31

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Satellites/Conspiracy

« on: June 10, 2007, 10:41:36 AM »

Sorry, Divito, but any thread in which you intervene inevitably turns into an insult battle..

32

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Debunking the 'law of perspective'

« on: June 10, 2007, 10:35:17 AM »

You seem to forget that eventually the whole ship disappears and not only its lower hull.

And this is where the atmospheric distortion comes in. Over greater distances, the semi-opaque air between the observer and the ship eventually renders it invisible (to the naked eye, the effect is also enhanced by the perspective effect (the tinyness of the ship in the viewer's vision - hence the reason it is sometimes possible to see ships which are not visible to the naked eye with the use of a telescope).

Yes, but there's a difference between fading and sinking.

Ships sink over the horizon.

33

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Lets talk again about gravity

« on: June 09, 2007, 11:24:50 PM »

Just gonna say, someone call me when you're done BSing each other and we get some people with Ph.D's in here rather than hobbyists.

Please don't keep that picture as your sig.  It'll suck to have to scroll down past it all the time. Also, these two probably don't care what you have to say. Just leave them to argue pointlessly by themselves... it keeps them out of trouble...

34

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Lets talk again about gravity

« on: June 09, 2007, 09:44:51 PM »

Firstly, who are you talking to, Engy?

And secondly, what was the point of this argument?

35

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Debunking the 'law of perspective'

« on: June 09, 2007, 09:43:20 PM »

First of all, I want to say that I appreciate the fact that Dogplatter actually has the balls and integrity to come back and continue to debate a post, unlike our dear friend Tom Bishop. Dogplatter, I still disagree with you, and I will show you why in just a moment, but I do think it's a nice change for an FEer to come back and continue a debate.

Now for my rebuttal.

I've put together a simple diagram which will help aid me in my argument.



Its purpose is to sequentially illustrate what an object would look like moving farther away from an observer in two scenarios - on a globe, and indeed as it does in reality in reality (Fig 1) or on a flat plane (Fig 2). The dark blue represents the sea as you may have guessed. With the light blue line, I am accounting for your "wall of water", purely for the sake of argument. Again, I believe there is an error here, and previous threads have dealt with it. But for the sake of argument, let's say that it is there. Let's say that there is this compound effect that rises slightly above and obscures the true horizon. Now this ultimatelly changes nothing, as you will see. Before I move on, I would like to point out that in both scenarios, the object has reached the distance at which it would begin to 'sink' on the RE model.

On a globe, the effect you see (be it with a 'sinking' ship or a setting sun or whatever) is the one depicted in Figure 1. Once the object reaches a certain point (i.e. the horizon) it begins to 'sink' suddenly and distinctly and the effect does not last long. However, on a flat plane this would NOT be the case. On a flat plane, the object would continue to get smaller and smaller. Yes, given this 'wall of water' it would eventually be obscured, but it would be obscured by "shrinking" into the waves, not "sinking" into them. The same would be true for a sunset. I really don't know if I can be any clearer about this. It's really not rocket science.

You make a good point, but here's what I've done:
I'm not sure if you intentionally did it, but this may prevent some FE'ers to attack a petty issue.  The RE ship would get smaller, too, so I made another picture.  And, as you can see, it doesn't affect the... er... effects of the sinking ship!

You make a very good point and I don't disagree at all.

36

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Lets talk again about gravity

« on: June 09, 2007, 09:22:29 PM »

This thread is the epitome of suck.

You guys just need to post your arguments and reply to them systematically.  Don't attack the other person or make them search for the answer in another post or thread.  This is silly.  It should be much easier to prove one theory or the other wrong without this argument, anyways.

And gravitation is not acceleration.  There are certain conditions by which they produce the same results, but the fact that the two words exist independently pretty much shows that they're different.

But I am glad that this thread has managed to stay on topic after 12 pages.

37

Flat Earth Debate / Re: A test of respect for the FE community.

« on: June 09, 2007, 09:14:45 PM »

Can someone explain how seeing this 'ISS' is somehow magically proving an RE? That would be like arguing seeing a plane overhead proves outer-space flight or something. You'll have to do better than that.

Haha, I knew someone would bring that up.  That's why I was careful to say that the ISS only proves sustained spaceflight is possible.  Unfortunately, the FE theory relies somewhat on spaceflight being impossible, with the conspiracy and all that.

Still haven't gotten a reply, though.

38

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Earth Isn't Flat 2 (Proof Included)

« on: June 09, 2007, 09:10:59 PM »

You're silly.

But you kind of piss me off sometimes.

It's like you come on these forums to prove everything wrong but nothing right.

I guess I can't criticize that, but it annoys me.

I'm sorry I annoy you.

I don't try to prove EVERYTHING wrong, but if I see someone making a dumb statement, and foregoing logic, I'm going to bug them about it. You can't argue or get a point across when you can't communicate effectively, and they shouldn't be using common sense or their preconceived notions to do the battles for them. They just get lazy.

And, I wouldn't be able to prove everything right. While I have about 5GB of math/physics books, there's no way I'm going to sit and learn all this stuff to start proving stuff for an RE or FE. I really don't care what shape the Earth is. I'm only interested in the conventions of debating and helping people to use their brains, and to stop them from being stupid. If I help RE'ers make a good point, or I help an FE'er make something more clear, I'll be satisfied.

When I make a mistake, please criticize me! No one should be spared.

And again, no one answered my question. Convenient.

Yeah, I guess you're right.  You're also kind of a stupidity filter, which is good.

39

Flat Earth Debate / Re: A test of respect for the FE community.

« on: June 09, 2007, 06:49:16 PM »

I'm still confused about this.  Tom says there is gravity, just not on earth.  You say there is none.  What do the sun and moon orbit? What about all those billions of galaxies out there spinning exactly according to gravitational hypotheses? There can't be orbits without gravity.

I'm pretty sure Tom is the only Flat Earther in the world who believes in gravity.

The sun and moon don't orbit, because the concept of orbit requires a non-existent force: gravity, as you just pointed out. The sun and moon circle above the equator (roughly - their positions change somewhat).

Yeah, but you still didn't answer my question.  What about all the other galaxies/planetary systems in the sky that orbit according to gravity?

Also, what keeps the moon and sun circling? And (I know this has probably been answered, but I still haven't gotten an answer myself for it) how exactly does the photoelectric effect keep the sun/moon from crashing into the earth?  Doesn't gravity explain this with much more ease and universality?

40

Flat Earth Debate / Re: A test of respect for the FE community.

« on: June 09, 2007, 06:45:02 PM »

It's quite simply because the higher you go, the thinner the atmosphere is. Atmospheric distortion is the reason we can't see past a certain distance.

This is by far my favorite answer from the FE camp. They simply, and I mean this with pure contempt, REFUSE to acknowledge why this response doesn't hold up.

Atmosphere or not, the HUMAN EYEBALL CANNOT SEE PAST A SET DISTANCE. Period. end of fucking discussion.

We are not bald eagles. We are not giant squid. We are primates.

So please, by all means, enlighten us all as to the REAL reason for this unending bullshit response? 

I can see Polaris on most any clear night. In RE that's about 2,200,000,000,000,000 miles. In the FE (FAQ version), it's 3100 miles.

Wrong.

You see the light FROM Polaris. Again, sidestepping will not save the day here. Answer the fucking question, or GTFO.

And what do you see when you look across the room at your TV but the light FROM the TV. I'm not sidestepping the issue at all. I just think you're confused. We can see very far indeed. You've confused vision acuity with vision distance.

Nice try, but no. I am talking about the excuse given dealing with atmospheric hindrance of our ability to see a satellite. There is more involved and the answer is a blanket statement, and was intentionally avoiding the actual question, and as of today, I will no longer sit silent and allow such inanity to continue unchallenged.

I am not calling into question the reasoning behind the answer, nor am I calling the post I am referring to as wrong, I simply am sick of you high and mighties refusing to answer a question without any shred of logisitical data, and merely "because it is, because it is". I want to see it. I am tired of half answers. The answer given is one I agree with, but it's half assed and meant to speak on something monumentally important to many, many folks. Stop half assing, and start actually speaking at length.

Some of them will call names, some will say "you're retarded". I will point out exactly what the problem is. Dodging it will not make it go away any longer. 

You're not going to win your argument like this.  Just ask a question, and if you don't get an answer, ask again differently.

And the whole thing about how we're not actually seeing Polaris.. yeah. That's probably the worst argument I've ever heard.  The human eye only sees reflected light.  We never actually see anything itself.  But what Dogplatter is saying is that the atmosphere distorts the light reflected from that at which you're looking, and therefore you can't see it.  Now this isn't to say that I agree with it, because I believe that the atmosphere isn't enough to distort the view of what we're seeing.  But still, you can't immediately refute this argument, like so many others on this site.  In fact, we should probably get an infrared or ultraviolet picture of the horizon, and see what that does for us.

41

Flat Earth Debate / Re: the equivalence principle . . .

« on: June 09, 2007, 02:54:29 PM »

... Of course, Round Earthers don't have anything tangible, anything experimental - just a few mosaics originating from a shady source. A bunch of rubbish, really. ...

Please explain the reason you've not refuted SunSpots.xlsx. How is this not experimental evidence? Re predicts the location of the sun in the sky. It predicts the time of sunrise and sunset. It predicts the shape and size of the Sun and Moon throughout the day and night. It predicts the phases of the Moon, the Sun, and the inner planets. FE does not. It seems to us that you're the one talking rubbish, really!

What is SunSpots.xlsx?

And also, I think we should make a collection of Tom's small rantings/speeches and possibly compile them into a book.  They're just so.. amazing.  I don't think I could make up things so priceless if I was paid to.

42

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Debunking the 'law of perspective'

« on: June 09, 2007, 12:06:28 PM »

BTW, your wave is higher than the ship's hull. It's a tsunami.

Agreed. Your wave would have to be amazingly tall and constantly aligned.  This doesn't happen every time you view a ship.  It's not reliable.

Here's some pictures:



Verdict: Implausible.

43

Flat Earth Debate / Re: NASA?

« on: June 09, 2007, 12:01:30 PM »

I've never seen a small barely blinky thing in the sky, and I used to have a great view of the sky.

If I may, Mr. Ireland, satellites are readily viewable for the patient observer. You can see the ISS, the space shuttle, and many objects with a little knowledge, a lot of patience, and a decent observational vantage. I use this great site myself: http://www.heavens-above.com/. In particular I recommend observing a flare from one of the antennas of one of the Iridium communication satellite.

Agreed.  The ISS is definite proof that sustained space travel is possible.  I've seen it on multiple occasions.  I don't see how it could be a helium balloon.  It orbits the earth 16 times a day.  It travels at ~17,200 miles per hour.  When you see it, it only stays in the sky for about three or four minutes.  I'm sorry, but that wouldn't be possible with a helium balloon (or anything other than a satellite), even if it had rockets attached to it.

The helium balloon hypothesis is a poor attempt at explaining the ISS, and in truth, it's almost definitely impossible.

How does FET explain sustained space flight, then, if your theory relies on it being impossible?

44

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Earth Isn't Flat 2 (Proof Included)

« on: June 09, 2007, 11:51:44 AM »

For all you people that are smart enough to say an FE is so outlandish, you really do have a hard time reading and comprehending the simple logic contained in the FAQ. It's simply amazing.

You're silly.

But you kind of piss me off sometimes.

It's like you come on these forums to prove everything wrong but nothing right.

I guess I can't criticize that, but it annoys me.

45

Flat Earth Debate / Re: the equivalence principle . . .

« on: June 09, 2007, 11:44:42 AM »

looking for an intelligent reply...

possibly about the topic of this thread...

Tom only responded once, and it was to ramble about religion...










/bump

46

Flat Earth Debate / Re: I have found new proof of the existence of a flat earth!!!

« on: June 08, 2007, 11:10:32 PM »

Je suis brun.

I most certainly am not a man whore!

Someone ban this man!

Ahhhh!

47

Flat Earth Debate / Re: I have found new proof of the existence of a flat earth!!!

« on: June 08, 2007, 11:06:25 PM »

Parler Vous Fracais?

I'm assuming you mean to say "Parle-vous français?"

In which case I should respond with a "no".

I should respond this way because it is the truth.

Say, the truth, that's an interesting thing.

They earth is an interesting thing, too.

Hey, speaking of earth and truth, I believe the shape is relatively spherical.

48

Flat Earth Debate / Re: I have found new proof of the existence of a flat earth!!!

« on: June 08, 2007, 10:56:41 PM »

/thread.

49

Flat Earth Debate / Re: The Almighty Sun

« on: June 08, 2007, 10:39:01 PM »

... For proof of the Conspiracy simply ask a government official what the shape of the earth is. ...

How is that proof? It seems to me that you've confused proof with an observation.

No, no, you see, if you ask a government official what shape the earth is, he'll respond by telling you that there's a conspiracy, but it's really flat.

50

Flat Earth Debate / Re: I can't believe you guys are still arguing

« on: June 08, 2007, 09:30:58 PM »

Ooh! Bad timing!  Roundy the Exasperated just converted a few hours ago.

51

Flat Earth Debate / Re: the equivalence principle . . .

« on: June 08, 2007, 09:13:52 PM »

Granted not all FE proponents here are religious fundamentalists.

Most FE proponents are atheists.

What makes you so sure?

Because FES is ultimatelly no different than a religion. All the evidence in the world won't convince the few true believers that they're wrong.

You're right, of course. This situation is exactly like a religion. However, I would compare Round Earthers to a fundamentalist Christian group who passes around pictures of a piece of toast which resembles the Virgin Mary. This image, and other similar ones, somehow "proves" the existence of God and the truth of the bible.

Of course, Round Earthers don't have anything tangible, anything experimental - just a few mosaics originating from a shady source. A bunch of rubbish, really. It is surprising how dogmatic the common Round Earther is. He is entirely unwilling to doubt his own belief system. His beliefs are cemented in as much blind faith as any religion.

Instead of beginning to seek the truth for his own self, he chooses to follow media hype like a dog to the whistle.

First of all, most people haven't sat down and contemplated the shape of earth.  Most people don't care.

Second of all, we have posted a plethora of proof on this site.  Ask any scientist what the shape of the earth is, and I can almost certainly bet he'll say it's spherical.  Why?  It's not because he's gullible and just believes what everyone tells him.  It's because it makes sense.  Everything else in the cosmos is spherical, so it makes sense we are.  There are tens of space agencies around the world that all agree the earth is round.  The spherical shape of the earth is taken for granted today not because it was proven that way numerous times over hundreds of years but because everything in everyone's daily lives tells us so.  Sure, the earth looks flat up close.  That doesn't mean it is.  It's not a conspiracy, guys.  It's just the truth.

52

Flat Earth Debate / Re: the equivalence principle . . .

« on: June 08, 2007, 07:09:22 PM »

How can FE'ers still exist?

Because FES is ultimatelly no different than a religion. All the evidence in the world won't convince the few true believers that they're wrong.

They shouldn't get so religiously involved with something so strictly scientific.

53

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Lets talk again about gravity

« on: June 08, 2007, 05:27:45 PM »

I mean force, and every serious scientist does, also. Centrifugal force is a pseudo-force, but gravity is not.

Only the layman thinks that gravity is a force, as every serious scientist knows otherwise.

Sorry to pull a Tom, but:

Only four fundamental interactions are known: strong, electromagnetic, weak (unified into one electroweak interaction in 1970s), and gravitational (in order of decreasing strength).

How do you define "serious scientist"..?

54

Flat Earth Debate / Re: NASA?

« on: June 08, 2007, 04:26:31 PM »

Gonna move my original post subject to here:

How does one explain sattelites and sustained Orbit? If satellites do not exist, under your understanding of alernate physics (ie sustained space flight) then explain to me how GPS and Spy Sattelites work?

GPS satellites don't exist.  This is why you can't see them, even with a powerful telescope.  This is also why there is a 1/3 second delay when talking on a cell phone, since GPS satellites would be about 22,000 miles up, and the round trip for a radio signal is about 1/3 of a second.

55

Flat Earth Debate / Re: what difference does it make?

« on: June 08, 2007, 04:24:16 PM »

this thread is dead.

56

Flat Earth Debate / Re: what difference does it make?

« on: June 08, 2007, 03:58:19 PM »

+1



it's fun to argue, though.

57

Flat Earth Debate / Re: the equivalence principle . . .

« on: June 08, 2007, 03:13:32 PM »

Yeah he just owned everyone....in March.

I wasn't here then, but I'll take your word for it.

How can FE'ers still exist?

58

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Final Comment on the Grand Unified Flat Earth Theory

« on: June 08, 2007, 03:12:23 PM »

Best. Thread. Ever.

Is there an archive for best threads?
If so, this belongs there.
If not, make one and put this in it.

59

Flat Earth Debate / Re: the equivalence principle . . .

« on: June 08, 2007, 01:40:12 PM »

kinerioj has just owned everyone here.  Flat Earth Theory has been disproved by this thread, several of my own threads, among numerous others, including Gin's "Wave crests and Sunsets".

FET constantly has to be revised and fixed informally by different FE'ers to maintain any sort of acceptable status.  This shows that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

60

Flat Earth Debate / Re: A test of respect for the FE community.

« on: June 08, 2007, 12:51:56 PM »

Stars are just "suns" far away.  Once again, we have proof for this, do you have any proof? 

Been to a star have you?

Now you're acting like Tom.  Scientists have studied numerous things about our sun and other stars.  These include light spectra which show that our sun is made of the same things as other stars.  I'm sure other people can explain this much better than I can.

The fe earth is moving at .999999999999999999999999999999999999999999c right now.  You guys don’t believe in aerodynamics. 

The FE Earth does not have a speed. Speed can only be meaningfully applied in relation to other stationary objects, of which there are none. The FE Earth has an acceleration. Don't act all high and mighty when you evidently don't even understand the theory.

You can always create a frame of reference to something.  In fact, these arguments usually don't go too far since there's too many non-testable hypotheses when everything's relative.

Gravitation states giant bodies have to be round.  And despite what my sig says, there is no magical dirt. 

Well yeah, but as you might have gathered during your time on this site, we don't believe in gravity.

I'm still confused about this.  Tom says there is gravity, just not on earth.  You say there is none.  What do the sun and moon orbit? What about all those billions of galaxies out there spinning exactly according to gravitational hypotheses? There can't be orbits without gravity.