Ah, glad to be back!
These are all problems for flat earth theory. If you know what you're talking about, you should have no trouble providing an answer to these. Not a link to some video, not a url to somewhere -- an explanation in your own words, with no ducking the question.
Part A: Movement on the Earth ProblemsA1. Distance. Quantas has a flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires every day (week?). It's about 9000 miles, takes 14 hours at 640 mph. On a flat earth, the distance between eastern Australia to Buenos Aires is enormous. They are on opposite sides, exactly, of the flat earth map, more than 12,000 miles apart, and the flight between them would take at least 20 hours. These flights take 14 hours. Explain.
A2. Flights over the south pole. Flights travel from South Africa to New Zealand by going over Antarctica. On a flat earth, this is impossible. You would fly off the disc of the earth. Yet these flights happen. Explain.
A3. Shipping. Shipping regularly sails due south, going around the "bottom" of the globe, and comes north again, without making a 180 degree turn. This is impossible on a flat earth, if you look at the map. You can't be pointing due south and then be pointing north again without making a turn, however gradual, of 180 degrees. Explain.
Part B: Astronomical ProblemsB1. The Seasons. It is summer in the southern hemisphere when winter in the northern hemisphere, and vice versa. The sun diagram I've seen does not allow the sun extra time over the "summer" hemisphere. That's why it's warmer in summer -- owing to the tilt of the earth toward or away from the sun, the sun is up longer, and the rays are more direct, in the summer, heating the surface for longer and more directly. This is not accounted for on the flat earth map. Explain how this happens.
B2. Polaris. Currently, the earth's axis points more or less directly at Polaris, the pole star in the northern hemisphere. At the north pole, Polaris is directly overhead. When you travel south, Polaris gets lower and lower to the horizon, until finally it disappears. It does not appear at all above the horizon for most southern observers. Explain.
B3. Constellations. Same as for Polaris. The southern hemisphere has different constellations than the northern. On a flat earth, everybody would see the same constellations all the time. Constellations are also upside down in the southern hemisphere. Orion is standing on his head in Australia. The moon and planets, and the sunspots which are visible, are all "upside down" in the southern hemisphere. On a flat earth, they would look the same everywhere.
B4. Changing size of the Moon vs. Sun. The sun and moon both measure about 1/2 of a degree of arc in the sky. The moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, but it's also 400 times closer, so by a coincidence it exactly covers the sun during a total solar eclipse. The moon's orbit around the earth is not a perfect circle. Part of the orbit is closer to the earth than the other. So the moon is visibly, measurably bigger for part of every month, when it is closest to the earth. BUT THE SUN IS NOT. The earth's orbit around the sun is more or less circular, with neither semimajor axis much longer than the other, so the sun is always about the same size. In the flat earth model, the sun and moon are always the same distance away. There is no explanation for the change in the moon's size.
B5. Changing size of Venus. Venus is much closer to earth when it is on the same side of the sun as the earth in its orbit. When it's on the other side of the sun from earth, it is almost twice as far away. So Venus looks noticeably, measurably bigger for the part of the year it's on the same side as us. Same for Mercury, but the change in size is smaller, because the orbit of Mercury is much closer to the sun. So there are Mercury, Venus, and the Moon, all changing apparent size at different times and for different lengths of time. The flat earth model cannot explain this.
B6. The size of the sun. In the flat earth model, the sun is 32 miles across and 3000 miles away from the earth, which is 24,000 miles across. So the sun one thousandth the size of earth, roughly. Yet it is hot enough to warm the earth. A star of that size cannot make enough heat through nuclear fusion to light and warm the earth according to the flat earth model. What is the power source of the sun, and how does it produce the power it produces?
B7. Sun's rays. Flat earthers like to cite crepuscular rays as evidence that the sun is really close to the earth. They don't understand them, but ignoring that for now -- you see crepuscular rays coming from a cloud and striking the earth. You are really seeing a column of light going from the cloud to the ground, reflected by dust in the atmosphere so it hits your eyes. You are seeing the side of a column of light. In the flat earth model, the sun is a flashlight. Day and night are explained by the flashlight shining on different parts of the earth. However, if that were true, observers in the night half would be able to see, in the distance, the column of light illuminating the day half.
B8. More sun's rays. Before you see the sun rise, the clouds above the horizon are lit up from below, because the sun, below the horizon is illuminating them. The same is true after sunset. Twilight is the time when the sun illuminates the sky overhead but no rays hit the ground directly. No matter how you slice the flat earth model, there is no way for the sun to light the clouds without illuminating the earth at the same time.
B9. Viewing the constellation Octans. The south celestial pole is in the constellation of Octans. From any given point in the southern hemisphere it is seen by looking due south, (at various altitudes, depending on the observer's latitude). It is always in the same position in the sky from a given point, all day, all night, all year long. Here we see the directions observers at A, B and C would have to look in order to see it, looking due south from their respective locations. It is clearly impossible for people in all these positions to look due south and see the same thing in the sky. (Note, Octans does rotate on the celestial polar axis, depending on date, time, and location, but it would always be due south.)
B10. Full moon. Put a flat earth map in front of you. Imagine the moon is in a full moon position, as seen from New York. But someone in Chile would see a new moon. People in Mexico would see the left side of the moon lit and people in West Africa would see the right side of the moon lit. And these would all be at the same time. This is not what we see. Also, notice how it is night in England but day in South Africa. Flat Earthers claim that the reason we have night is because the sun is too far away to be seen. Yet here it is closer to England than it is to South Africa. Finally, if the sun can light up the moon at that distance, then all of North America would be in daylight.
B11. Lunar eclipse. This is a very big problem for flat earthers. Total lunar eclipses are a fact, visible fairly regularly, by billions of people, and videotaped. There is no way that a flat earth can cast a circular shadow on the moon. Also, there is no scenario in the flat earth model in which the earth comes between the sun and the moon. In any case, the moon and sun in the flat earth model are 32 miles wide, so the earth would totally obscure them, and nothing like an "eclipse" would ever be possible. Please explain.
Part C: Curvature ProblemsC1. Setting sun. Flat earthers like to say "I saw such and such and it should have been below the horizon." It is true, refraction sometimes makes it possible to see things a little below the horizon. But suppose refraction doubles the amount you can see: if the horizon on the curved earth is normally 6 miles away for a 6 foot person on the ground, refraction makes it possible to see things 12 miles away. But eventually, curvature wins. Here's proof. The setting sun, for example, can sometimes partly be seen when it is technically below the horizon, due to atmospheric refraction. BUT ONLY TO A POINT. You see this huge sun, which is a LITTLE below the horizon, THEN you don't see it at all. If the earth were FLAT, the setting sun would diminish ever smaller, ever smaller, until it is just a dot ALWAYS ABOVE THE HORIZON.
C2. Ships at sea. It is uncontestable that ships at sea appear "hull down", meaning one sees the tops of their masts and stacks before seeing the hull. The navy has been using the terms "hull down" and "hull up" for centuries. This is not a problem of perspective. Even though the ship goes from smaller to larger, for a time you cannot see the hull, though you can see water all the way to the horizon. All sailor will attest to this. It has been used in maritime action and drug seizure court cases to determine how far apart ships were. There is no satisfactory explanation for this other than the curvature of the earth.
C3. Microwave and other signal repeaters. On a flat earth, a 20 watt microwave signal could travel from one end of the earth to the other, without the need for repeaters. This does not happen.
C4. Setting sun. The sun and moon appear much larger to the eye when they are near the horizon. Yet, if you hold up a ruler or some other measuring tool, you'll find that the sun and moon are always the same size, at the horizon as at the zenith. The larger size is an optical illusion. We are used to things being larger when they're closer to the earth, so we imagine the sun and moon are larger than they are. However, on a flat earth, a person seeing the setting sun sees a sun which is FARTHER AWAY than when it's overhead, and also at the same height in the sky, so the sun would appear SMALLER, not larger.
C5. Dawn and twilight. Sunrise -- clouds first, then ground. The sun illuminates the clouds above you first at sunrise while the ground below remains dark. If the sun shone like a spotlight then the clouds above you would be lit at the same time as the ground below you. Likewise, twilight -- the time when the sun is below the horizon and the ground receives no direct light, but the sky and the clouds can still be seen lit from below. Again, on a flat earth this wouldn't happen. The sun would just shrink into the distance, getting smaller and smaller.
C6. Line of sight. On a clear day, on an observation deck on the Sears tower, Empire State building, or some other skyscraper, with a telescope, one would be able to see MUCH FARTHER on a flat earth than you can now. The only limiting factor would be objects in the way and atmospheric dust. Objects would get gradually smaller until they were infinitesimal in size. That does not happen in this world. Instead objects get smaller only to a point, and while still quite visible, they disappear from the bottom up. This should not happen on a flat earth.
C7. Distance to horizon. Everybody who's argued this shit knows the calculation by now. The Earth has a radius of approximately 3965 miles. Using the Pythagorean theorem, that calculates to an average curvature approximately 8 inches per mile. The distance to the horizon in miles from height of an observer is approximately equal to 1.23 times the square root of the height in feet. So if you're about 6 feet tall, the horizon is about 3 miles away. Also: the distance to the horizon increases with your height above the ground. Put another way: Lake Tahoe is 12 miles wide and 22 miles long. For a person's eyes at a height of 5 feet above the water on the south shore, a streetlight at night on the north shore needs to be up on a nearby hill at least 370 feet above the shore, else it is below the horizon. If the earth is flat, a streetlight on a pole at the edge of the south shore should be visible. It is not. Please explain, flat earthers.
C8. Gravity on a flat earth. We do not need to disprove that "gravity does not exist, atmospheric pressure holds you down" like some flat earthers say. That can be easily disproven with the "Coke bottle experiment" below. Gravitational force extends from the center of mass. On a flat earth, gravity would be greater at the center of the plate than on the edges, and the farther out from the center you go, the less the gravity. Apples falling to earth out from the center would fall sideways. This does not happen.
C9. Three poles in the water experiment. The most famous of the curvature observations, and the one that was taught in schools until photographs of the Earth from space became available, involved a set of three poles fixed at equal height above water level along this length (six mile, 9.75 km). As the surface of the water was assumed to be level, the discovery that the middle pole, when viewed carefully through a theodolite, was almost three feet (0.91 m) higher than the poles at each end was finally accepted as a new proof that the surface of the earth was indeed curved.
C10. The Burj Kalifa experiment. Sunset from the tallest building, with the fastest elevator, in the world:
Go to Burj Khalifa, Dubai. Be stunned at its size.Observe the sunset in the west from the ground.Take the super fast elevator to the top floor observation deck and watch the sunset once again.
As this is a relatively unknown fact, I'll try to explain it. Burj Khalifa is so tall that there is a time difference of 3 minutes between the sunset on the ground and sunset in the top floor observation deck. This would be impossible if the earth was a flat sheet as there would have been no time difference between the sunset. But as the earth is round, there is a difference of around 3 minutes.
C11. Sun altitude. Go to the equator and watch the sun rise and set in an arc going right through the zenith, straight up, then go to the arctic circle and watch the sun follow the horizon. That would not happen on a flat planet.
C12. Fly a triangle using GPS. At your starting point, a noteworthy building or mountain or ground feature, note your GPS coordinates. Fly 300km in any direction. (Note 300km as the crow flies) At his point record your GPS coordinates. Once you have done this change your direction by 120 degrees to the left (original direction is 0 degrees and the degrees increase as you rotate left). Now fly another 300km and repeat the process. If the earth were actually flat then the shape we just made is an equilateral triangle, and you would end up exactly where you started, at your original GPS coordinates and landmark. However, what one will find is that the earth is curved and thus the triangle will no longer be closed since the curvature changes the angles required for closure.
Part D: Rotation ProblemsD1. Foucault's pendulum. A pendulum when swinging has its own inertial frame. It resists being moved in any way except along the line it is making. You can try this and see for yourself. A pendulum long enough and heavy enough will swing unaided for 15 minutes, at least. In that time, although the pendulum continues to swing back and forth, it will describe part of circle. This demonstrates the EARTH TURNING BENEATH THE PENDULUM. The pendulum rotates clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere, just as if the earth were rotating beneath it.
D2. Water down the drain. Water going down drains swirls exactly the same way. There is no explanation for this in the flat earth model.
D3. Storms. Hurricanes typically rotate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. Typhoons typically rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere.
E. MiscellaneousE1. Space Program. Since a photo from space would end the discussion of the shape of the earth, it is paramount for FEs to deny that we've ever been to space, to deny the existence of a space program covering the US, EU, Russia, China, India, Brazil, employing tens of millions of people and spending tens of billions of dollars a year, putting satellites in orbit, sending probes everywhere, creating the GPS system, satellite TV, etc. All of that is faked, on an ongoing basis, and none of these tens of millions of people has ever exposed the lie.
E2. Thermosphere. Many FEs believe we haven't been to space because the thermosphere is so hot nothing could survive the trip through it. The thermosphere a gaseous layer above the stratosphere, and it is indeed hot, up to 5000 degrees F. However, there are are so few molecules of gas flying around that there's no efficient way to transfer the heat to anything traveling through. I don't know if FEs believe in heat transfer, but you need a lot of moving molecules to transfer heat quickly. You would need to spend hours in the thermosphere for enough of your atoms to be excited to the point of feeling hot.
E3. Evidence from the Internet! With the right search terms it is possible to find thousands of IP Cameras around the world. Watching these you can see that the sun rises and sets at different times across each. Were the world flat-and-one-sided and the sun faraway like a lightbulb, they would all rise and set at the same time. Were the world flat-and-two-sided and the sun faraway like a lightbulb, they would all rise at one of two times.
E4. Evidence of the ancients: Earth is round was known to ancient Indians as Geography in SANSKRIT translates to BHUGOL in which BHU
means LAND or earth and GOL means round so GEOGRAPHY translates to study of a round land or BHUGOL in Sanskrit. So the Indians believed the earth to be round, thousands of years ago. The Babylonians were expert astronomers, who developed the 360 degree circle we use, as well as the use of 60 for minutes and seconds, and the 24 hour day (they really liked the number 60, because it's divisible by so many numbers -- unlike 10). As Ptolemy recorded in The Almagest, in 300BC, the Babylonians concluded the earth was round when the observed that the shadow cast by the earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always circular. They knew that the moon's angle with the earth changes, making for different shadow coverage of the moon during partial eclipses, but that THE SHADOW WAS ALWAYS CIRCULAR. The only shape whose shadow is always a circle, no matter what the angle the light cast on it is, IS A SPHERE. The Babylonians thought that this giant ball, clearly hanging in the heavens unsupported, was too massive to move, so the discovery of the spherical earth led to their belief that the earth DID NOT MOVE. The Greeks of course all believed the the earth was a sphere. Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth 2800 years ago, within 90% of the modern value. People in 1492 were not afraid that Columbus would fall off the flat earth. They knew that Columbus, against all the evidence, thought the earth was only 17,000 miles around, not 24,000. Had he not bumped into North America, he and his men would have starved, as people feared.
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