If the Earth is flat...

What's on the other side?  :|

None of the alleged flat-earthers have really said anything on the topic, I assume they think it’s simply rock, and perhaps the unexplained system by which the flat-earth is propelled at 9.81 m/s^2.

For an object to exert a force of 1 g against the objects resting on it, it must be accelerating at 9.8 (give or take) meters per second per second.

This is claimed to be the situation with the earth. In which case, I have the folowing questions:

1. How long has the earth been in existence? In extreme terms this will be a minimum of the amount of time you have been alive, the rest of us being in on the conspiracy and claiming that we have been alive for however long we say, whereas you konw for a fact that the earth did not exist before you were born.

So how old are you?

Next, the earth has been accelerating for all this time. Every second it increases in speed by 9.8 meters per second. This is not to say it travels 9.8 meters per second, it speeds up by 9.8 meters per second.

I'm 23. I've been alive for 725824800 seconds (23*365.25*24*60*60, please check my maths here). If I assume that the earth was formed at the instant of my birth and began to accelerate, then the earth's speed will be given by v=at, where a is the acceleration of the earth, and t is the time of existence of the earth. (This is taught to 15 year olds in high school where I live.)

This means that when I turned 23, the earth was travelling at a speed of 7113083040 meters per second. Everybody happy so far? Right. Anyone motion sick yet? If so, please pull the 'Stop the world, I want to get off' lever located next to your reality.

The number above is 7.1*10^9. Thats over 20 times the widely accepted speed of light.

So, why are the stars mostly staying still? They are not whizzing past us at that sort of speed. Is the whole universe moving with is? In which case, how can there be acceleration if there is nothing to accelerate relative to?

And I'm young! How fast is your world moving?

The number above is 7.1*10^9. Thats over 20 times the widely accepted speed of light.

So, why are the stars mostly staying still? They are not whizzing past us at that sort of speed.

Except you were probably also taught that nothing can move faster than the speed of light (as measured in any frame of reference)... that's why the stars aren't whizzing by us.

This means that when I turned 23, the earth was travelling at a speed of 7113083040 meters per second. Everybody happy so far? Right. Anyone motion sick yet? If so, please pull the 'Stop the world, I want to get off' lever located next to your reality.

The number above is 7.1*10^9. Thats over 20 times the widely accepted speed of light.

So, why are the stars mostly staying still? They are not whizzing past us at that sort of speed. Is the whole universe moving with is? In which case, how can there be acceleration if there is nothing to accelerate relative to?

You wouldn't experience motion sickness as the Earth is moving at the same velocity as you and there is no gravity.

It's perfectly possible to travel over the speed of light, as long as you start above the speed of light. You just can't accelerate from below the speed of light to above it.

The speed of light is always relative to you. The question on whether or not the stars are moving has not been confirmed yet.  The acceleration is generally given as relative to an object with balanced forces acting on it, ie, no acceleration.

The Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. So far, they seem to accept that piece of evidence. Although, the biblical literalists will believe it's about 6 thousand years old.

What's on the other side?  :|

Perhaps --------> tails.....   Get it?!?!  Heads or tails!!!!  Oh my gosh, I make myself laugh so hard :lol:

You wouldn't experience motion sickness as the Earth is moving at the same velocity as you and there is no gravity.

I'm just quoting the FAQ here, which assumes that there is gravity. Hang on... just dropped a paperclip. Yup, gravity is still working.

It's perfectly possible to travel over the speed of light, as long as you start above the speed of light. You just can't accelerate from below the speed of light to above it.

So the earth has always been moving faster than the speed of light without showing any effects of the sort. Pardon the expression, but thats a load of bull.
If you move close to the speed of light, from below, light increases in frequency, it shifts towards the high energy end of the spectrum. If you travel faster than the speed of light, you're going to have every single visible photon with more energy than, say, an X-ray. We'd be cooked already.
If you move close to the speed of light, from below, objects only become visible in front of you. Photons appearing from the side are being 'caught' from the side at such speed that their original sideways velocity becomes irrelevant. It's like walking with the rain, the faster you go, the more the rain comes from the front. If you move faster, soon all light is coming from in front of you. And if you go faster than that, you can only see objects directly in front of you.

We can see sideways, we have not been irradiated to a small heap of cancerous charcoal. We are not moving faster than the speed of light, nor anything close too.

And here's why:

The speed of light is always relative to you.

You've got two of the main concepts there, 'speed of light' and 'relative'. Everything else in that sentence is dead wrong.

The theory of Relativity is badly named. It should be called the theory of absolutivity. It states that the speed of light is always constant to you, no matter how fast you are travelling.

Yes, you get the train conundrum, if you're on a train travelling just fractionally below the speed of light, and you travel from the back to the front, you must travel at the speed of light.

This is dead wrong. As soon as you reach the speed of light (having accelerated your suddenly infinite mass to this point, requiring more energy than exists in the known universe) time stretches to infinity. Space compresses to zero. You cannot experience time, it has stopped for you. You cannot reach the other end of the car, even though it is very close. Any attempts of this nature will cause serious injury and are not covered by your health insurance.

The Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. So far, they seem to accept that piece of evidence. Although, the biblical literalists will believe it's about 6 thousand years old.

Exactly my point. In 23 years, assuming we started with zero velocity, we would reach a mere 20 times the speed of light, which is impossible to travel faster than. The earth being 6000 years old, well, thats faster still. 4.5 billion, well you get the drift.

We cannot have experienced constant acceleration for this length of time, without travelling faster than the speed of light. We cannot be travelling faster than the speed of light because we can see to our sides, and to the front without turning to plasma.

So where is gravity coming from then?

Err no they assume the upward acceleration can explain all of gravities effects

Err no they assume the upward acceleration can explain all of gravities effects

And just fail to note the fact that you only feel the effects of acceleration untill you match velocity with the object acting on you do they?  Otherwise we would have to assume Silent Knight's reasoning is completely wrong and most of the science our society is based on is wrong as well.

If you move close to the speed of light, from below, objects only become visible in front of you. Photons appearing from the side are being 'caught' from the side at such speed that their original sideways velocity becomes irrelevant. It's like walking with the rain, the faster you go, the more the rain comes from the front. If you move faster, soon all light is coming from in front of you. And if you go faster than that, you can only see objects directly in front of you.

This sounds fishy to me, especially because you're comparing something whose velocity in a given inertial reference frame depends on the relative velocity between that frame and the frame the the something is coming from (I refer to rain), whereas light, as you later point out (or, as I think you point out; see below) does not share this property.

That is, light is not like raindrops.

Quote from: "cheesejoff"

The speed of light is always relative to you.

You've got two of the main concepts there, 'speed of light' and 'relative'. Everything else in that sentence is dead wrong.

The theory of Relativity is badly named. It should be called the theory of absolutivity. It states that the speed of light is always constant to you, no matter how fast you are travelling.

It's called relativity because it's a reformulation of the previous Galilean relativity.

Plus, it's pretty obvious to me that that's exactly what cheesejoff meant.  Nice nitpicking, though.

This is dead wrong. As soon as you reach the speed of light (having accelerated your suddenly infinite mass to this point, requiring more energy than exists in the known universe) time stretches to infinity. Space compresses to zero. You cannot experience time, it has stopped for you. You cannot reach the other end of the car, even though it is very close. Any attempts of this nature will cause serious injury and are not covered by your health insurance.

This is dead wrong.  I am already moving the speed of light relative to some things (like distant quasars, for example), and yet walking around on Earth usually does not injure me.  I can move the speed of light, and I will still "experience time".  Why?  Because I can send and receive signals that move, relative to me, at the speed of light.  Hence the name, which you so offhandedly rejected, Relativity.

Exactly my point. In 23 years, assuming we started with zero velocity, we would reach a mere 20 times the speed of light, which is impossible to travel faster than.

Wrong again!  You assume that acceleration in one reference frame is the same in all reference frames; it's not.  Just because we measure our acceleration as 1g, doesn't mean somebody moving past us at half the speed of light measures it the same way (to them, it appears less... Relativity, get it?  Everything is relative, except c).

Since the conclusions in your email depend on this misunderstanding of yours, I will not address them.

-Erasmus

And just fail to note the fact that you only feel the effects of acceleration untill you match velocity with the object acting on you do they?

The catching up / matching velocities thing is a bad exposition of the gravity-as-acceleration theory.  If the Earth (an elevator) were accelerating constantly, you would always feel the ground (floor of the elevator) pressing on you.  So you could always feel the effects; the Earth (elevator) doesn't do anything different when you jump or fall or whatever.

Otherwise we would have to assume Silent Knight's reasoning is completely wrong and most of the science our society is based on is wrong as well.

Turns out his is wrong, and our society's isn't.... fortunately, that's because his reasoning and our society's science aren't the same things.

-Erasmus

Elvis and Jim Morrison are on the other side.

According to my understanding of science, Silent Knight is right.

P.S. Silent Knight is a science techer.

Not yet, Mech Tau, just in training. But loving it so far!

(Can you tell we're from the same forum?)

That is, light is not like raindrops.

This was a simple way of demonstrating that the apparant angle of light, like rain, changes as you move. The relative speed of the rain changes when you're driving, the relative speed of light does not. Other than that, it does work, it's simple addition of vectors.

It's called relativity because it's a reformulation of the previous Galilean relativity... Hence the name, which you so offhandedly rejected, Relativity.

I'm happy with that. Absolutivity is simply a label which is more accurate for what it contains; a trick for remembering what it means. (Teacher alert!)

This is dead wrong. I am already moving the speed of light relative to some things (like distant quasars, for example), and yet walking around on Earth usually does not injure me. I can move the speed of light, and I will still "experience time". Why? Because I can send and receive signals that move, relative to me, at the speed of light..

As to the distant objects, Touche. Hyperlight is possible, for example two spaceships moving apart at 2/3 light speed each. Relative to each other it's 4/3 the speed of ight.

Let me rephrase my original statement. You cannot move faster than the speed of light relative to your local environment. In the train example, the local environment is the rails.

Which brings me back to the original post: the earth must be accelerating relative to it's local space, and by now must be travelling at a minimum of lightspeed.

I must say, (in my defence), that simple worlds with occasional pictures hardly give an accurate view of the other person.

Let me rephrase my original statement. You cannot move faster than the speed of light relative to your local environment. In the train example, the local environment is the rails.

Which brings me back to the original post: the earth must be accelerating relative to it's local space, and by now must be travelling at a minimum of lightspeed.

Finally the response we've all had to the acceration theory put into the terms we intended. Thank you. I'd like to see you keep the acceleration theory together now Erasmus.

This was a simple way of demonstrating that the apparant angle of light, like rain, changes as you move. The relative speed of the rain changes when you're driving, the relative speed of light does not. Other than that, it does work, it's simple addition of vectors.

So, suppose I'm moving on a train on an airless planet.  It's going a 1000 m/s relative to the ground.  I fire a water pistol straight out from the side of the train, perpendicular to its motion.  What do I see?  From my perspective, the water continues moving straight away from me.  What do the aliens living on the surface see?  Water droplets moving away from the train and 1000 m/s forward in the direction of the train.

On the FE, photons from the GPS towers (or whatever) are "fired" in all directions.  The ones that are fired directly sideways move, from the perspective of somebody moving along with the towers (such as people on the Earth, or "in the same train") will see the photons [sic] moving directly sideways.  The photons will not appear to be affected by any movement the Earth has relative to the outside world.

Furthermore, what if the Earth's velocity where different relative to two different outside observers?  Then how would the photons' directions change, in your view?  Before you answer, see below about "absolute speed".

Hyperlight is possible, for example two spaceships moving apart at 2/3 light speed each. Relative to each other it's 4/3 the speed of ight.

That's true in a certain sense.  If I'm on the Earth, and I launch two rockets at 2/3 light speed in opposite directions, they will appear, to me, to be moving 2/3 light speed each.  To me, it will appear that the gap between then grows at a rate of 4/3 light speed.  However, if there are cameras and measuring devices on the rocket, each will measure the other's velocity as being less than light speed.

Let me rephrase my original statement. You cannot move faster than the speed of light relative to your local environment. In the train example, the local environment is the rails.

What's the local environment to the Earth?

Which brings me back to the original post: the earth must be accelerating relative to it's local space, and by now must be travelling at a minimum of lightspeed.

So here's the problem: there's no such thing as "local space"; at least, you can't measure your velocity with respect to it.  How would you do so?  Note that your measurement system has to work even if there's nothing else in the local space.  I.e., if the rest of the universe is empty, how do you tell how fast you're moving?

In any case, within a given reference frame, you can always accelerate, regardless of your speed relative to somebody else.  The somebody else just might disagree with you.

-Erasmus

Quote

Hyperlight is possible, for example two spaceships moving apart at 2/3 light speed each. Relative to each other it's 4/3 the speed of ight.

That's true in a certain sense.  If I'm on the Earth, and I launch two rockets at 2/3 light speed in opposite directions, they will appear, to me, to be moving 2/3 light speed each.  To me, it will appear that the gap between then grows at a rate of 4/3 light speed.  However, if there are cameras and measuring devices on the rocket, each will measure the other's velocity as being less than light speed.

-Erasmus

I was thinking something along the same lines myself. If the two craft are traveling with a relative velocity to each other greater then light, then if I was to shine a light out the window back towards the other craft, it would leave with the relative velocity C to me, but would never make contact with the other craft. That seems impossible, as in order to maintain the laws of relativity that same craft must then observe the same light beam, eventually passing them at velocity C.

So, suppose I'm moving on a train on an airless planet.  It's going a 1000 m/s relative to the ground.  I fire a water pistol straight out from the side of the train, perpendicular to its motion.  What do I see?  From my perspective, the water continues moving straight away from me.  What do the aliens living on the surface see?  Water droplets moving away from the train and 1000 m/s forward in the direction of the train.

Yes, this is fine, because you are not moving at relativistic speeds, and you are not dealing with light. Addition of vectors works like that using newtonian physics, Nothing wrong with this.

But since the speed of light is constant, and not dependent on your current frame, this doesn't work with the hypothetical high speed train.

On the FE, photons from the GPS towers (or whatever) are "fired" in all directions.  The ones that are fired directly sideways move, from the perspective of somebody moving along with the towers (such as people on the Earth, or "in the same train") will see the photons [sic] moving directly sideways.  The photons will not appear to be affected by any movement the Earth has relative to the outside world.

Tell you what, we'll use light houses because they're easier. Same sort of thing, but we're using visible light now, and to make it even easier still, it's a foggy night. So we can see beams of light from the light house, in a similar manner to radio signals from the GPS towers.

At non-relativistic speeds, the beams appear to be horizontal. We're not moving fast enough to affect them. As we begin to speed up, we notice smething odd about the beams. They begin to slant down. Because the  speed of light is absolute, and we are travelling so fast, the photons aren't moving fast enough to clear the planet before it comes slamming into their flight path. Our view of this is that the beams of light are slanting.
As we reach the speed of light, the beams are slanting at 45 degrees to the ground. If we accelerate, we see the beams illuminating a cone which gets rapidly narrower around the base of the tower. We're moving too fast for the photons to go anywhere but down.

This would apply to radio towers, like the GPS system, except we wouldn't be able to see it.

That's true in a certain sense.  If I'm on the Earth, and I launch two rockets at 2/3 light speed in opposite directions, they will appear, to me, to be moving 2/3 light speed each.  To me, it will appear that the gap between then grows at a rate of 4/3 light speed.  However, if there are cameras and measuring devices on the rocket, each will measure the other's velocity as being less than light speed.

Of course, they are only able to see where the rocket was. To them, the other rocket is barely shifting because the series of images they would normally recieve to measure speed are taking that much longer to arrive, with that much more time between them to tell them that 'The other rocket has moved by one meter'. I'll elaborate more on this if you wish.

What's the local environment to the Earth?

Not sure on that one, but I don't think distant quasars count.

In any case, within a given reference frame, you can always accelerate, regardless of your speed relative to somebody else.  The somebody else just might disagree with you.

Yes, provided that the someone else isn't a photon.

Tell you what, we'll use light houses because they're easier. Same sort of thing, but we're using visible light now, and to make it even easier still, it's a foggy night. So we can see beams of light from the light house, in a similar manner to radio signals from the GPS towers.

At non-relativistic speeds, the beams appear to be horizontal. We're not moving fast enough to affect them. As we begin to speed up, we notice smething odd about the beams. They begin to slant down. Because the  speed of light is absolute, and we are travelling so fast, the photons aren't moving fast enough to clear the planet before it comes slamming into their flight path. Our view of this is that the beams of light are slanting.
 
As we reach the speed of light, the beams are slanting at 45 degrees to the ground. If we accelerate, we see the beams illuminating a cone which gets rapidly narrower around the base of the tower. We're moving too fast for the photons to go anywhere but down.

So, is the fog standing still as the Earth moves past it?  If the fog and the Earth are all moving together at the same speed, then they make an inertial reference frame, and we can use Galilean relativity and add vectors in the usual way.

I suggest that, in my train-and-water-pistol experiment, we would see the same effect, even if we were moving at relativistic speeds.  That is because it is only relative motion that is interestic, and relative to us (on the train), the only motion of the water from the water pistol is directly away from the train.

Again, it should work the same if it's a space ship alone in the universe.  Suppose we are on such a ship, and that we fire our engines for, say, ten years at their maximum thrust; suppose they are Saturn V rockets or something.  What speed are we moving now?  If we shoot water droplets away from the side of the spaceship, what do you think we will see happen to them?

Or, are you suggesting that light travels as a wave through some special medium, and that that medium permeates the whole universe?  If so, what do you think about the Michaelson-Morley experiment?

Of course, they are only able to see where the rocket was. To them, the other rocket is barely shifting because the series of images they would normally recieve to measure speed are taking that much longer to arrive, with that much more time between them to tell them that 'The other rocket has moved by one meter'. I'll elaborate more on this if you wish.

I think you should do so.  I'm pretty sure you always only see where things were, if you are a non-zero distance from them.

Quote from: "Erasmus"

What's the local environment to the Earth?

Not sure on that one, but I don't think distant quasars count.

Why not?  We can measure our speed relative to them, can't we?

What you seem to be looking for is an "absolute frame of refrence", or an "absolute coordinate system."  If you believe Einstein's relativity, then you are not allowed to speak about an absolute frame of reference.

Quote from: "Erasmus"

In any case, within a given reference frame, you can always accelerate, regardless of your speed relative to somebody else.  The somebody else just might disagree with you.

Yes, provided that the someone else isn't a photon.

I'm not sure I know what you're getting at with this; an observer sitting on a photon travelling at the speed of light would measure the rest of the universe to be totally stationary (in the direction of the motion of the photon) and totally flat (a plane, whose normal is the direction of motion of the photon).

-Erasmus

Erasmus the fact is you cannot accelerate beyond the speed of light regardless of all your reletivity crap. The speed of light is a limit on speed and if you are continuously accelerating like the flat earth theory says then you have to exceed that speed eventually. That is fact and it is also fact that the speed of light cannot be passed. Now stop being a dumb ass cause you know i'm right.

So, is the fog standing still as the Earth moves past it?

In exactly the same way as humans are able to stand on this faster-than-light (FTL) earth, the fog is able to stay on the FTL earth. I don't think it fair to attack something which has been included for the purposes of analogy as I stated in that post, but bonus points for fussiness.

If the fog and the Earth are all moving together at the same speed, then they make an inertial reference frame, and we can use Galilean relativity and add vectors in the usual way.

See above for the fog explanation. If you want, we can use a laser and a huge vertical semicircle of white paper centered on the top of the tower. Or glow in the dark strips which glow when they're illuinated with UV, or...

I suggest that, in my train-and-water-pistol experiment, we would see the same effect, even if we were moving at relativistic speeds.  That is because it is only relative motion that is interestic, and relative to us (on the train), the only motion of the water from the water pistol is directly away from the train.

My apologies, I'd missed that part about the side of the train, and had assumed you were firing forwards, a slightly different kettle of fish.

And suddenly I see where you're coming from. Hmm. It's the same inertial frame thats the problem. I'm going to have to retire to think this one over. I'll get back to you upon reading up on relativity, though you probably are right on this count.

EDIT: My view was a load of bollocks.

Erasmus 1 : O Silent Knight.

With your blessing, I'll table the next idea though.

Article one: The earth is moving faster than the speed of light, and accelerating. (Essential for the FE theory)

Article two: There are stars visible to the sides of the earth (over the rim).

Article three: those stars are not accelerating with the earth.

Article one was discussed earlier in this thread. The earth cannot be younger than, say, 8*10^7 seconds, 80 million seconds, about  2.5 years, and be travelling at slower than the speed of light in order to maintain the 9.81 ms^-2 required for gravity. Incredibly young earth or gravity, take your pick.

Article two, I've seen it last night, there are stars visible near the horizon, say about 20 degrees from the horizon. Please check for yourself.

Article three is a bit trickier.  Supposedly the earth is accelerating. Relative to what? If the stars, then by now we're moving faster than the speed of light relative to them.

And here's where the driving in the rain comes back (properly, sorry about that same-reference-frame light source earlier). If we're going faster than the speed of light relative to those stars, or even anywhere near it, the stars will appear in front of us. We'll see the lateral light coming from in front of us (probably blueshifted too) and those stars will appear to be overhead.

Okay, they aren't all at the top of the sky: We're not accelerating relative to them.

So what is the earth accelerating relative to in order to maintain gravity?

Erasmus the fact is you cannot accelerate beyond the speed of light regardless of all your reletivity crap. The speed of light is a limit on speed and if you are continuously accelerating like the flat earth theory says then you have to exceed that speed eventually. That is fact and it is also fact that the speed of light cannot be passed. Now stop being a dumb ass cause you know i'm right.

Ah, but that's not the point.

We all know about the "nothing travelling faster than the speed of light." It's obvious, it's solid, it's hard to reason with. And here's why: Why can't it?

I'm not a FE: I'm here for the ride and enjoying the debate. I get the feeling Erasmus is too; he's debating all sides of the argument. If I suddenly went "The Earth is flat, I've seen the light!", Erasmus would still be happy to debate about it. We'd just swap ends.

For me its not about whether the FE theory makes more sense than the revival of 80's fashion trends. Its about the debate!

Welcome aboard Flatearthersareretards. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Ps: Sorry about the double post.

Article one: The earth is moving faster than the speed of light, and accelerating. (Essential for the FE theory)

Well, I think it's not necessary that the Earth's speed is greater than c in any reference frame for the flat Earth gravity to work....

Article two: There are stars visible to the sides of the earth (over the rim).

Article three: those stars are not accelerating with the earth.

Yep, I think I see where you're going with this...

Article one was discussed earlier in this thread. The earth cannot be younger than, say, 8*10^7 seconds, 80 million seconds, about  2.5 years, and be travelling at slower than the speed of light in order to maintain the 9.81 ms^-2 required for gravity. Incredibly young earth or gravity, take your pick.

I think relativity is more generous than that.  If my understanding is correct, then the Earth can accelerate forever and never exceed the speed of light.

Suppose that you've got a rocket ship whose engine supplies a constant force.  If you leave the rocket on forever, then the astronauts in the rocket will experience the "g-force" of the rocket's engine forever, right?  If you're not sure, imagine that there's nothing else in the universe.  That is, there's nobody around how can measure the rocket as going relativistic speeds.  The fact is that in the rocket's reference frame, there's a constant force propelling it (accelerating it, actually) forward.  Now, even if you add other frames of reference into the equation, that doesn't change what the astronauts experience.

The problem, then, is not to explain what's going on from the perspective of the astronauts.  To them, everything is kosher: constant acceleration, constant "g-forces".  The problem is to explain what everybody *else* sees.  It's only when you go into a *different* reference frame that wierdness starts to happen.

So what happens from an outside observer's reference frame?  Obviously, whatever we predict, we should not predict that the rocket will appear to be going faster than the speed of light.  But, as everybody has pointed out, if the rocket's acceleration is constant, it will *have* to go faster than the speed of light.  The only conclusion consistent with relativity, then, is that in an outside observer's reference frame, the rocket does not undergo constant acceleration.  In particular, its rate of acceleration, as the rocket's velocity approaches c, approaches 0.

How does the outside observer explain this phenomenon?  Simple.  F=ma, right?  Well, if a --> 0, then F --> 0 or m --> infinity.  Fortunately, m --> infinity as v --> c is already one of the predictions of special relativity (mass is relative), so this explains why a --> 0.  A given force gives less acceleration to a greater mass.

So we see that there's no inherent problem in constant acceleration (1g) in one reference frame (the flat Earth) and variable acceleration in another.

The rest of your argument has lots of merit:

Article two, I've seen it last night, there are stars visible near the horizon, say about 20 degrees from the horizon. Please check for yourself.

Article three is a bit trickier.  Supposedly the earth is accelerating. Relative to what? If the stars, then by now we're moving faster than the speed of light relative to them.

Well, not faster than the speed of light, as I've explained above, but at the speed of light (within experimental error).  There is a serious problem with this: if the rest of the universe were moving at the speed of light relative to us, it would appear flattened out; it would have no length in the direction parallel to our motion (that's length contraction).  The fact that we don't observe this is evidence that we are not moving the speed of light relative to the "fixed stars" [sic].

Okay, they aren't all at the top of the sky: We're not accelerating relative to them.

Well, I've always felt that the FE model requires that the rest of the universe is accelerating along with us.  This is not too farfetched (from an FE perspective): Plato's cosmology puts all the stars on a fixed sphere centered on the Earth.  FEers have to go back to a cosmology like that to get their gravity to work.

So what is the earth accelerating relative to in order to maintain gravity?

A ha!  Turns out you don't need to accelerate relative to something in order to know that you are accelerating.  You can tell just by the fact that the law of inertia no longer holds.  Even if you were alone in the universe (no stars or anything), and you accelerated, you would know it.

Anyway, I think shifting your focus to how the rest of the universe looks to us is one of the best attacks on the FE gravity theory.

-Erasmus

Thank you, I had to shotgun it, but I got there in the end. Phew, that was fun.

Now, to sink my own boat (in other words, your turn to play the RE).

Have you heard of centripetal acceleration? This is the acceleration of an object towards the centre of a circle. Its involved with centrifugal force, you feel centrifugal force as a reaction force to centripetal acceleration.

In the current model, centrifugal force is equivalent to what we feel by the earth accelerating against us. That acceleration is the equiavlant to centripetal acceleration.

Or: Centripetal acceleration is provided by the rope when we swing the bucket around our head. Centifugal force is what is pushing the water in, its the reaction to it.

So, supposing the earth is acting like the bucket on a rope? It is accelerating towards the centre, but it has a sideways motion which means that it will never reach it. We can then have acceleration for an infinite amount of time, and we don't ever have to approach the speed of light.
Of course, this involves the existence of something pulling us towards the centre of whatever we're then going round, but the other theory had a force pushing it too.

How does that sound?

So, supposing the earth is acting like the bucket on a rope? It is accelerating towards the centre, but it has a sideways motion which means that it will never reach it. We can then have acceleration for an infinite amount of time, and we don't ever have to approach the speed of light.

So I'm an alien.  In an alien spaceship.  I have just arrived in the vicinity of the Earth from a distant solar system.  I see it doing it's centrifuge thing.  I position my ship so that it's maybe a few miles off the surface of the Earth, and stop (relative to the rotational motion of the centrifuge).  Do I fall towards the Earth?
 
I think the centrifuge model predicts "no".  The alien ship has no tangential velocity, and it's the difference in tangential velocity between the Earth and a falling object that makes the object appear to fall.

Of course, I guess you can just be okay with this prediction, since it's never been tested except by NASA and the space agencies of other countries.  Oh, I guess it still begs the question of how satellites stay in orbit, but some FE'ers throw satellites out the window too :P

Lastly, I think it might be able to test this theory with a local experiment.  Say, by launching an object in the air with a velocity that cancels the centrifugal effect... will have to give that some more thought.

-Erasmus

Silent Knight wrote:
So, supposing the earth is acting like the bucket on a rope? It is accelerating towards the centre, but it has a sideways motion which means that it will never reach it. We can then have acceleration for an infinite amount of time, and we don't ever have to approach the speed of light.


So I'm an alien. In an alien spaceship. I have just arrived in the vicinity of the Earth from a distant solar system. I see it doing it's centrifuge thing. I position my ship so that it's maybe a few miles off the surface of the Earth, and stop (relative to the rotational motion of the centrifuge). Do I fall towards the Earth?

I think the centrifuge model predicts "no". The alien ship has no tangential velocity, and it's the difference in tangential velocity between the Earth and a falling object that makes the object appear to fall.

Of course, I guess you can just be okay with this prediction, since it's never been tested except by NASA and the space agencies of other countries. Oh, I guess it still begs the question of how satellites stay in orbit, but some FE'ers throw satellites out the window too

Lastly, I think it might be able to test this theory with a local experiment. Say, by launching an object in the air with a velocity that cancels the centrifugal effect... will have to give that some more thought.

-Erasmus
have you people ( non believers and believers) got nothing better to do with your time than write paragraphs about utter crap?

-Eddie Moy

have you people ( non believers and believers) got nothing better to do with your time than write paragraphs about utter crap?

-Eddie Moy

Seems to me, Eddie, that you don't belong here, or in any forum geared towards philosophical debate.  Don't you have anything better to do with your time than make brain-dead criticisms about our character and our paragraphs?

So, supposing the earth is acting like the bucket on a rope? It is accelerating towards the centre, but it has a sideways motion which means that it will never reach it. We can then have acceleration for an infinite amount of time, and we don't ever have to approach the speed of light.
Of course, this involves the existence of something pulling us towards the centre of whatever we're then going round, but the other theory had a force pushing it too.

How does that sound?

Would that work if the Earth was orbiting something? Say, the sun?

Because that would also explain sunrises and satelites (they oribt the sun)

Quite neat, apart from the obvious drawback of being false.

Would that work if the Earth was orbiting something? Say, the sun?

Well, that's exactly what the model Silent Knight is offering suggests -- not that the Earth is orbiting the sun, but that it's orbiting something, and that that something sits on the central axis of the flat Earth.

Quite neat, apart from the obvious drawback of being false.

Yeah yeah.... obviously the interesting question is, "How do you know?"