Flaws in FE model

1) FAQ says: "The sun and moon, each 32 miles in diameter, rotate at a height of 3000 miles above sea level."

* If the sun was 32 miles in diameter, it would not have enough gravity to sustain nuclear fusion (AFAIK the FE model does not dispute General Relativity).

* We can use trigonometry on a flat surface to calculate the distance to the Sun and verify that it is a lot more than 3000 miles. Perform the following experiment: Take two points 5.2 miles part. Call the points A and B. From point A, measure the angle between B and the sun. From point B, measure the angle from A to the sun. If the Sun is 3000 miles away, basic trigonometry tells us that there should be a difference of 0.1 degrees in the two measurements. This discrepancy is easily detectable with standard nautical or topographical equipment.

2) FAQ says: "Each functions similar to a 'spotlight,'"

Light sources do not behave like a spotlight. A spotlight behaves the way it does because humans put the light source inside a container that purposely blocks light going in other directions and usually also reflects it in the desired direction. To suppose that the sun and moon behave like spotlights, requires the assumption of similar containers designed to block light going in other directions.

The spotlight hypothesis is demonstrably false. When you get further away from a spotlight that is not pointing directly at you, you don't see a round spotlight sink on the horizon. What you see is the circular light become oval shaped, with the oval getting thinner until no light is visible. This is not what we observe in the real world. Hence, the sun and moon are not spotlights.

The spotlight hypothesis is also contradicted by eclipses. If the moon was a spotlight, during a solar eclipse we would see the moon as usual, rather than a black circle. The reason we see a black circle is that the moon produces no light of its own.

The spotlight hypothesis is also contradicted by lunar eclipses. Why does the moon change colour and then go dark at precisely the points that RE theory says that the moon enters the penumbra and umbra?

If the sun-spotlight is hovering around the equator as in the FE model, that would mean that days are longer in the equator than in other latitudes, and that days are longer in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. We know both ideas to be false. Furthermore, the southern hemisphere would get less over-all sunlight, making it much colder than the northern hemisphere.

If the sun hovers above the equator in the way described by the FE model, then an observer on the equator would see the sun make an arc across the sky. This is not what we observe. A person on the equator sees the sun go straight up, to the zenith and then straight down. In higher latitudes you see the sun roll across the horizon a bit more (I have lived both next to the equator, and at high latitudes). This observation contradicts the FE model.

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Edited to add: Another problem with the FE model is that it does not explain through which mechanism the moon is supposed to be a light source for "cold light". Furthermore, if you grab an amateur telescope and point it at the moon, you will see surface features like craters. These are visible because they cast a shadow. How can they cast a shadow if the moon itself is the light source? Finally, any amateur astronomer knows that the best place to aim your telescope is near the edge between the light and dark sides of the moon, because that is where the shadows are biggest (making surface features more visible). How is this possible if the moon itself is the light source?
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3) FAQ says: "The stars are at a height of 3100 miles above sea level, which is as far as from San Francisco to Boston."

The same parallax experiment explained in (1) also disproves this.

The fact that different stars are visible at different latitudes conflicts with the FE model. In a round earth, the earth obscures parts of the celestial sphere from different observers (you can't see Polaris from Australia, and you can't see the Southern Cross from Sweden). On a flat earth, the planet does not obscure different parts of the sky for different observers. Everybody gets the same sky.

The fact that during the course of the night the stars rotate around a point in the sky (e.g. Polaris) and this point moves up as one moves to greater latitudes also conflicts with the FE model.

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Edited to add: The FE model also fails to account for the fact that different stars are visible at different times in the year.
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4) FAQ says (on the topic of sunsets): "It's a perspective effect. Really, the sun is just getting farther away; it looks like it's disappearing because everything gets smaller, and eventually disappears as it gets farther away."

The sun does not get smaller during sunsets. The angular size of the sun can be easily measured (compare it to a dime held at arms length).

5) FAQ says: "Dark Energy accelerates the Earth and all celestial bodies in the universe at 9.8m/s^2"

This dark energy requires justification and supporting evidence. It is entirely unlike the dark energy that astrophysicists know about (I have a degree in astrophysics). I suggest using a different name for this mysterious energy, lets it be confused with the dark energy used in astrophysics literature.

6) FAQ says: "FE assumes that the Earth does not generate a gravitational field."

Theories that predict that the laws of physics are different for Earth have a tendency to be wrong. They also defy Occam's razor and the mediocrity principle. Second, variations in Earth's gravitational field have been measured (e.g. gravity is a tad weaker in Canada) and are consistent with Earth being a round planet that generates a gravitational field just like all other objects. The gravitational field can also be measured through atomic clocks, since gravity makes time slow down, according to General Relativity. These experiments indicate that clocks run slower at sea level than on an air plane. This is consistent with Earth generating a gravitational field, and inconsistent with the lower perceived gravity being a result of celestial bodies exerting a gravitational influence.

7) FAQ says: [gravity varies with altitude because] "The celestial bodies have a slight gravitational pull."

This is contradicted by experiments with atomic clocks. Time runs slower closer to the Earth. If the lower gravity was due to the celestial bodies exerting a gravitational pull, the clocks would not behave this way.

FAQ says: "There is a field created during the interaction between Dark Energy and the Earth. This is known as the Dark Energy Field, and it acts as a containment to prevent DE from affecting the objects on Earth. This explains why the atmosphere will not be diffused into space"

This also requires explanation and supporting evidence. This must be a very magical sort of "energy" that makes air stay inside the FE. Calling it a "field" doesn't explain anything.

9) FAQ says: "The gravitational pull of the celestial bodies provide tidal effects."

This fails to explain why there are two tides per day and why they follow the moon and not the sun. The "sun-moon" thing is yet another unproven postulate to try to force the FE model to fit the evidence. When you keep adding unseen, unproven, and unprovable hypothesis to a model, that is a sign that the model is flawed.

Even if we allow the "sun-moon" object proposed in the FAQ, the FE model still fails to explain why the tides don't point to the moon, but seem to come a little bit behind it. In the RE model, Earth's rotation explains the gap between the moon's position and the tides.

10) FAQ says: "The sun circles over the equator, thus the poles don't receive the same intensity of light."

If the sun is 3000 miles away and circles the equator, the incident light on the poles would be at 65 degrees. That is not nearly low enough to explain the temperatures at the poles. For comparison, the city of Orlando, Florida, gets incident light at 62 degrees. If you live in Canada or Europe, it is easy to see that the average sun position is at less than 45 degrees from the horizon. If you live in Sweden or Norway, the sun is even lower. At the north pole, the average incidence angle is zero. This contradicts the FE model.

11) FAQ says: "An undetectable celestial body, known as the antimoon, passes between the sun and moon. This projects a shadow upon the moon [causing lunar eclipses and moon phases]."

Another undetectable object. How convenient... Anyways, this cannot work. During moon phases, part of the moon is entirely black. If it was a shadow, the moon would be inside the umbra, making the moon darker but not black, as in a lunar eclipse. Second, this explanation is inconsistent with the earlier claim that the moon is a spotlight. If the moon produces its own light, then the idea of casting a shadow on it makes no sense. Unless of course the moon is not a spotlight and its light is reflected, in which case you need to explain how it can reflect sun light if the sun is a spotlight and you need to explain why moon phases make some of the moon black, but lunar eclipses make it red.

12) FAQ says: "The airline pilots are guided by their GPS."

Air planes and airlines are much older than GPS. Even today, not all air planes use GPS. And for hundreds of years, ships have sailed the oceans using only stars and a round earth coordinate system to navigate around the oceans, including many trips around the southern hemisphere from Europe to Africa to India, to China and Australia.


13) FAQ says: "The magnetic field is generated in the same fashion as with the RE (Diagram)."

This is flawed. Earth's magnetic pole does not coincide with the geographic north, and indeed, the magnetic poles are in constant movement. This is fine in a spherical earth, but more problematic in a cylindrical earth.

14) FAQ says: [flushing toilet] "On a round Earth, the Coriolis effect adds at most one (counter)clockwise rotation per day."

This is a straw man argument. The Coriolis effect has many significant terrestrial effects a lot more important than flushing my toilet. The Coriolis effect has significant meteorological effects such as cyclones, air currents and ocean currents. Air tends to move toward low pressure regions, but not on a straight line. On a non-rotating frame of reference, air should move in the direction of the pressure gradient. Instead, large scale air movements are perpendicular to the pressure gradient. This is known as geostrophic flow. There are many other important terrestrial effects caused by the Coriolis effect. Please look up "Coriolis effect" in Wikipedia.

Earth's rotation (and the Coriolis effect) is also easy to demonstrate using a pendulum (look up Foucault's pendulum). I have done this experiment myself.

Earth's rotation is also easily observable on a clear night away from the tropics, when you can actually observe the stars rotating around a fixed point in the sky. You can see that the position of this point corresponds to your latitude, so that, for example, at the north and south poles, Polaris is directly above you, all the time, and the stars all rotate around it.

15) FAQ says: [seasons] "The radius of the sun's orbit around the Earth's axis symmetry varies throughout the year, being smallest when summer is in the northern annulus and largest when it is summer in the southern annulus."

Another unexplained phenomenon. And once again, one that doesn't solve anything. This hypothesis can begin to explain why the sun's angle changes during summer and winter, but it fails to explain why days are longer in summer and shorter in winter. This is also a good time to again point out that the spotlight model of the sun, as in the FE model, would mean that over the course of the year days are longer in the equator than at other latitudes, and that days are longer in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere. So the spotlight hypothesis contradicts observations.

16) FAQ says: "NASA and the rest of the world's space agencies who claim to have been to space are involved in a Conspiracy to keep the shape of the Earth hidden.  The pictures are faked using simple imaging software."

I have personally met two people who have flown into space. One was an astronaut, the other a space tourist. Maybe the astronaut was lying to me when she showed me her pictures at MIR, but the space tourist is someone who has no reason to lie to me about his going to space and seeing the earth being round.

Second, this explanation is inconsistent with the earlier claim that the moon is a spotlight. If the moon produces its own light, then the idea of casting a shadow on it makes no sense.

Good spot!

Our breath is bated . . .

The main flaw in the FE model is there is no FE model. There is a myriad of individual "explanations" for a myriad difficulties, and they do not show the path to a measurable observation or experiment, just to non-numeric predictions that make them feel good.

A model, in scientific terms, must be the basis for precise, hopefully numeric predictions. Just the simple prediction that the sun spots will move showing the spherical shape of the sun is totally in contradiction with the "sun is a spotlight" idea.

I take my hat off to you, OP. I cannot wait for the FEer's response (although you may not get one).

I take my hat off to you, OP.

Indeed - I doubt that anyone else has done so much to debunk FET with just a single post.

* If the sun was 32 miles in diameter, it would not have enough gravity to sustain nuclear fusion (AFAIK the FE model does not dispute General Relativity).

Where is your evidence that the FE Sun is powered by nuclear fusion? If your answer to this convinces me that what you have to say is worthwhile, I will read the rest of your post and respond to it.

Quote from: DanielC on July 04, 2009, 02:26:58 PM

* If the sun was 32 miles in diameter, it would not have enough gravity to sustain nuclear fusion (AFAIK the FE model does not dispute General Relativity).

Where is your evidence that the FE Sun is powered by nuclear fusion? If your answer to this convinces me that what you have to say is worthwhile, I will read the rest of your post and respond to it.

(1) Nuclear fusion is the only energy source known that can produce enough energy to produce the incidence power of 14 kW/m^2 that we measure here on Earth. This is true whether the sun is 32 miles wide and 3000 miles away, or 1.4 x 10^9 m wide and 1.5 x 10^11 m away (I did the math myself).

(2) We can use spectral analysis to obtain the element composition of the sun. This way we know that it is 73% Hydrogen, 25% Helium, and small amounts of higher elements. Nuclear fusion is the only energy source available given those components.

(3) The notion that stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium which burn by nuclear fusion makes a prediction as to the luminosity vs colour vs size vs abundance of the stars. This prediction is observed in practise, forming what is called the main sequence. The sun's luminosity and colour (and in the RE model, angular size) are consistent with the main sequence, placing the sun as a type G2V star.

(4) The sun's spectrum is a near-perfect example of blackbody radiation. From this we can conclude a hot inner core that gradually transmits energy to higher layers. The blackbody spectrum also indicates a surface temperature of about 5,800 Kelvin. To produce this outer layer temperature, along with the near perfect blackbody radiation, the core must be relatively small, and produce very large amounts of energy, once again pointing toward nuclear energy. There are two types of nuclear energy: fusion and fision. Of these, only fusion is feasible given the sun's element composition.


This last point made me think of another inconsistency with the FE model: I find it very doubtful that a sphere only 32 miles wide would have such a good heat distribution as to make the near-perfect blackbody spectrum that we observe from the sun.


Finally, your decision to only read the rest of the post based only on the first sentence seems less than rational. An interested reader should at least read and consider the first few arguments before making such a statement.

The earth is flat. Get used to it.

If this is the limit of your ability to rebut the OP I'm impressed.

DanielC, well said.
You bring up some very interesting observations that can't be refuted.

Robosteve is a troll, ignore the little fucker like the plague!

We need a response from Tom Bishop, he is all knowing in the FE world.

(1) Nuclear fusion is the only energy source known that can produce enough energy to produce the incidence power of 14 kW/m^2 that we measure here on Earth. This is true whether the sun is 32 miles wide and 3000 miles away, or 1.4 x 10^9 m wide and 1.5 x 10^11 m away (I did the math myself).

Matter-antimatter annihilation would also be potent enough to produce that power.

(2) We can use spectral analysis to obtain the element composition of the sun. This way we know that it is 73% Hydrogen, 25% Helium, and small amounts of higher elements. Nuclear fusion is the only energy source available given those components.

Spectral analysis measures the Sun's chemical composition; in other words, it can only tell us the composition where every nucleus has its charge perfectly balanced by electrons. Since the process of nuclear fusion requires free nuclei, we cannot thereby determine the composition where fusion is taking place.

(3) The notion that stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium which burn by nuclear fusion makes a prediction as to the luminosity vs colour vs size vs abundance of the stars. This prediction is observed in practise, forming what is called the main sequence. The sun's luminosity and colour (and in the RE model, angular size) are consistent with the main sequence, placing the sun as a type G2V star.

I can't fault you on this point. Clearly you are better educated than the average new member, and I will now take the time to read your initial post.

(4) The sun's spectrum is a near-perfect example of blackbody radiation. From this we can conclude a hot inner core that gradually transmits energy to higher layers. The blackbody spectrum also indicates a surface temperature of about 5,800 Kelvin. To produce this outer layer temperature, along with the near perfect blackbody radiation, the core must be relatively small, and produce very large amounts of energy, once again pointing toward nuclear energy. There are two types of nuclear energy: fusion and fision. Of these, only fusion is feasible given the sun's element composition.

Again, matter-antimatter annihilation could do this job equally well.

This last point made me think of another inconsistency with the FE model: I find it very doubtful that a sphere only 32 miles wide would have such a good heat distribution as to make the near-perfect blackbody spectrum that we observe from the sun.

Wouldn't a smaller body have more even heat distribution than a larger one?

Finally, your decision to only read the rest of the post based only on the first sentence seems less than rational. An interested reader should at least read and consider the first few arguments before making such a statement.

You see, we get a lot of stupid trolls around here. Your post is very long and I didn't want to read it all only to find that you are one of them and I have wasted my time. For this reason, I decided to tackle a singular issue to begin with.

Robosteve, wouldn't matter-amtimatter reactions produce too much energy? Surely the frequency f=e/h  would be different in that reaction, because matter-antimatter reactions are 100% efficient, compared with the hydrogen fusion which is 0.7% efficient? By efficient I mean the percentage of mass converted into energy.

I will attempt to briefly cover all of these points now. If you would like more detail on a particular response, feel free to enquire.

* We can use trigonometry on a flat surface to calculate the distance to the Sun and verify that it is a lot more than 3000 miles. Perform the following experiment: Take two points 5.2 miles part. Call the points A and B. From point A, measure the angle between B and the sun. From point B, measure the angle from A to the sun. If the Sun is 3000 miles away, basic trigonometry tells us that there should be a difference of 0.1 degrees in the two measurements. This discrepancy is easily detectable with standard nautical or topographical equipment.

This would be a perfectly valid demonstration, if it could be shown that light travels in straight lines. Can you show this?

[listing all the flaws in the spotlight and hot/cold light theories]

I don't like the idea of spotlights and cold light either. Until recently, cold light was not a part of the FAQ, and I wish it had remained that way. I think the whole thing is better explained by the in-development EA theory, which describes a curved path for light rays.

The same parallax experiment explained in (1) also disproves this.

The fact that different stars are visible at different latitudes conflicts with the FE model. In a round earth, the earth obscures parts of the celestial sphere from different observers (you can't see Polaris from Australia, and you can't see the Southern Cross from Sweden). On a flat earth, the planet does not obscure different parts of the sky for different observers. Everybody gets the same sky.

The fact that during the course of the night the stars rotate around a point in the sky (e.g. Polaris) and this point moves up as one moves to greater latitudes also conflicts with the FE model.

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Edited to add: The FE model also fails to account for the fact that different stars are visible at different times in the year.
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The stars in the hubward circle rotate about the North Celestial Pole, while those in the rimward annulus rotate about three or more distinct South Celestial Poles. EA theory accounts for the visibility of only those nearby a particular location at any one time, which explains both the latitude issue and your point about the time of year.

4) FAQ says (on the topic of sunsets): "It's a perspective effect. Really, the sun is just getting farther away; it looks like it's disappearing because everything gets smaller, and eventually disappears as it gets farther away."

The sun does not get smaller during sunsets. The angular size of the sun can be easily measured (compare it to a dime held at arms length).

Again, EA theory provides a better explanation for this.

This dark energy requires justification and supporting evidence. It is entirely unlike the dark energy that astrophysicists know about (I have a degree in astrophysics). I suggest using a different name for this mysterious energy, lets it be confused with the dark energy used in astrophysics literature.

I would prefer a different name, too. But the term has been on this site longer than I have, I don't know who coined it, and frankly I think it's so firmly rooted in FET that we are stuck with it.

As far as evidence goes, the observed gravitational field combined with the equivalence principle is sufficient to show that something is causing an upward acceleration. In RET, this is easily explained by electrostatic repulsion; in FET, we refer to it as "dark energy".

Theories that predict that the laws of physics are different for Earth have a tendency to be wrong. They also defy Occam's razor and the mediocrity principle. Second, variations in Earth's gravitational field have been measured (e.g. gravity is a tad weaker in Canada) and are consistent with Earth being a round planet that generates a gravitational field just like all other objects. The gravitational field can also be measured through atomic clocks, since gravity makes time slow down, according to General Relativity. These experiments indicate that clocks run slower at sea level than on an air plane. This is consistent with Earth generating a gravitational field, and inconsistent with the lower perceived gravity being a result of celestial bodies exerting a gravitational influence.

Not all of us believe that the Earth does not warp spacetime. I feel that the downward pull we feel is a combination of gravitation and acceleration.

This is contradicted by experiments with atomic clocks. Time runs slower closer to the Earth. If the lower gravity was due to the celestial bodies exerting a gravitational pull, the clocks would not behave this way.

Sorry, but I have to point out an error here. Locally, there is a downward gravitational field; nobody can dispute that. The question is whether it is caused by the entire Earth accelerating up, or the Earth warping the surrounding spacetime. As you ascend, this gravitational field decreases in strength, whether due to a greater upward component from the stars or a weaker downward one from the Earth. Regardless of the fundamental cause, the local gravitational field is what creates the effect of time dilation.

This also requires explanation and supporting evidence. This must be a very magical sort of "energy" that makes air stay inside the FE. Calling it a "field" doesn't explain anything.

I subscribe to the "Greater Ice Wall" version of events. That is to say, I believe there is an enormous wall of ice, far beyond the Lesser Ice Wall (Antarctica), which retains the air.

This fails to explain why there are two tides per day and why they follow the moon and not the sun. The "sun-moon" thing is yet another unproven postulate to try to force the FE model to fit the evidence. When you keep adding unseen, unproven, and unprovable hypothesis to a model, that is a sign that the model is flawed.

Even if we allow the "sun-moon" object proposed in the FAQ, the FE model still fails to explain why the tides don't point to the moon, but seem to come a little bit behind it. In the RE model, Earth's rotation explains the gap between the moon's position and the tides.

The angular velocity of the moon as seen from Earth is the same whether the Earth is round or flat. There would be the same effect of the tides coming slightly behind the moon in either theory; the only thing that changes is whether it is the Earth or the Moon that is the most significant contributor to this motion.

If the sun is 3000 miles away and circles the equator, the incident light on the poles would be at 65 degrees. That is not nearly low enough to explain the temperatures at the poles. For comparison, the city of Orlando, Florida, gets incident light at 62 degrees. If you live in Canada or Europe, it is easy to see that the average sun position is at less than 45 degrees from the horizon. If you live in Sweden or Norway, the sun is even lower. At the north pole, the average incidence angle is zero. This contradicts the FE model.

This is another point that FE+EA explains much better than conventional FE. The initial publication for the EA theory should be ready in no less than three weeks.

Another undetectable object. How convenient... Anyways, this cannot work. During moon phases, part of the moon is entirely black. If it was a shadow, the moon would be inside the umbra, making the moon darker but not black, as in a lunar eclipse. Second, this explanation is inconsistent with the earlier claim that the moon is a spotlight. If the moon produces its own light, then the idea of casting a shadow on it makes no sense. Unless of course the moon is not a spotlight and its light is reflected, in which case you need to explain how it can reflect sun light if the sun is a spotlight and you need to explain why moon phases make some of the moon black, but lunar eclipses make it red.

Again, I don't think the Moon is a spotlight or even that it produces its own light. EA theory would predict that sunlight bends from the Sun to the Moon in an enormous arc; the dark part of the Moon is the part facing away from this stream of sunlight.

Air planes and airlines are much older than GPS. Even today, not all air planes use GPS. And for hundreds of years, ships have sailed the oceans using only stars and a round earth coordinate system to navigate around the oceans, including many trips around the southern hemisphere from Europe to Africa to India, to China and Australia.

I must agree, this is one of the biggest hurdles FET needs to overcome. I cannot properly explain the behaviour of the heavens in FET, and I won't attempt to until a comprehensive theory is developed.

This is flawed. Earth's magnetic pole does not coincide with the geographic north, and indeed, the magnetic poles are in constant movement. This is fine in a spherical earth, but more problematic in a cylindrical earth.

I don't see why.

This is a straw man argument. The Coriolis effect has many significant terrestrial effects a lot more important than flushing my toilet. The Coriolis effect has significant meteorological effects such as cyclones, air currents and ocean currents. Air tends to move toward low pressure regions, but not on a straight line. On a non-rotating frame of reference, air should move in the direction of the pressure gradient. Instead, large scale air movements are perpendicular to the pressure gradient. This is known as geostrophic flow. There are many other important terrestrial effects caused by the Coriolis effect. Please look up "Coriolis effect" in Wikipedia.

Earth's rotation (and the Coriolis effect) is also easy to demonstrate using a pendulum (look up Foucault's pendulum). I have done this experiment myself.

Earth's rotation is also easily observable on a clear night away from the tropics, when you can actually observe the stars rotating around a fixed point in the sky. You can see that the position of this point corresponds to your latitude, so that, for example, at the north and south poles, Polaris is directly above you, all the time, and the stars all rotate around it.

In FET, all this is caused by the stars rotating rather than the Earth. The Coriolis effect is the result of the gravitational influence of the stars.

Another unexplained phenomenon. And once again, one that doesn't solve anything. This hypothesis can begin to explain why the sun's angle changes during summer and winter, but it fails to explain why days are longer in summer and shorter in winter. This is also a good time to again point out that the spotlight model of the sun, as in the FE model, would mean that over the course of the year days are longer in the equator than at other latitudes, and that days are longer in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere. So the spotlight hypothesis contradicts observations.

I feel that the cause for this phenomenon is most likely electromagnetic, though cannot comprehensively describe it at this point. Also I don't think the impression of the Sun on the Earth is perfectly circular, leading to varying lengths of day and night.

I have personally met two people who have flown into space. One was an astronaut, the other a space tourist. Maybe the astronaut was lying to me when she showed me her pictures at MIR, but the space tourist is someone who has no reason to lie to me about his going to space and seeing the earth being round.

Can I just ask; did he simply travel a parabolic trajectory through the upper atmolayer, or did he actually claim to have gone into orbit? Also, what he saw was not the curvature of the Earth, but the distorted edge of the sunlit area on Earth, which would appear curved due to the curvature of the light rays between the Earth and his eyes (more distant light would have curved more, compressing the angle subtended more distant locations into what looks like a surface curving away from the observer).

Robosteve, wouldn't matter-amtimatter reactions produce too much energy? Surely the frequency f=e/h  would be different in that reaction, because matter-antimatter reactions are 100% efficient, compared with the hydrogen fusion which is 0.7% efficient? By efficient I mean the percentage of mass converted into energy.

The efficiency of a reaction has nothing to do with the rate of reaction.

Matter-antimatter annihilation would also be potent enough to produce that power.

(1) Matter-antimatter annihilation has a distinctive gamma ray signature which is not detected in the sun. (2) Astronomical observations similarly show that there are no detectable amounts of antimatter in the universe. (3) One has to wonder as to the origin of the antimatter. (4) Antimatter annihilation would not produce a stable, sustained heat output, instead it would produce an uncontrolled explosion. Fusion has a nice self-regulating property (the interplay between temperature, pressure and the rate of reaction) which makes the system stable over long periods of time. The same is not true for matter-antimatter annihilation.

Spectral analysis measures the Sun's chemical composition; in other words, it can only tell us the composition where every nucleus has its charge perfectly balanced by electrons. Since the process of nuclear fusion requires free nuclei, we cannot thereby determine the composition where fusion is taking place.

(1) That's not true. Spectral analysis has nothing to o with the nucleus having its charge balanced by electrons.  Spectral analysis works perfectly well on ionized gas, as long as some electrons are around. (2) Like all fluids with a heat gradient, plasma core mixes together with the other layers. If the core had a different composition, this would be
easily detectable. (3) For the sake of argument, let's suppose that the core really is made of different materials. How does that help FE? (a) The most potent energy source is nuclear fusion. (b) Other types of nuclear fusion than D+T -> He require even higher pressures and thus higher gravity. You will not help FE by arguing for a different energy source.

I can't fault you on this point. Clearly you are better educated than the average new member, and I will now take the time to read your initial post.

I cannot comment on the average education of members here. My education is an honours degree in mathematics and astrophysics, along with some post graduate work.

Wouldn't a smaller body have more even heat distribution than a larger one?

According to current literature (round earth, big sun), it takes about 10,000 years for a photon to travel from the core of the sun to the outer layer. This is because the photon is constantly bouncing around inside the sun. Often, it loses energy in the process. After 10,000 years of this, the photons that come out have an energy distribution that very closely matches the Planck curve. If the sun were much smaller, the photons would come out much sooner, and their energy distribution would deviate significantly from the Planck curve.

Again, I don't think the Moon is a spotlight or even that it produces its own light. EA theory would predict that sunlight bends from the Sun to the Moon in an enormous arc; the dark part of the Moon is the part facing away from this stream of sunlight.

Yes. EA theory predicts that a curvature of electromagnetic radiation is clearly observable in any case where the expected deviation from a straight line is greater than one wavelength of the ray in question.

Quote from: Robosteve on July 04, 2009, 05:40:49 AM

Quote from: julianmartin on July 04, 2009, 04:56:22 AM

If I knew WHAT light bended towards (i.e. what direction), it would make this hypothesis far easier to explain and/or draw.

Up.

It was only a couple of days ago that you were postulating that EA would cause light to bend 'up'.  Now you are suggesting that light from the sun is going to bend in an enormous arc to illuminate the moon. In FET the moon and the sun are on a plane so how does your theory that EA bends up suddenly become one that will allow the sun to illuminate the moon?    

This would be a perfectly valid demonstration, if it could be shown that light travels in straight lines. Can you show this?

(1) FE does not claim to contradict General Relativity, and indeed, GR is at times used in some arguments. GR requires that light beams travel along geodesics, which is the same thing as a straight line in a non-Eucledian space. Furthermore, in a very low gravitational field such as the one we experience, the deviation from Eucledian space is practically nil - many magnitudes smaller than what can be detected with standard nautical equipment, and far smaller than the effect I discuss. (2) Many experiments have demonstrated the validity of General Relativity to an incredible level of accuracy. Thus, GR is very trustworthy on the subject of the straightness of beams of light. (3) To have light not travel along straight lines would easily invalidate both theories of relativity. GR is too complex to learn in just a few hours, but you can learn Special Relativity, and you'll quickly see that having light rays that are not straight would quickly invalidate the theory and make its predictions very different. Since the predictions of SR have been thoroughly tested, we gain high confidence in the straightness of light beams.

I think the whole thing is better explained by the in-development EA theory, which describes a curved path for light rays.

Do the people working on "EA theory" have physics degrees? Physical theories are difficult to produce. It requires a lot of knowledge and experimentation to make a theory. Relativity took many years to develop, and many more to become accepted. I would recommend that the authors of EA make sure that it does not contradict GR.

The stars in the hubward circle rotate about the North Celestial Pole, while those in the rimward annulus rotate about three or more distinct South Celestial Poles. EA theory accounts for the visibility of only those nearby a particular location at any one time, which explains both the latitude issue and your point about the time of year.

(1) Since EA does not exist yet ("in development"), it cannot be claimed that it explains anything. (2) Your postulate reminds me of Ptolemy's epicycles. Adding more and more extra rings and motions to the celestial objects to force them to fit observation. (3) It is hard to disprove the extra-annuli idea since you do not explain how it works, and a key component ("EA theory") is missing. EA will have to bend light in really weird ways to make stars in the southern hemisphere look like they rotate around a point above the south pole which according to FE does not exist and is instead an Ice Wall. Furthermore, EA will have to show why light bends differently in the south vs the equator, vs the north.

I would prefer a different name, too. But the term has been on this site longer than I have, I don't know who coined it, and frankly I think it's so firmly rooted in FET that we are stuck with it.

Regardless of its name, it requires explanation, justification and evidence. The perception of gravity does not constitute evidence, since, as you said, it is easily explained using mainstream science (aka RE). An experiment that does not differentiate between two theories is not useful for distinguishing which theory is correct. Also, the FE notion of "dark energy" was invented to explain gravity. Thus, using gravity as evidence is circular thinking and unscientific. Dark energy also defies Occam's razor since it postulates a new unknown force while also postulating that the otherwise universal laws of physics do not apply to Earth.

Not all of us believe that the Earth does not warp spacetime. I feel that the downward pull we feel is a combination of gravitation and acceleration.

If the Earth does warp spacetime, then FE has a bigger problem. The Earth disk is not in hydrostatic equilibrium. The centre of gravity is at the north pole. All the fluids on the earth (air, water, magma) as well as lose objects (dirt, people, fish) should condense at the centre in a spherically symmetric form. Then the rigid forces of the remaining disk would have to be indeed very strong to resist the deforming effect of Earth's own gravitational pull. This is implausible, knowing the composition of Earth's mantle. Any object as large as Earth (even a thin, flat earth), if it produces gravity, will inevitably crumble into a mostly spherical shape until it reaches hydrostatic equilibrium. Thus, FE really requires an Earh that does not warp spacetime, which in turn is contradicted by the experiments I listed.

Sorry, but I have to point out an error here. Locally, there is a downward gravitational field; nobody can dispute that. The question is whether it is caused by the entire Earth accelerating up, or the Earth warping the surrounding spacetime. As you ascend, this gravitational field decreases in strength, whether due to a greater upward component from the stars or a weaker downward one from the Earth. Regardless of the fundamental cause, the local gravitational field is what creates the effect of time dilation.

If the acceleration is caused by a "dark energy" pushing the earth plate upwards, the acceleration cannot decrease with altitude. Think about that for a minute. If the tip of mount Everest is accelerating upwards at a lower rate than sea level, eventually sea level would catch up with the tip of mount Everest. A simple calculation shows that the tip of mount Everest should be accelerating at 0.0265 m/s^2 less than sea level. At that rate, it would take just under 13 minutes for sea level to catch up to the Everest. Therefore, if the gravitational field we perceived is caused by a form of energy pushing a rigid object, the field must be constant, and it isn't. I suspect that some FE'r realized this and hence postulated that the lower perceived gravity was due to the gravitational attraction of celestial objects.

I subscribe to the "Greater Ice Wall" version of events. That is to say, I believe there is an enormous wall of ice, far beyond the Lesser Ice Wall (Antarctica), which retains the air.

This wall would have to be several hundred kilometres high in order to retain the air on earth. But no rigid structure can be that high on a 9.8m/s^2 gravitational field unless its stiffness to weight ratio is far beyond any material known. Thus, the Greater Ice Wall postulate also requires an unexplained, semi-magical concept that requires explanation and evidence.

The angular velocity of the moon as seen from Earth is the same whether the Earth is round or flat.

This has nothing to do with why the tides trail behind the moon. The problem is not that the moon has an angular velocity. The problem is that the water has angular momentum, which would not be present in a non-rotating earth. There is a real difference between a rotating and non-rotating frame of reference. It is not merely a matter of perspective.

Again, I don't think the Moon is a spotlight or even that it produces its own light. EA theory would predict that sunlight bends from the Sun to the Moon in an enormous arc; the dark part of the Moon is the part facing away from this stream of sunlight.

EA is getting really other-worldly. I hope no one forgets to write down the mechanisms through which this impressive light arch feature works. I hope they also compare it with GR and run it through Occam's razor.

I must agree, this is one of the biggest hurdles FET needs to overcome. I cannot properly explain the behaviour of the heavens in FET, and I won't attempt to until a comprehensive theory is developed.

Ok.

Quote from: DanielC

This is flawed. Earth's magnetic pole does not coincide with the geographic north, and indeed, the magnetic poles are in constant movement. This is fine in a spherical earth, but more problematic in a cylindrical earth.

I don't see why.

First, the dynamo effect requires a convecting, electrically conducting fluid. Otherwise, the magnetic field would decay after only 20k years. The convection currents emanating from a hot core are more difficult to attain as you deviate more from a spherical shape. The Coriolis effect also plays a role that I do not fully understand. Dynamo theory is a complex subject, even for a trained physicist. So rather than go into much detail here, I'll point you to this paper which I think is a good introduction to the subject. After reading that paper you will see that offering an alternative explanation of earth's magnetic fields is a very non-trivial challenge for FE.

In FET, all this is caused by the stars rotating rather than the Earth. The Coriolis effect is the result of the gravitational influence of the stars.

(1) What makes you think that the Coriolis effect can be caused by the gravitational influence of stars? That makes no sense. They are totally different behaviours. Star gravitation points upward, and the Coriolis effect is rotational. You will need to justify how gravity from stars can cause the Coriolis effect.

(2) You need to justify that stars rotating can cause the effect we see. Why is it that there are two points in the sky around which the stars rotate while they sink into the horizon? You'll have to make light bend in really weird ways to reproduce this effect.

I feel that the cause for this phenomenon is most likely electromagnetic, though cannot comprehensively describe it at this point. Also I don't think the impression of the Sun on the Earth is perfectly circular, leading to varying lengths of day and night.

The light impression would have to be *conical*, emanating radially outwards from the north pole. How does the spotlight do that? Furthermore, even a conical image would conflict with seasons. You need a way to make the cone fatter in one hemisphere while making it thinner at the other, and then reverse them. Having the sun simply move between the tropics does not accomplish this by a long shot.

Can I just ask; did he simply travel a parabolic trajectory through the upper atmolayer, or did he actually claim to have gone into orbit?

Orbit. Mir space station. Several days. Nothing that could be done with a parabolic orbit.

Also, what he saw was not the curvature of the Earth, but the distorted edge of the sunlit area on Earth,

You can see the earth rotate, and the station itself orbits the earth.

which would appear curved due to the curvature of the light rays between the Earth and his eyes (more distant light would have curved more, compressing the angle subtended more distant locations into what looks like a surface curving away from the observer).

You need to propose a mechanism through which light is curved in all these magical ways.

Quote from: Redingold on July 05, 2009, 07:45:41 AM

Robosteve, wouldn't matter-amtimatter reactions produce too much energy? Surely the frequency f=e/h  would be different in that reaction, because matter-antimatter reactions are 100% efficient, compared with the hydrogen fusion which is 0.7% efficient? By efficient I mean the percentage of mass converted into energy.

The efficiency of a reaction has nothing to do with the rate of reaction.

No, it doesn't. But the energy given off by said reaction most certainly affects it's frequency. Frequency has nothing to do with rate of reaction.

I would like to make a list of phenomena which "EA theory" with its bendy light is intended to produce. I would be grateful if other members could add to this list. This is what I have so far. EA must produce light which bends in such a way as to produce the following effects:

1) Make the earth look round when you go to space. That means that it must make distances appear different, so that an Eucledian plane looks like a sphere. Longitude lines which are radial on the flat disk, must be curved to be made to look like spherical longitude lines. Furthermore, after the equator, the lines must begin to converge, so that the entire ice wall looks like a point.

2) It must make daylight average out to 12 hours, everywhere on earth.

3) It must make the length of day vary between seasons, in a way that exactly matches what would be expected in a spherical earth with an inclination of 23 degrees.

4) It must cause the observed angle of incident light be drastically altered, so that near the poles the light seems to be incident at almost zero degrees. Furthermore, the light incidence angle must vary linearly with "latitude", even though the concept of latitude does not exist on a flat surface.

5) It must bend around, doing a U-turn, in order to iluminate the moon. It must do additional complex turns in order to cause the observed phases of the moon.

6) It must bend star light in order to create the illusion of a rotating celestial sphere. This includes creating the illusion that the stars rotate both around the north pole, as well as the non-existent south pole which is in fact a large circle surrounding the entire earth (the ice wall). It must create the opitcal illusion that this huge, all-surrounding circle is actually a point, around which stars rotate.

7) It makes the sun look as if it is sinking on the horizon, rather than getting smaller, or looking like an oval, as a normal spotlight would.

Did I miss anything? Personally I think this will be a tall order for EA. I cannot imagine any form of light bending that would conspire in such a weirdly complex way to do nothing more than create the illusion of a round, rotating earth. Especially if this proposal is to be consistent with General Relativity and physics as we know it.

I'm sure I've missed a few things that the EA postulate is supposed to solve. Can anyone suggest a few more? I'm sure that the FE researchers will be happy to see a full list of phenomena that their model is required to solve.

The stars in the hubward circle rotate about the North Celestial Pole, while those in the rimward annulus rotate about three or more distinct South Celestial Poles. EA theory accounts for the visibility of only those nearby a particular location at any one time, which explains both the latitude issue and your point about the time of year.

If there are multiple Southern Celestial Poles ...

How come those Poles are always observed to be due South?

Any Southern Celestial Pole would have to sit above a definite point on The Flat Earth ...

Which could not lie due south from all observation points at all longitudes.

Here is a diagram illustrating this point:



------------------------------

Edit - oops, already covered:

6) It must bend star light in order to create the illusion of a rotating celestial sphere. This includes creating the illusion that the stars rotate both around the north pole, as well as the non-existent south pole which is in fact a large circle surrounding the entire earth (the ice wall). It must create the opitcal illusion that this huge, all-surrounding circle is actually a point, around which stars rotate.
I'm sure I've missed a few things that the EA postulate is supposed to solve. Can anyone suggest a few more? I'm sure that the FE researchers will be happy to see a full list of phenomena that their model is required to solve.

(I'm a lazy reader!)

I suppose my diagram shows that light would have to bend horizontally as well as vertically to make the star-trails perfectly circular.

Did I miss anything? Personally I think this will be a tall order for EA. I cannot imagine any form of light bending that would conspire in such a weirdly complex way to do nothing more than create the illusion of a round, rotating earth. Especially if this proposal is to be consistent with General Relativity and physics as we know it.

They already have concocted formula and some graphs - http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=27958.msg661776#msg661776
 Also in same topic I tried to clarify why there is shadow are near the ground and sunlight couple a meters above you when sun sets. The spotlight wouldn't get such situations so the EA must starting bend light upward at sunset an that it's bending strength depends how far sun is or the strength of the light. If it is above your head then it can't bend light but if sun moves away then at some point EA starts bending light away from ground so that light doesn't reach to the ground anymore but still reaches to the point of the building some meter-two above your head.

Quote from: DanielC on July 05, 2009, 05:06:04 AM

(1) Nuclear fusion is the only energy source known that can produce enough energy to produce the incidence power of 14 kW/m^2 that we measure here on Earth. This is true whether the sun is 32 miles wide and 3000 miles away, or 1.4 x 10^9 m wide and 1.5 x 10^11 m away (I did the math myself).

Matter-antimatter annihilation would also be potent enough to produce that power.

 Robosteve, where is your argument that sun can't run on nuclear fusion because sustained nuclear fusion has not been yet experimentally verified? And stars are balls of dust heated by the Sun because, quoting you - a phenomenon which, unlike nuclear fusion, has been proven to be a viable method of producing light in laboratories on Earth.

1) FAQ says: "The sun and moon, each 32 miles in diameter, rotate at a height of 3000 miles above sea level."

* If the sun was 32 miles in diameter, it would not have enough gravity to sustain nuclear fusion (AFAIK the FE model does not dispute General Relativity).

* We can use trigonometry on a flat surface to calculate the distance to the Sun and verify that it is a lot more than 3000 miles. Perform the following experiment: Take two points 5.2 miles part. Call the points A and B. From point A, measure the angle between B and the sun. From point B, measure the angle from A to the sun. If the Sun is 3000 miles away, basic trigonometry tells us that there should be a difference of 0.1 degrees in the two measurements. This discrepancy is easily detectable with standard nautical or topographical equipment.

2) FAQ says: "Each functions similar to a 'spotlight,'"

Light sources do not behave like a spotlight. A spotlight behaves the way it does because humans put the light source inside a container that purposely blocks light going in other directions and usually also reflects it in the desired direction. To suppose that the sun and moon behave like spotlights, requires the assumption of similar containers designed to block light going in other directions.

The spotlight hypothesis is demonstrably false. When you get further away from a spotlight that is not pointing directly at you, you don't see a round spotlight sink on the horizon. What you see is the circular light become oval shaped, with the oval getting thinner until no light is visible. This is not what we observe in the real world. Hence, the sun and moon are not spotlights.

The spotlight hypothesis is also contradicted by eclipses. If the moon was a spotlight, during a solar eclipse we would see the moon as usual, rather than a black circle. The reason we see a black circle is that the moon produces no light of its own.

The spotlight hypothesis is also contradicted by lunar eclipses. Why does the moon change colour and then go dark at precisely the points that RE theory says that the moon enters the penumbra and umbra?

If the sun-spotlight is hovering around the equator as in the FE model, that would mean that days are longer in the equator than in other latitudes, and that days are longer in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. We know both ideas to be false. Furthermore, the southern hemisphere would get less over-all sunlight, making it much colder than the northern hemisphere.

If the sun hovers above the equator in the way described by the FE model, then an observer on the equator would see the sun make an arc across the sky. This is not what we observe. A person on the equator sees the sun go straight up, to the zenith and then straight down. In higher latitudes you see the sun roll across the horizon a bit more (I have lived both next to the equator, and at high latitudes). This observation contradicts the FE model.

----
Edited to add: Another problem with the FE model is that it does not explain through which mechanism the moon is supposed to be a light source for "cold light". Furthermore, if you grab an amateur telescope and point it at the moon, you will see surface features like craters. These are visible because they cast a shadow. How can they cast a shadow if the moon itself is the light source? Finally, any amateur astronomer knows that the best place to aim your telescope is near the edge between the light and dark sides of the moon, because that is where the shadows are biggest (making surface features more visible). How is this possible if the moon itself is the light source?
----

3) FAQ says: "The stars are at a height of 3100 miles above sea level, which is as far as from San Francisco to Boston."

The same parallax experiment explained in (1) also disproves this.

The fact that different stars are visible at different latitudes conflicts with the FE model. In a round earth, the earth obscures parts of the celestial sphere from different observers (you can't see Polaris from Australia, and you can't see the Southern Cross from Sweden). On a flat earth, the planet does not obscure different parts of the sky for different observers. Everybody gets the same sky.

The fact that during the course of the night the stars rotate around a point in the sky (e.g. Polaris) and this point moves up as one moves to greater latitudes also conflicts with the FE model.

-----------
Edited to add: The FE model also fails to account for the fact that different stars are visible at different times in the year.
-----------

4) FAQ says (on the topic of sunsets): "It's a perspective effect. Really, the sun is just getting farther away; it looks like it's disappearing because everything gets smaller, and eventually disappears as it gets farther away."

The sun does not get smaller during sunsets. The angular size of the sun can be easily measured (compare it to a dime held at arms length).

5) FAQ says: "Dark Energy accelerates the Earth and all celestial bodies in the universe at 9.8m/s^2"

This dark energy requires justification and supporting evidence. It is entirely unlike the dark energy that astrophysicists know about (I have a degree in astrophysics). I suggest using a different name for this mysterious energy, lets it be confused with the dark energy used in astrophysics literature.

6) FAQ says: "FE assumes that the Earth does not generate a gravitational field."

Theories that predict that the laws of physics are different for Earth have a tendency to be wrong. They also defy Occam's razor and the mediocrity principle. Second, variations in Earth's gravitational field have been measured (e.g. gravity is a tad weaker in Canada) and are consistent with Earth being a round planet that generates a gravitational field just like all other objects. The gravitational field can also be measured through atomic clocks, since gravity makes time slow down, according to General Relativity. These experiments indicate that clocks run slower at sea level than on an air plane. This is consistent with Earth generating a gravitational field, and inconsistent with the lower perceived gravity being a result of celestial bodies exerting a gravitational influence.

7) FAQ says: [gravity varies with altitude because] "The celestial bodies have a slight gravitational pull."

This is contradicted by experiments with atomic clocks. Time runs slower closer to the Earth. If the lower gravity was due to the celestial bodies exerting a gravitational pull, the clocks would not behave this way.

FAQ says: "There is a field created during the interaction between Dark Energy and the Earth. This is known as the Dark Energy Field, and it acts as a containment to prevent DE from affecting the objects on Earth. This explains why the atmosphere will not be diffused into space"

This also requires explanation and supporting evidence. This must be a very magical sort of "energy" that makes air stay inside the FE. Calling it a "field" doesn't explain anything.

9) FAQ says: "The gravitational pull of the celestial bodies provide tidal effects."

This fails to explain why there are two tides per day and why they follow the moon and not the sun. The "sun-moon" thing is yet another unproven postulate to try to force the FE model to fit the evidence. When you keep adding unseen, unproven, and unprovable hypothesis to a model, that is a sign that the model is flawed.

Even if we allow the "sun-moon" object proposed in the FAQ, the FE model still fails to explain why the tides don't point to the moon, but seem to come a little bit behind it. In the RE model, Earth's rotation explains the gap between the moon's position and the tides.

10) FAQ says: "The sun circles over the equator, thus the poles don't receive the same intensity of light."

If the sun is 3000 miles away and circles the equator, the incident light on the poles would be at 65 degrees. That is not nearly low enough to explain the temperatures at the poles. For comparison, the city of Orlando, Florida, gets incident light at 62 degrees. If you live in Canada or Europe, it is easy to see that the average sun position is at less than 45 degrees from the horizon. If you live in Sweden or Norway, the sun is even lower. At the north pole, the average incidence angle is zero. This contradicts the FE model.

11) FAQ says: "An undetectable celestial body, known as the antimoon, passes between the sun and moon. This projects a shadow upon the moon [causing lunar eclipses and moon phases]."

Another undetectable object. How convenient... Anyways, this cannot work. During moon phases, part of the moon is entirely black. If it was a shadow, the moon would be inside the umbra, making the moon darker but not black, as in a lunar eclipse. Second, this explanation is inconsistent with the earlier claim that the moon is a spotlight. If the moon produces its own light, then the idea of casting a shadow on it makes no sense. Unless of course the moon is not a spotlight and its light is reflected, in which case you need to explain how it can reflect sun light if the sun is a spotlight and you need to explain why moon phases make some of the moon black, but lunar eclipses make it red.

12) FAQ says: "The airline pilots are guided by their GPS."

Air planes and airlines are much older than GPS. Even today, not all air planes use GPS. And for hundreds of years, ships have sailed the oceans using only stars and a round earth coordinate system to navigate around the oceans, including many trips around the southern hemisphere from Europe to Africa to India, to China and Australia.


13) FAQ says: "The magnetic field is generated in the same fashion as with the RE (Diagram)."

This is flawed. Earth's magnetic pole does not coincide with the geographic north, and indeed, the magnetic poles are in constant movement. This is fine in a spherical earth, but more problematic in a cylindrical earth.

14) FAQ says: [flushing toilet] "On a round Earth, the Coriolis effect adds at most one (counter)clockwise rotation per day."

This is a straw man argument. The Coriolis effect has many significant terrestrial effects a lot more important than flushing my toilet. The Coriolis effect has significant meteorological effects such as cyclones, air currents and ocean currents. Air tends to move toward low pressure regions, but not on a straight line. On a non-rotating frame of reference, air should move in the direction of the pressure gradient. Instead, large scale air movements are perpendicular to the pressure gradient. This is known as geostrophic flow. There are many other important terrestrial effects caused by the Coriolis effect. Please look up "Coriolis effect" in Wikipedia.

Earth's rotation (and the Coriolis effect) is also easy to demonstrate using a pendulum (look up Foucault's pendulum). I have done this experiment myself.

Earth's rotation is also easily observable on a clear night away from the tropics, when you can actually observe the stars rotating around a fixed point in the sky. You can see that the position of this point corresponds to your latitude, so that, for example, at the north and south poles, Polaris is directly above you, all the time, and the stars all rotate around it.

15) FAQ says: [seasons] "The radius of the sun's orbit around the Earth's axis symmetry varies throughout the year, being smallest when summer is in the northern annulus and largest when it is summer in the southern annulus."

Another unexplained phenomenon. And once again, one that doesn't solve anything. This hypothesis can begin to explain why the sun's angle changes during summer and winter, but it fails to explain why days are longer in summer and shorter in winter. This is also a good time to again point out that the spotlight model of the sun, as in the FE model, would mean that over the course of the year days are longer in the equator than at other latitudes, and that days are longer in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere. So the spotlight hypothesis contradicts observations.

16) FAQ says: "NASA and the rest of the world's space agencies who claim to have been to space are involved in a Conspiracy to keep the shape of the Earth hidden.  The pictures are faked using simple imaging software."

I have personally met two people who have flown into space. One was an astronaut, the other a space tourist. Maybe the astronaut was lying to me when she showed me her pictures at MIR, but the space tourist is someone who has no reason to lie to me about his going to space and seeing the earth being round.

Wonderful. A true demonstration of science, proving FET is nothing but a childish concept. Nice going 

Excellent thread!  Every attempt, so far, by FE'ers to counter your arguments has only succeeded in making themselves look all the more foolish and scientifically illiterate!  I suppose that they may realize that, and that may be why they have stopped trying.

Congratulations!  Great win for RE, though far from the only win I have observed on this site.

Excellent thread!  Every attempt, so far, by FE'ers to counter your arguments has only succeeded in making themselves look all the more foolish and scientifically illiterate!  I suppose that they may realize that, and that may be why they have stopped trying.

Congratulations!  Great win for RE, though far from the only win I have observed on this site.

Thanks for bringing that fresh perspective on the debate.

If there are multiple Southern Celestial Poles ...
How come those Poles are always observed to be due South?
Any Southern Celestial Pole would have to sit above a definite point on The Flat Earth ...
Which could not lie due south from all observation points at all longitudes.

Here is another diagram illustrating this point:

This should help:

Thanks to Johannes Kepler for that illustration and to 3 Tesla for bringing it to our attention again.  I can't imagine a clearer or more devastating refutation of the FE'ers' lame attempts to explain how there can be a south celestial pole in FET!

Quote from: 3 Tesla on July 05, 2009, 01:16:45 PM

If there are multiple Southern Celestial Poles ...
How come those Poles are always observed to be due South?
Any Southern Celestial Pole would have to sit above a definite point on The Flat Earth ...
Which could not lie due south from all observation points at all longitudes.

Here is another diagram illustrating this point:

Quote from: Johannes Kepler on January 01, 2009, 01:58:58 AM

This should help:

Any Flat Earthers out there who can explain why The Southern Celestial Pole(s) is (are) always reported as being due south?

DanielC is my hero.

This...is...impossible

A REer whose arguments are based on sound science, and replies with even more science?

I agree with Sentient Pizza:  DanielC, you are an hero to the REers!

I would like to make a list of phenomena which "EA theory" with its bendy light is intended to produce. I would be grateful if other members could add to this list. This is what I have so far. EA must produce light which bends in such a way as to produce the following effects:

Your excellent list did miss one decisive aspect: light must do all of those amazing tricks while keeping the brightness just right.

On a flat Earth with a 3000 mile high Sun light travels a path three times longer at mid afternoon than at noon, and it gets even longer at dusk. That means that light disperses to an area more than 9 times as big, and therefore is 9 times less bright. Any photographer can tell you that while there is a small difference in the brightness of the sunlight between noon and mid afternoon, it is nowhere near the nine times (3 F-stops) predicted by the "bendy light" schemes described in this forum. In fact, a cloudless noon and a cloudless mid-afternoon have exactly the same brightness, as far as a photographer can measure.

The other big hurdle that makes this whole hypothesis akin to magic is that there is that space and the atmosphere above us should be so anisotropic that they can bend light in very complex three dimensional curves without a single telltale sign.