repeatable experiments in relation to gravity, as for 'how' it works, i'm afraid that's almost in the realm of the untestable, as with most quantum phenomenon, observing the forces at play could alter them. i think the general relativity explanation is the most elegant however http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_theory_of_relativity

Here's some simple gravity proof experiments you can do with household stuff, no they're not just dropping things.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/gravitation/foobar/

I especially like The Archimedes Apparatus.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Trip to antarctica

« on: August 14, 2008, 02:39:58 AM »

please keep this thread free of that sort of thing, i'm really just after curious FE folks with legitimate queries.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How do you explain Gyroscopic compasses?

« on: August 14, 2008, 02:31:38 AM »

If these look different to you perhaps you're not looking at the same thing I am. The Chilean picture spans about 3 hours of Right Ascension while the other spans only 1. For example, in the Chilean one the dark blotch just to the right of center is called "the coal sack", while in the Australian picture you can see only a part of "the coal sack".

I was right in the middle of modifying my post when you wrote that, but you're right. The Southern Cross can be seen from both South America and Australia.

However, it is my contention that The Southern Cross (also known as the Southern Crux) is really just one of the constellations on the outer edge of the Northern gear which rotates over South America, Africa and Australia.

The Southern Cross can be seen from latitudes as high as Hawaii, which means that the crux cannot be as close to the southern celestial center as your star maps indicate. Hawaii is facing in an entirely different northern direction in the RE model.

Here's the Southern Cross as seen from the Hawaiian island Mauna Loa: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020425.html

quite glad this thread above most others is maintaining civility

as far as the southern cross being on a gear, it rotates about a point only a few degrees from it's center, while the center of rotation in the gear model is thousands of miles away, over the north pole, in fact as illustrated in any simply reproducible long exposure night shot of the southern sky, it ALL rotates about the apparent south pole.

and yes, indeed the crux is visible from points in the northern hemisphere, but not all year round, as the planet appears to rotate on a tilted axis. also, the real center of the southern sky is between the pointers and the crux, it's not the crux itself.

to your other post, i claimed no detailed astronomy, simply gazing out the window of the plane, listening to my walkman to pass the time, as hundreds of travelers do each day. i always try to spot the southern cross in the night sky, reminds me of home when i'm abroad.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Trip to antarctica

« on: August 14, 2008, 02:15:02 AM »

should i forward that memo to my colleagues currently stationed in the antarctic? bring the conspiracy, if i suddenly stop posting one day, you'll know they got me haha.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: The 'Horizon' and light bending

« on: August 14, 2008, 02:13:54 AM »

true, but that fall can be predicted and accounted for.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Flat Earth map

« on: August 13, 2008, 10:24:10 PM »

i can assure you it is, i've experienced it, several of my colleagues are on site experiencing it right now (dark at this time of year, opposite to the arctic), along with hundreds of other folks posted on the continent, and i'll be traveling back there in December to experience it once more. i'm not sure what observation you've made that could refute the experience of those who travel to antarctica?

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How do you explain Gyroscopic compasses?

« on: August 13, 2008, 10:21:37 PM »

i'm not sure where you see inconsistence there - when flying between timezones at night in the southern hemisphere, the southern constellations are consistently in view, always to the south, yet rotating by a degree that would be consistent with ones observation rotating about a globe. i don't think conspirators have gotten to me and convinced me i'm myself sir, haha.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: The 'Horizon' and light bending

« on: August 13, 2008, 10:18:07 PM »

the widespread use of lasers happily disproves this bending of light over great distances theory.

rifle sights - the laser and the bullet travel on the same path, even over great distances, there is no need to adjust for an inexplicable rise in the laser when aiming at a distant target, the line is constant.

architecture - lasers are used in building construction and city planning to align foundations and assure pipes etc are straight, even over several kilometers, there is no need to compensate for an upward tendency in the lasers path, it remains straight.

in addition, when placing two mirrors facing each other, parallel - at the same distance apart at base and head, the reflections continue straight back into infinity, the distant ones do not appear to be higher, despite the light reflecting between them having prolonged exposure to atmospheric effects.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How do you explain Gyroscopic compasses?

« on: August 13, 2008, 09:51:42 PM »

the southern constellations are consistently visible from all points in the southern hemisphere,

How could the Southern Hemisphere constellations be visible at once from Australia, South America, and Africa at once when those locations don't all experience night simultaneously?

good question - any two are at least dark enough to observe the stars at any given time, especially in winter when the days are shorter, and flying from one to another by night an observer sees an undisturbed view of the stars, as i've done a number of times. only once to africa i'll admit, but between Australasia and south america, many times.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Trip to antarctica

« on: August 13, 2008, 09:47:29 PM »

my fear is that i'll go to a great deal of trouble, only to have any information i supply be labeled falsified or have some baseless alternative theories presented to explain the phenomena i observe, such as a warping of spacetime being an acceptable explanation for the FE observation of the stars, but unacceptable as a RE explanation for gravity.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How do you explain Gyroscopic compasses?

« on: August 13, 2008, 09:07:52 PM »

perhaps you could draw a diagram demonstrating how light can go from the southern cross to every point in the southern hemisphere approaching from the south in every place. 

I can conceive of no sensible or consistent arrangement where that is possible. 

First of all, Crux is not visible from every point in the southern hemisphere at once. But more importantly, there are three materialisations of Crux coexisting simultaneously, and each of them is visible from a third of the area that can see the constellation. The light is bent so that they all see it in the same direction.

the southern constellations are consistently visible from all points in the southern hemisphere, moving about the globe there is no 'seam' where it's possible ones perspective switches from one version to another, testable by flying at night from any southern hemisphere nation to another, done by hundreds of people every day, however they do rotate in accordance to ones perspective relative to being on the surface of a globe, and they rotate about a point immediately above the south pole, as illustrated in this long exposure photograph http://flickr.com/photos/garry61/2482407911 which is a simple to repeat experiment for anyone with a camera with a long shutter setting. Note that the same phenomena is observed photographing the northern sky in the northern hemisphere, only the rotation is in the opposite direction.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Trip to antarctica

« on: August 13, 2008, 08:55:31 PM »

while i appreciate the suggestions, i think FE theorists have explanation for most of the photographic tests - photo editing etc. what cant be refuted however is our vector over the south pole, and traveling to Norwegian antarctic territory, which in a FE model is on the opposite edge of the disc.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Flat Earth map

« on: August 13, 2008, 08:52:04 PM »

nother observation is that the sun doesn't set in Antarctica for a few months out of the year (at the very least December and January at least).

Who's observing this, the government bases stationed on Antarctica?

again i'll raise my hand to that, the bases on the antarctic predominantly aren't 'government', they're civilian, set up more like little villages - scott base even has a bar i'm not even sure what you mean by government, american government? the US has very little presence in the antarctic as it has very little economic interest there. i haven't been to the antarctic myself since high school when our senior year geography trip was to there, but we experienced season long daylight then, and my colleagues posted there now are in long darkness, as it's winter in the southern hemisphere.

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Flat Earth Debate / Trip to antarctica

« on: August 13, 2008, 04:44:02 PM »

Hi there folks - I've introduced myself in a few threads by now, i'm a meteorologist from new zealand, working for the National Metservice http://www.metservice.co.nz/default/index.php dealing specifically with adverse weather patterns emerging over the antarctic that may be troublesome to various southern hemisphere nations.

Since joining this forum, i've opted to go on one of my department's surveying trips to Antarctica in December, we will be departing from Christchurch , New Zealand, landing in scott base, antarctica. Our team will be releasing a series of weather balloons on a regular vector from Scott Base within new zealand antarctic territory, over the south pole, into Norwegian antarctic territory (details here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System ) so as to better predict hazardous weather patterns in the southern hemisphere. Being December, we will be in 24 hour sunlight, which will be quite an adjustment to the system, as will leaving my family behind for several weeks, which has been the reason i've been reluctant to go on any survey trips thus far, but i'm told they are commonplace and hazard free.

I post this, because i'd like to take any questions and queries from the FE society with me, regarding the ice wall, or the continuity of the surface of the earth over the south pole.

My theory is that the FE society wouldn't exist if there wasn't some search for truth or clarification in mind, i hope to offer than to any who care to inquire.

Thanks for your time.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Flat Earth map

« on: August 13, 2008, 03:40:21 AM »

and perhaps more importantly - where did Google earth get those images?

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Launch Videos

« on: August 13, 2008, 03:36:21 AM »

no, i'll side with you on that one re belief.

i would only rely on overwhelming evidence when deciding on my view of the shape of the earth, as should you. my line of work is meteorology, studying weather patterns between new zealand and the antarctic, and every observation i've made leads me without a shadow of a doubt to believe that the antarctic is not a wall, but in fact a constantly populated continent. if indeed the earth were flat, i would be more inclined to believe the arctic were the edge, but that's my perspective, being from the southern hemisphere.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Flat Earth map

« on: August 13, 2008, 03:30:32 AM »

have given an explanation of what I am talking about in the other thread.

no you haven't, you've presented an impossible assumption that all navigation equipment from all over the world is geared in a manner that creates the illusion of a spherical earth... how do the conspirators get to all of these independent manufacturers?

They don't have to. Planes which seem to pilots to be travelling in a straight line are, according to RET, travelling in a curve, correct? Does their instrumentation reflect this? No. Why? Because according to RET, it doesn't need to. The pilot does not feel or see he is travelling in an arc, the plane does not tell him he is traveliing in an arc, yet according to RET, he is. Instrumentation based on RET will reflect RET. A machine is only as good as it's designers.

i'll admit for a moment that in the northern hemisphere, the flat model is acceptable to a degree, because it is in effect intact, but here in the southern hemisphere, the FE map becomes so impossible stretched and skewed, especially in regards to distance and the basic shape of the antarctic. in december, the antarctic is accessible throughout, and literally thousands of people, including some of my colleagues are stationed there for fisheries and meteorological work, it's not a mysterious wall, even the south pole itself is quite readily accessible and highly documented by the general civilian public.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How do you explain Gyroscopic compasses?

« on: August 13, 2008, 03:24:05 AM »

and how are the same stars seen to the south of australia as to the south of africa and south america at the same time.

Who reported seeing the same stars from Australia, Africa, and South America at the same time?

I'll raise my hand to that one. I've flown from new zealand to argentina at night, looking out of the right of the aircraft, the southern cross and surrounding constellations were visable constantly, and to the observer rotated almost 90 degrees, which would be consistent with my rotation about a spherical southern hemisphere, in addition i know for a fact these same constellations are visible looking south from south africa. in a flat earth model, these constellations could not possibly be viewed looking 'south' from all points, as you traveled about the globe, observational south would eventually become the opposite direction celestially.