CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT

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Bushido

CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« on: March 29, 2007, 03:06:32 AM »
     My intention here is to undeniably prove whether the Earth is flat or not. You seem to present some book as the evidence for its flatness, but, since most people do not have access to this book, I shall demand that You present us with a map of the world or at least of the United States according to your Flat Earth Model in order to continue a more objective discussion. You should not have a problem in this quest, because, unlike the Round Earth model, the Flat Earth can always be accurately drawn on a flat surface. After all, the proponents of the Round Earth model came up with the globe as a representation of their view of the world. In fact, there is a picture of a map of some kind on this site.
 
     But, please beware that the globe enables one to make distance calculations between any two points on it along a certain path, so your map must also have this feature. Now, calculating two arbitrary lengths in this way on the globe and comparing them with lengths measured directly on the Earth's surface for the corresponding points, we can check whether the ratios between the calculated lengths are the same as the ratios between the measured lengths. If the Flat Earth model is true, than the above ratios must be the same for any two arbitrary lengths (up to the uncertainty in measuring lengths and local variations in the model, like mountains, hills, valleys, canyons, etc.). Now, we can not check all the possible lengths on the Earth, since it would take an infinite amount of time. This statement can be effectively used to disprove the theory, since it is a necessary condition, and not a sufficient one. Indeed, making a contraposition, we can say that:

If there are two lengths for which the above ratio deviates more than the experimental error would allow it, then the Flat Earth Model can not be true.

Now, there is not anything special about the Flat Earth model that makes the above statement true. It will be just as correct for the Round Earth Model. This is because it is a consequence of logic. What is different between the two is the way to calculate the distance along a certain path between two points on the Earth. In fact, the two models can not give equal predictions for all the paths on the Earth because this would imply that they are isometric. But, as is well known from Differential Geometry, this is not true for a spherical and a flat surface.

Also, one must be able to orient oneself on the surface of the Earth. According to the Round Earth Model, there are 3 general ways of orientation (listed in an ascending order of accuracy):
  • By using the Earth Magnetic Field and the fact that the north pole of the magnetic needle always points approximately to the geographic North Pole (and the south pole to the geographic South Pole);
  • By using the rotation of the Earth’s sphere around the North – South pole axis (World Axis) and the fact that every star rotates on the celestial sphere around a circle with a center pointing to the World Axis;
  • By using the rotation of Earth’s sphere and a gyro – compass which aligns itself parallel to the World Axis.
There are other ways to orient oneself (GPS), but, since You say that satellites do not exist, these methods would suffice. You have to define the meaning of the cardinal directions in your model of Flat Earth.
 
     Besides metrical inconsistencies, the two models (Flat and Round Earth) are also topologically not equivalent. This is best seen by the absence of the South Pole on the Flat Earth Model, whereas the Round Earth predicts the presence of one. I guess this situation has been chosen, because this leaves the inhabited areas on the map whereas keeping any two points on the Earth connected along the surface. This would have not happened if the Globe was cut in the Pacific Ocean and the surface developed in a plane, because it would mean that one can not go from USA to Japan by going west, for example.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2007, 05:01:24 PM »
     I am new to this forum business, so I did not know what the ‘topic locked’ is for. My mistake for turning that feature on. Would some of you Flat Earthers post a topographic map with a way to determine position of the points in reality? Thank you.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2007, 05:15:11 PM »
A claimed physisict had a simple way to determine if the earth was flat or round also.  Take a plane and fly around the equator at a constant velocity, and time it.  Then fly from the equator to the north pole at the same velocity and time that.  If the time from the equator to the north pole is approx 1/4 (I think) that of the time to go around the equator, than the earth is round.  But if it takes approx. 1/6th the time from the equator to the north pole of that around the equator, than the earth is flat.  A simple idea, but no one has the resources or motivation to do it.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2007, 05:22:34 PM »
     Let us see the map first, and I shall give you numerous examples of incompatibility between the Flat and the Round Earth models. If the FE-ers don’t have a map, their model is no more than a story tale and has no practical use (travel, measuring agricultural areas, etc.)

     A note for the use of planes in these experiments. Since the FE-ers believe that pilots are somehow part of the conspiracy, they discard the proofs with the planes as a conspiracy.

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TheEngineer

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2007, 08:05:38 PM »
  A note for the use of planes in these experiments. Since the FE-ers believe that pilots are somehow part of the conspiracy, they discard the proofs with the planes as a conspiracy.
Why didn't anyone tell me I was supposed to be in the conspiracy?


"I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake."
        -- Bob Hudson

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silverhammermba

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2007, 10:06:23 PM »
He's referring to the conjecture that commercial pilots willingly fly their planes in time-wasting arcs over the flat Earth in order to make people think that the Earth is round.

And as to the original point of the thread, such an experiment would be incredibly difficult to do. You'd probably have to measure truly massive distances in order to show significant discrepancies. We're talking miles of tape measure. Oh, and even if you did it, recorded the whole thing and posted it online, the FEers would all say you faked it.

Hell, TheEngineer said that the only thing that would convince him of a RE is if he saw it from space himself. Good luck with your experiment.

Edit: Just realized a way better method. If you can find a way of traveling in a perfectly straight line that would work for both FE and RE, all you'd have to do is go perfectly straight for a significant distance. Your end point would be in a different place for each theory since in FE, all the continents curve around the North Pole.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2007, 10:11:30 PM by silverhammermba »
Quote from: Kasroa
Tom usually says at this point that people have seen the ice-wall. It is the Ross Ice Shelf. That usually kills the conversation by the power of sheer bull-shit alone.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2007, 07:04:03 AM »
silverhammermba (and to all others), don’t tell other people what I wanted to say. If you have an idea, start your own post. I am still waiting for a map on this post.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2007, 07:32:46 AM »
Why jam the place up with threads of similarity?  He's just trying to add to what you've said already.  You have an idea to prove which, and so does he.  Does it really hurt you to have him post his idea inside your thread?

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2007, 07:40:37 AM »
     No, it does not. But until I do not present my argument, it is rude to write something in my behalf.

     I deliberately did not post my argument, since I want a constructive and definite debate over a concrete model presented by the Flat Earth Society (read, their map) and not a wild goose chase. This will inevitably present us with the tools on which we will all agree (both Round and Flat Earthers) to test whether their model is true. Until then, we are stuck in a wild goose chase as has been done previously on every post on this forum and we will get nowhere because we are not on a common ground and do not speak the same language.

     Please refrain from posting short messages and answering a question with a question, because it is, most mildly said, rude. It congests the post and makes the important discussion invisible to others.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2007, 08:32:04 AM »
     No, it does not. But until I do not present my argument, it is rude to write something in my behalf.

     I deliberately did not post my argument, since I want a constructive and definite debate over a concrete model presented by the Flat Earth Society (read, their map) and not a wild goose chase. This will inevitably present us with the tools on which we will all agree (both Round and Flat Earthers) to test whether their model is true. Until then, we are stuck in a wild goose chase as has been done previously on every post on this forum and we will get nowhere because we are not on a common ground and do not speak the same language.

     Please refrain from posting short messages and answering a question with a question, because it is, most mildly said, rude. It congests the post and makes the important discussion invisible to others.

And the "How to be Polite Online" book is where?  And there is no one concrete model of the flat earth, most FE'ers have different beliefs of how it works, so you'll have dozens of different models to work with.  That's how FE'ers get us RE'ers so easily. They just say they don't believe something that another FE'er has proposed, and the arguement gets dropped.  There is no one FE model, so don't expect to get one (especially one that they think is "concrete").  Tom will say, "Read Earth: Not a Globe", and other FE's will tell you that they don't believe alot of what Tom says, so you'll be sent in circles.

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Midnight

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2007, 08:42:52 AM »
EIRD you are talking to a cinder block. Just ignore it.
My problem with his ideas is that it is a ridiculous thing.

Genius. PURE, undiluted genius.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2007, 08:47:29 AM »
EIRD you are talking to a cinder block. Just ignore it.

I like talking to stupid things.  It's what makes this site entertaining.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2007, 08:59:19 AM »
     This is from a post in the FE believers forum.


     They too recognize they have not a map of the world. That is because a map is not merely constructed by projecting a globe (a RE invention) onto a piece of paper. You can not do that and preserve distances and angles at the same time. You have to go out in the field and draw your own map from scratch and not rely on the effort of numerous generations of researchers before you, which you discredit at the first place.

     Without a map, your model of the Earth is a story, a poem by midnight without any practical importance.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2007, 09:05:28 AM »
     This is from a post in the FE believers forum.


     They too recognize they have not a map of the world. That is because a map is not merely constructed by projecting a globe (a RE invention) onto a piece of paper. You can not do that and preserve distances and angles at the same time. You have to go out in the field and draw your own map from scratch and not rely on the effort of numerous generations of researchers before you, which you discredit at the first place.

     Without a map, your model of the Earth is a story, a poem by midnight without any practical importance.


I don't believe in a flat earth, and neither does midnight(yet).  And why on earth would someone want to go through a lifetime of work to calculate what a flat earth would look like?

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2007, 09:23:17 AM »
I love this:

No, figure out how many of the features mentioned in the article are present on this forum.

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cmdshft

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #15 on: March 30, 2007, 09:46:12 AM »
  A note for the use of planes in these experiments. Since the FE-ers believe that pilots are somehow part of the conspiracy, they discard the proofs with the planes as a conspiracy.
Why didn't anyone tell me I was supposed to be in the conspiracy?

It was for your own sanity.

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TheEngineer

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #16 on: March 30, 2007, 09:59:51 AM »
  A note for the use of planes in these experiments. Since the FE-ers believe that pilots are somehow part of the conspiracy, they discard the proofs with the planes as a conspiracy.
Why didn't anyone tell me I was supposed to be in the conspiracy?

It was for your own sanity.
Well, that's good I suppose, as RE'ers on this forum chip away at it daily.


"I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake."
        -- Bob Hudson

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cmdshft

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #17 on: March 30, 2007, 10:02:09 AM »
That's why I stopped trying to debate period.

It helps.

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Midnight

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Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #18 on: March 30, 2007, 10:04:18 AM »
I love this:

No, figure out how many of the features mentioned in the article are present on this forum.

Wikipedia, what a round source for flat reality.
My problem with his ideas is that it is a ridiculous thing.

Genius. PURE, undiluted genius.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #19 on: March 30, 2007, 12:34:08 PM »
It was for your own sanity.
This statement makes your signature ironic.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2007, 12:53:53 PM »
I love this:

No, figure out how many of the features mentioned in the article are present on this forum.
Dang, that hits the nail right on the head......

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2007, 12:56:42 PM »
     Tomorrow or a day after that I shall present my case in front of you. After that, I will abandon this God forsaken forum once and for all and find something better to do in my life. I should have known better than coming here.

P.S.

FYI, the Earth is a spheroidal elipsoid.

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #22 on: March 31, 2007, 02:39:36 PM »
     Tomorrow or a day after that I shall present my case in front of you. After that, I will abandon this God forsaken forum once and for all and find something better to do in my life. I should have known better than coming here.

P.S.

FYI, the Earth is a spheroidal elipsoid.

Big words for a little person.  Why not just present it now instead of wasting time.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #23 on: April 04, 2007, 04:42:10 PM »
I have just realised that the idea I had about disproving the Flat Earth Model is given in the fourth paragraph at the first page of The Sacred Texts website that is cited as the source of the FE Theory in the infamous FAQ. Here is the quote:
Quote

The polar projection of the flat earth creates obvious discrepancies with known geography, particularly the farther south you go. Figure 54 inadvertantly illustrates this problem. The Zetetic map has a severly squashed South America and Africa, and Australia and New Zealand in the middle of the Pacific. I think that by the 19th century people would have noticed if Australia and Africa were thousands of miles further apart than expected, let alone if Africa was wider than it was long!

Thank God that I don't have to write the very same thing!

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #24 on: April 04, 2007, 04:52:16 PM »
I have just realised that the idea I had about disproving the Flat Earth Model is given in the fourth paragraph at the first page of The Sacred Texts website that is cited as the source of the FE Theory in the infamous FAQ. Here is the quote:
Quote

The polar projection of the flat earth creates obvious discrepancies with known geography, particularly the farther south you go. Figure 54 inadvertantly illustrates this problem. The Zetetic map has a severly squashed South America and Africa, and Australia and New Zealand in the middle of the Pacific. I think that by the 19th century people would have noticed if Australia and Africa were thousands of miles further apart than expected, let alone if Africa was wider than it was long!

Thank God that I don't have to write the very same thing!

So this means your leaving now right?

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #25 on: April 04, 2007, 05:47:00 PM »
     Here is an interesting account of Samuel Birley Rowbotham's (aka "Parallax") experimental evidence:


What do you think of it?

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #26 on: April 04, 2007, 05:47:50 PM »
You didn't answer my question.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #27 on: April 04, 2007, 05:51:22 PM »
I wasn't aware that I am oblidged to give you an answer?!

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #28 on: April 04, 2007, 05:58:39 PM »
I wasn't aware that I am oblidged to give you an answer?!

Why the question mark?  But yes, you are.

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Bushido

Re: CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT IN DETERMINING WHETHER THE EARTH IS FLAT
« Reply #29 on: April 04, 2007, 06:01:55 PM »
I have just realised that the idea I had about disproving the Flat Earth Model is given in the fourth paragraph at the first page of The Sacred Texts website that is cited as the source of the FE Theory in the infamous FAQ. Here is the quote:
Quote

The polar projection of the flat earth creates obvious discrepancies with known geography, particularly the farther south you go. Figure 54 inadvertantly illustrates this problem. The Zetetic map has a severly squashed South America and Africa, and Australia and New Zealand in the middle of the Pacific. I think that by the 19th century people would have noticed if Australia and Africa were thousands of miles further apart than expected, let alone if Africa was wider than it was long!

Thank God that I don't have to write the very same thing!

     Here is an interesting account of Samuel Birley Rowbotham's (aka "Parallax") experimental evidence:


What do you think of it?