Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Glaswegia

Pages: [1] 2
1
Flat Earth Debate / Re: One solid fact
« on: September 27, 2007, 11:10:36 AM »
Ahh... the single truth of the universe.

2
Flat Earth Debate / Re: One solid fact
« on: September 27, 2007, 11:00:25 AM »
Dr. Samuel Birk Rowbotham had something wrong with his head.

Was Samuel Birley Rowbotham the British "Scientist" even a Dr? Because I can't find any references to him which also include him being Dr.

3
Flat Earth Debate / Bedford Level Experiment
« on: June 04, 2007, 09:13:27 AM »
The Bedford Level Experiment

The Bedford Level Experiment was a series of observations carried out along a six-mile length of the Bedford Level (the Old Bedford River), Norfolk, England, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was an attempt to demonstrate that the Earth was flat. Early results seemed to prove this contention, but most later attempts to reproduce the observations firmly supported the conventional view that the earth is a sphere.

Method
At the point chosen for all the experiments the Level was a slow-flowing drainage canal running in uninterrupted straight line for a six-mile stretch to the north-east of the village of Welney. The most famous of the 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. 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 higher than the poles at each end was finally accepted as a new proof that the surface of the earth was indeed curved.

History


Diagram of Rowbotham’s experiment on the Bedford Level, taken from his book “Earth not a globe”
The first investigation was carried out by Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884), the president of the Flat Earth Society, in the summer of 1838. He waded into the river and used a telescope held eight inches above the water to watch a boat with a five-foot mast row slowly away from him. He reported that the vessel remained constantly in his view for the full six miles to Welney bridge, whereas, had the water surface been curved with the accepted circumference of a spherical earth, the top of the mast should have been some eleven feet below his line of sight.

Rowbotham repeated his experiments several times over the years but his discoveries received little attention until, in 1870, a supporter by the name of John Hampden offered a wager that he could show, by repeating Rowbotham’s experiment, that the earth was flat. The noted explorer and qualified surveyor Alfred Russel Wallace accepted the wager. Wallace, by virtue of his surveyor’s training, avoided the errors of the preceding experiments and he won the bet. Hampden, however, published a pamphlet alleging that Wallace had cheated and sued for his money. Several protracted court cases ensued, with the result that Hampden was imprisoned for libel.

In 1901 explorer H Youle Oldham, a geography professor at Cambridge University, conducted the definitive experiment described in Method, above.

The planists, however, were not yet defeated: On 11 May 1904 Lady Anne Blount hired a commercial photographer to use a telephoto lens camera to take a picture from Welney of a large white sheet she had placed, touching the surface of the river, at Rowbotham’s original position six miles away. The photographer, a Mr Clifton from Dallmeyer’s studio, mounted his camera two feet above the water at Welney and was surprised to be able to obtain a picture of the target, which should have been invisible to him given the low mounting point of the camera. Lady Blount published the pictures far and wide and, apart from some hypothesising concerning refraction, and dark hints of collusion between Blount and Clifton, these have not been explained.

Mirage
The phenomenon of the superior image mirage can produce results similar to those noted by Rowbotham and Blount. This would have required, on each occasion, temperature inversions in the atmosphere with an increase of eleven degrees Celsius per hundred metres of altitude. If the temperature range were less than this, the light would have been scattered skywards; if greater, the horizon itself would have appeared curved. Repetition of the exact atmospheric condition required for each of the many observations is unlikely.

References
^ Samuel Birley Rowbotham, writing as “Parallax” (1881): Earth not a globe. Simpkin, Marshall, London. ISBN 0-7661-4945-5.
^ Nature 7 April 1870.
^ Hampden, John (1870): The Bedford Canal swindle detected & exposed. A. Bull, London.
^ Oldham, H Youle (1901): Annual Report. British Association for the Advancement of Science, London.
^ Michell, John (1984): Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions. Thames and Hudson, London. ISBN 0-500-01331-4.
^ Lynch, David K; Livingston, William (2001). Color and Light in Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-77504-3.

4
The Lounge / Re: The Only True Earth-Centered Way Of Thinking
« on: June 03, 2007, 05:52:12 AM »
What the Dale Winton is this?

5
The Lounge / Mad_Catz
« on: June 02, 2007, 05:32:59 PM »
Can a moderator please do something about Mad_Catz  :(

6
Flat Earth Debate / Re: The Ice Wall, and Hawaii & Easter Island
« on: June 02, 2007, 05:22:23 PM »
Hawaii and Easter Island do not exist.  They were fabricated by the conspiracy.

I believe this to be a joke... you gullible lot  :P
Right missing islands... a joke.
Yes, just like missing Antarctica.
Oh, wait, that's an entire continent.
Oh, wait, FE says that one doesn't exist.
(And you call us gullible?)

Some other FE "jokes":
1) The Sun is held up by the photoelectric effect.
2) The Moon is held up by the photoelectric effect.
3) The horizon isn't rounded when viewed from a great height.
4) The Lunar landings were faked.
5) GPS doesn't use satellites.
6) There are jet streams in both directions at over 200 MPH in the Southern Hemidisk.
7) The midnight sun doesn't happen in Antarctica.
8) When traveling we're fooled into believing that we arrived at our destination.
9) Gyrocompasses don't work.
10) It's just your imagination that the stars appear to revolve around both poles.
11) Earthquakes (or sloshing) causes the two high and the two low tides each day.
12) Polaris is readily visible from the Southern Hemidisk.
13) The sun sets because of its distance, not that it drops below the horizon.
14) Ships don't disappear hull first as the sail away towards the horizon from port.

I could go on, but I suspect no one is laughing.

erm im a RE'r and I meant...
"Hawaii and Easter Island do not exist.  They were fabricated by the conspiracy."
Was a joke, a pisstake if you will... not to be taken seriously.

7
Flat Earth Debate / Re: The Ice Wall, and Hawaii & Easter Island
« on: June 02, 2007, 04:40:39 PM »
Hawaii and Easter Island do not exist.  They were fabricated by the conspiracy.

I believe this to be a joke... you gullible lot  :P

8
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Tom Bishop's FE Motivations:
« on: May 31, 2007, 05:54:06 AM »
I think he is nothing more than an AI Chat Robot...

9
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: What's your earliest memory?
« on: May 30, 2007, 03:45:33 PM »
either that or pee myself... I got wet anyway...

10
Flat Earth Debate / Re: Facts Vs. Opinion
« on: May 30, 2007, 03:44:45 PM »
If you ask a scientist to prove his fact he will show you an experiment, then he will tell you his interpretation of the results. I choose not to believe his interpretation. I should be free to draw my own interpretation.

The scientist would have a perhaps vast knowledge of his subject though.

11
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: What's your earliest memory?
« on: May 30, 2007, 03:31:33 PM »
I got lost on the underground... was 3/4/5  :(

12
The Lounge / Re: The RNS!
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:59:57 PM »
Does he pay any support?

13
The Lounge / Re: The RNS!
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:58:21 PM »
I want a BLT. And can I pass on the night with Tom on his love boat? Only cos I just discovered he's my dad so it would be a tad wrong

Sure thing  ;D... Tom's your dad?! I thought he would name his child Rowbotham  :o

14
The Lounge / Re: The RNS!
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:55:22 PM »
You get free membership, 34% of Holland, a night with Tom on his love boat, £11 asda voucher and finally... a sandwhich of your choice

15
The Lounge / Re: The RNS!
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:50:54 PM »
Does that mean I win?

It does if you believe it does... (yes)

16
The Lounge / Re: The RNS!
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:46:08 PM »
My organisation prevails  8)

17
The Lounge / The RNS!
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:44:38 PM »
The Round Netherlands Society... It appears to be a popular misconception that The Netherlands is flat... prove it flat/round without the use of a photo/video type thing  ;D

18
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Are you going to miss me?
« on: May 29, 2007, 01:41:04 PM »
of course you shall be missed  :'(

19
Flat Earth Debate / Re: Apollo 13
« on: May 28, 2007, 02:38:14 PM »
Ignore him cash machine

this also deserves recognition, I LOLed  :(

20
The Lounge / Re: Quote of the week voting week 3
« on: May 27, 2007, 03:03:53 PM »
8... is my sig afterall  ;D

21
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Where Are You From?
« on: May 24, 2007, 02:39:56 AM »
I'm in Newcastle today  :'(

22
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: What's your phone number?
« on: May 23, 2007, 06:35:36 PM »
0800... 55...1066

23
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Where Are Those Other Countires
« on: May 22, 2007, 07:02:15 PM »
I meant he would see Ireland/ Northern Ireland first... damn I need sleep

24
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Where Are Those Other Countires
« on: May 22, 2007, 06:52:16 PM »
Whatever happened to Ireland... our sunken/invisible neighbour  :(

25
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How tall are you?
« on: May 21, 2007, 05:14:19 PM »
5 '  7"
I'm the shortest person in my family.

do you live in a yoghurt commercial :o??

26
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: How tall are you?
« on: May 21, 2007, 10:20:29 AM »
183cm... 6ft  ;D

27
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: This is a damn big photo
« on: May 21, 2007, 10:18:13 AM »
It's nice but you wouldn't want to live there. The locals are weird, and seem to have an obsession with hedgehogs.

But I think we all need to admit that Kent, the Garden of England, is the best part of the UK...

never been so can't say  ::) aslong as I can find a starbucks it's good  ;D

28
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: This is a damn big photo
« on: May 21, 2007, 10:15:18 AM »
god I sound like a tourism video  ???  Lewis, I nearly got roped into going there... should have went looking back now. Ended up in Cardiff instead.

29
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: This is a damn big photo
« on: May 21, 2007, 10:11:10 AM »
nowt wrong with trying to claim an island Mr. Ireland. Was a good laugh even if the locals thought we were nuts.

Up north ain't that bad Gin, though they speak funny there...

Lets face it, Scotland on the whole, is pretty crap :P

Thats just unneeded... I happen think think its a beautiful country... just like the UK as a whole  :-\
alot of good things came from Scotland... including me  ;D

30
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: This is a damn big photo
« on: May 21, 2007, 10:06:46 AM »
The central belt (Glasgow & Edinburgh really) are the only two 'good cities' up here... the rest is shall we say... Crap. Newcastle I remember... I liked it.

Pages: [1] 2