In my opinion one of the greatest flat earth fallacies must be the reliance on the Universal Accelerator to explain gravity.
Sorry it's so long
I have tried to get reasonable answers for some queries I have on this, but the only sensible answer I have has been from Jack, [nb]he indicating that the variation with altitude
might be due to relativistic effects, but has made no attempt to justify this by correlating the change in apparent acceleration with measured values.[/nb]. Other than that answers have been trivial and simply making no attempt to address the real issues.
So I will try again.From what I have read Einstein's "Equivalence Theory" can only be applied over a
region of space and time where "g" is constant. Here "g" is taken to be the net acceleration we feel as a result of gravity and other effects.
This is clearly not true for the whole surface area of the earth:- We find that at sea level "g" varies from about 9.780 m/s2 at the Equator to to about 9.832 m/s2 at the poles - only a change of about 0.5%, but quite measurable.
- Also an increase in altitude from sea level to 9,000 metres (30,000 ft) causes a weight decrease of about 0.29%, neglecting any change in buoyancy of the less dense atmosphere. (Admittedly from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_of_Earth#Latitude, but the I don't believe the figures are much disputed).
- Changes in "g" are also detected in the proximinity of massive ore bodies - used in mineral exploration.
The gravity field is reassuringly simple, unipolar and almost perfectly vertical. The common unit of gravity measurement in exploration geophysics is milliGal (1,000 mGal = 1 Gal = 1 cm/s2 = 0.01 m/s2). These units refer to acceleration due to gravity, and the average value at the earth surface is around 980,000 mGal or 9.8 m/s2. By comparison, anomalies in mineral and oil exploration seldom exceed a few hundred milliGals.
So if the
UA theory is going to rely on the "Equivalence Theory" for justification, some rational explanation for these variations must be provided.
And, please don't come up with the "gravitational effects of the sun moon and other celestial bodies" for obvious reasons!
I have answers such as:
"Have you never heard of variations in readings of test equipment"? "Are you tolling, or are you really this dumb?"
No I am NOT trolling and I don't believe that I am that dumb.If the explanations were that trivial then:
- Why are the readings quite consistent?
- Why would exploration companies spend millions on gravimetric surveys with instrument showing sufficient "variations in readings of test equipment" to render that readings unreliable?
My whole point has been that, UA should never have been applied to a region where the gravitational field is not constant, unless there is sound reasoning explaining these anomalies.I can understand Rowbotham using UA, when so much less was known about the subject. Though even in his time, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton had shown experimentally that "g" did vary with latitude. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendulum for more detail and costing a lot more money in "The Pendulum: Scientific, Historical, Philosophical and Educational Perspectives" edited by Michael R. Matthews, Colin F. Gauld, Arthur Stinner.
But the modern Flat Earth Society with so much more data available soes not have Rowbotham's excuse.
If there are no sensible responses (other than from Skeptimatic or JRoweSkeptic, who I doubt go with UA anyway) I must assume that Universal Acceleration should NEVER have been applied, and the
Flat Earth should find another explanation for "gravity".