Does the Earth Rotate? by William Edgell

I've tracked down an online copy of Does the Earth Rotate? by William Edgell thanks to the assistance of a man named Alfred Armstrong at Odd Books. For some reason there's a horrible typo in the title of the book ('Dose' instead of 'Does', and I have two images of two different covers so I know it is a typo) as it's not a scan, but aside from that it seems to be accurate:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080122142029/http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/dTeR/doesTheEarthRotate.html


Unfortunately this web version does not contain the illustrations from the book, though it does have descriptions of them.

I've tracked down an online copy of Does the Earth Rotate? by William Edgell thanks to the assistance of a man named Alfred Armstrong at Odd Books. For some reason there's a horrible typo in the title of the book ('Dose' instead of 'Does', and I have two images of two different covers so I know it is a typo) as it's not a scan, but aside from that it seems to be accurate:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080122142029/http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/dTeR/doesTheEarthRotate.html


Unfortunately this web version does not contain the illustrations from the book, though it does have decriptions of them.

Surely you don't take Edgell's book seriously, do you?  I agree, though, that it was a very amusing read--perhapas even more hilarious than Rowbothams's book!  Did you read the whole thing?  Can you really fail to see the extreme ludicrousness of his arguments?

Great find. It's good to see that more and more of the Flat Earth Literature is coming online.

Great find. It's good to see that more and more of the Flat Earth Literature is coming online.

It's hard to see how this 'great find' will help to further your cause though isn't it.

Personally I'd like a copy on my bookshelf but my motives are different I'm sure.

This book is truly a great example of the methods of the typical FE theorist:

• We are moving at so many kilometers per second and Polaris stays in the same place! Unimaginable! Preposterous!
• I have put a tube in my own garden, pointed to Polaris. I am seeing Polaris, I, me, by myself, and I see it is not moving! And the tube is 7 feet long!
• How come the Foucault Pendulum does what it does and not what I think it should? How dare you? (or it, or that, whatever). It does not do what I want, therefore it has to be a scam, must be in error, or just does not make sense. Therefore it somehow validates my position (whatever my position is).

The book mentions a lot of numbers (a real improvement over the typical FE'r) but follows no argument at all to a mathematical conclusion. It just says "this can't be right" a lot of times.

Now, the astonishing bad grammar and bad spelling makes us ask where this book was edited and printed. Or when, for that matter. Is this a new book being passed as a 1920's book? Was it printed at all, or just posted on the Internet? One has to wonder...

The book was published, but as this is not a scan, and was in fact transcribed by the people on this website, there appear to be spelling errors which were not in the book. The title is a case in point- I have images of the book's cover (you can even see one if you follow the link I posted to oddbooks), and it is clearly not spelled "Dose The Earth Rotate?", so it's clear to me that in all probability most of the mistakes are due to the transcribing process.

. . .  so it's clear to me that in all probability most of the mistakes are due to the transcribing process.

It would have been nice if they could have got some of the content right or are you just commenting on the spelling mistakes?

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on July 11, 2009, 04:50:32 PM

. . .  so it's clear to me that in all probability most of the mistakes are due to the transcribing process.

It would have been nice if they could have got some of the content right or are you just commenting on the spelling mistakes?

Just the spelling mistakes. I don't have a copy of the original book, so I can't verify the content, but I imagine it's the same.

It's a shame that they didn't include scans of the illustrations.  Even so, I think that Edgell is more full of fail than Rowbotham.

I've been in contact with a man who has a 1919 edition of Does the Earth Rotate?, and he's promised to try and scan a copy for the society at some point in the future. He hasn't got around to it yet, but he has scanned the cover for me:

I don't think the idea of a fixed earth is preposterous. Exactly how would you verify that the earth itself is rotating, rather than the universe rotating around it?  There is no absolute frame of reference, and we know that the motions of all objects in the universe are relative, so it would depend entirely on your frame of reference.  Relativity at its best.

The mathematics and physical observations would be the same in either case, so I suppose it would boil down to your own preconceived notions as to which one you'd prefer.  Clearly neither are proven as definitive, so both must be held as viable options until (or unless) we are able to take a more absolute perspective of the universe as a whole.

Well, Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham is really the definitive FE text, so that should be the first thing you check out. Most of the other books by FE'ers borrow heavily from his work, so it really is the best place to start. I've also read Does the Earth Rotate? and Zetetic Cosmogeny, and whilst interesting, I don't feel they have a lot to say beyond Rowbotham's original ideas.


An excellent book to read in conjunction with Earth Not a Globe is Christine Garwood's Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea. Though it suffers from bias due to Garwood's globularist sympathies, it is nonetheless a well researched and detailed account of the history of FET, and is especially useful for its account of the Universal Zetetic Society and the debates which took place at the time.


Beyond that, James tells me that David Wardlaw Scott's Terra Firma 1901 is very good (though I haven't read it myself).

Thanks for the references, Lord Wilmore!

No problem.


I've deleted those posts. To those who made them: this board is not for debate, and we don't need people memberating. Thanks.

looks like a really nice book are you going to upload the illustrations? I know that can be a lot of work though 

OMG epic fail:

Talking about that earth moves 18 miles per second due to its rotation:

"The diagram on the next page depicts an airman bombing a building from his aeroplane at a great altitude. This is another illustration of the unreasonable theory of a rotating globular Earth. Readers will remember it takes about ten seconds for the bomb to reach the building from the aeroplane one mile up. Multiply eighteen miles by ten and it will give you the distance which the house will have travelled with the Earth according to Astronomers, as readers will observe, the bomb would pitch 180 miles distant from the house. Is the rotation theory compatible with reason?"

None words needed. I can't stop laughing.

OMG epic fail:

Talking about that earth moves 18 miles per second due to its rotation:

"The diagram on the next page depicts an airman bombing a building from his aeroplane at a great altitude. This is another illustration of the unreasonable theory of a rotating globular Earth. Readers will remember it takes about ten seconds for the bomb to reach the building from the aeroplane one mile up. Multiply eighteen miles by ten and it will give you the distance which the house will have travelled with the Earth according to Astronomers, as readers will observe, the bomb would pitch 180 miles distant from the house. Is the rotation theory compatible with reason?"

None words needed. I can't stop laughing.

Is that really what the book says? Wow, because the plane is standing still in relation to the earth underneath it amirite? If that is true it is yet another example of a FE#er destroying his/her own credebility

I've been in contact with a man who has a 1919 edition of Does the Earth Rotate?, and he's promised to try and scan a copy for the society at some point in the future. He hasn't got around to it yet, but he has scanned the cover for me:

Hi there, just a shot in the dark. Is there any chance you got those scans? Is there a way to contact the book owner? I would really love to see the entire book.

I've been in contact with a man who has a 1919 edition of Does the Earth Rotate?, and he's promised to try and scan a copy for the society at some point in the future. He hasn't got around to it yet, but he has scanned the cover for me:

Is there a way to get in contact with the owner of the book? Have you had the chance to speak with him or can he be reached by other ways?