Illumination of the Earth

I propose that roughly half the Earth is illuminated at any given time. If this is true it contradicts the FET position that the Sun is orbiting in a circle above the Earth, since this would naturally result in a circular area of illumination.

I propose a that each person state their location to the greatest level of accuracy they feel comfortable with, and we organize a mass posting of the current level of brightness, as well as a picture with some kind of time stamp.

If we are successful at getting a large coordinated posting we should have a better idea of the illumination of the Earth. Such observations would be help to distinguish between the various possible theories in FET such the sky mirror, the Jerusalem centered map, the height of the sun, and the existence or necessity of bendy light. Such a test could also add validity to the existing scientific norm, RET.

Discuss.

Count me in. If it helps I can make other astronomical obs as well.

I'm in. We should decide a time and date for everyone to state the brightness on.

I'm in. I'm sure my location will be of use to you. (Wellington, NZ)

I was actually thinking about this last night. An Antarctic summer will not work in FET.

I'm in the UK, on the south coast.

Norway, west-coast...almost most westerly point. (62'5" latitude) 

What we really need are some Australians, South Africans and South Americans

Indeed. We need to convince Parsifal, as I believe he lives somewhere in Australia.

I reside in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I think a crucial part will be arranging it to minimize the number of people needing to be awake at like 3am, and also being careful about DST.

In a week I won't have any classes for 2 weeks (Olympics are coming to UBC!), so it might be a good time to conduct some experiments.

actually, would it not be easier to use something like a sunset/sunrise calculator (which are pretty damn accurate)? I admit this seems more fun, getting everyone in on it, but we could easily hypothesise the amount of sunlight at any given time in any part of the world

Ahh but the sunrise calculator could be a tool of the conspiracy no?

Then why not figures of yesterday? Pictures are easier anyway. Go ahead

I suppose you are right, the sunrise times from yesterday should be rather indisputable. We would simply need people to verify when the sunrise/set actually occurred and compare it to the prediction.

But as you said, this sounds less fun.

Indeed. We need to convince Parsifal, as I believe he lives somewhere in Australia.

He'd just lie, because he would think it was funny to f*ck it up for us.

To be honest if flight times from Sydney to South America in a sub-sonic aircraft don't to the job im not sure observations of where its light are going to have much effect.

Quote from: ERTW on January 29, 2010, 04:45:13 PM

Indeed. We need to convince Parsifal, as I believe he lives somewhere in Australia.

He'd just lie, because he would think it was funny to f*ck it up for us.

I wouldn't attack Parsifal like that on the Debate forums, since he contributes quite a bit to discussions (at least he is there to argue with). He may be a DA, but I don't think he is a liar. From reading his posts he usually qualifies his statements pretty well.

What parsifal does or does not post is irrelevant.

I invite Tom to post in this thread what he would consider as evidence that half the Earth is lit up, since I am primarily attempting this because of his challenge. Perhaps we can come to some kind of agreement as to what would constitute a successful test.

I also just found this website http://www.die.net/earth/rectangular.html which raises many of it's own questions (cloud images seem too large to be taken from low altitude) but let's not get off topic. I can vouch for the current light situation - the sun just set literally 10-20 minutes ago here.

So far we have New Zealand, Western Canada, Norway, and the UK.

Would it also be helpful if everyone took their photo from an equator oriented direction? IE, southern hemisphere-ites take the photo facing north, Northern hemisphere take it facing south? This way we can see the direction/angle the sun is in the sky

Sounds good, I am sure everyone can get their hands on a compass.

Would a picture from Austin, TX help?

Would a picture from Austin, TX help?

Yes of course.

Then I'm in!

I'm also from Vancouver, BC, so my contribution would not add anything.  I would also like to take offense to TD's comments about Parsifal, I don't think he would lie about such things, and I don't know that he's ever lied on the serious fora.

Also:

that diagram makes less sense about a FE. But still, let's not get into that.

I would also like to take offense to TD's comments about Parsifal, I don't think he would lie about such things, and I don't know that he's ever lied on the serious fora.

Good grief man, have you ever read any things he's posted? 90% of his post "content" is made up rubbish designed to slow down proper debate while we try to understand his poorly explained nonsense. And the rest of it is him saying "irrelevant" to everything.

Keep it on topic guys, I shouldn't have to be saying this so often. I am going to have to start getting stricter in Flat Earth Debate if people keep starting and pursuing tangential discussions which do not directly pertain to the OP.

I'm also from Vancouver, BC, so my contribution would not add anything.  I would also like to take offense to TD's comments about Parsifal, I don't think he would lie about such things, and I don't know that he's ever lied on the serious fora.

Also:

I love these .gifs, but what mechanism would make the sunlight shine in that way?

This is an exercise in futility. We all know that the widely available information we see in the animation above is essentially accurate and each of us has experienced what that animation shows in our daily lives, but the most we will get from Tom et al. is signs of disbelief.

I have already proposed a simple experiment that requires little more than a compass and a watch and it was totally disregarded by the FE theorists, who know that doing experiments is the worst possible thing to do for this Society.

If everything else fails, they will call everyone who participates a liar.