A Little Help Please?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I have yet to see proof that the earth is flat.  All that happens here is a bunch of disproofs of RE ideas which, while interesting, aren't really proof.  Did I miss something, or is the proof some kind of closely guarded secret.  Again, I'm not asking for a huge explanation.  Just the basic reasoning that formed the FE theory.

They have very few attempted disproofs of RE ideas, for that matter. Most of their arguments are merely attempts to explain things with FE that RE already explains- they almost never point out any possible things RE doesn't explain. Not only does FE not explain things better than RE, it doesn't even explain many things as well. Even if it did explain everything equally well, it still would not hold up- because unlike RE, in which everything follows, FE has to infer the existence of countless never-observed objects and mechanisms, as well as a massive global conspiracy.

"to see proof that the earth is flat"

just look outside

"to see proof that the earth is flat"

just look outside

Just like when I drive in a car, everything else is moving around me and I'm staying in the same spot, right?

And dysfunction, I don't care about how they disprove RE proofs.  That is not important at this stage.  I want to here some kind of proof that the earth is flat.  And not something that can be as easily explained away as "look outside".

And not something that can be as easily explained away as "look outside".

but, that is the whole bases behind FE.
The whole point is, you look outside, and the earth looks flat. It doesnt look round.

Just like when I drive in a car, everything else is moving around me and I'm staying in the same spot, right?

Actually, yes.  It is equally valid.

But the whole premise of FE theory is 'if it looks that way it must be that way'. Using the same logic I can't see air so therefore it must not exist even though I can feel it. And as Nova said about driving a car, FE theory says everything is moving and the driver is the one that is stationary - because it looks that way. Obviously not correct just like the FE theory.

BTW, I think this forum is just setup by people who get a laugh at thinking there are some that believe in FE theory. I think everybody know it is round and just like to pretend it is flat for people who stumble on the web site.

"Just like when I drive in a car, everything else is moving around me and I'm staying in the same spot, right?"

Not likely. When you drive in a car, you know that you drive, that you are in the car etc. When you SEE a truck ahead, you KNOW there is a truck ahead. You can hardly fancy something similar to RE theory, like "I am driving, I am sitting in my car, but this is just an illusion, actually, I should not believe in what I see".

"Post subject: A Little Help Please?"
"not something that can be as easily explained away as "look outside"."

Apparently, I am not the right person for you to speak with. Tried to help. Sorry.

If you really want to go into the whole "look outside" theory, I'll do it.  Let's assume that I can see for a distance of about 1 km outside my window, which is a bit of an over statement, considering there are houses all around me.  However, it just makes it easier.  Now, according to Wikipedia, the Earth's radius, if it is in fact a globe, is 924,375,700 km.  The ratio of the length of my vision over the circumfrence of the earth is about 10^-10, or .0000000001.  Now go out to your garage and get a basketball.  For the sake of keeping this simple, I'm going to assume that you have a regulation-sized basketball, with a radius of 76 cm.  If you multiply 10^-10 with 76 cm, the result will be my range of vision, scaled to the size of your basketball.  The result is 7.6 * 10^-10 cm, or 7.6 * 10^-12 m.  Just as a point of reference, 10^-12 is approxamitly the size of most quarks, the particles which make up atoms.  My range of vision is about smaller than an atom, in terms of the basketball.  Don't you think that, on an atomic level, that basketball is pretty flat, or has such a gradual curve that from the vantage point of the atom it is impossible to detect?

Nova, I must say.   You are my favorite person.  A very sound observation!  I checked your math and everything appears to be correct, however I do sincerely doubt this will sway anyone.  It does, afterall, hinge on the idea that the earth has a circumfrance.  Wikipedia may not be telling the truth about the distance around the earth in the flat-earther's mind.  I do want to reiterate to anyone having read this post.  If you do not double-check the math you do not have the right to reply to this post.  In addition, it is not about the circumfrance of the earth, it is about the disproof of the the statement FE is so fond of that the earth must be flat because it looks to be so.  Keep this key in mind.

I also feel the need to re-state to you the fact that you as FE'ers also claim that the sun rotates over the earth in a circle pattern rather than around the earth (assuming the sun does the rotating at all, and not the earth itself.)  If this were the case then the sun would take a much different route than the one it does and it would never touch the horizon.  You claim this to be an optical illusion.  Yet you cannot believe in the optical illusion of a spherical object of immense nearly unimaginable size such as the earth appearing flat from an unmeasurably small speck on its surface?  You are fooling yourselves.  

"It looks flat." Is officially and un-deniably de-bunked as of this moment.  I will refer to this thread every time it is mentioned from this point forward.

Dear Nova,

Let us start from the fact that your figures are not correct. The Earth's radius, if it is in fact a globe, is not 924,375,700 km. The basketball's radius is also not 76 cm. A basketball with a diameter of 152 cm would hardly be practical to play with.

In defending the FE theory a common thread I see while reading these posts is that all facts and figures from all source are wrong and everybody is in the conspiracy. I'm amazed that your find the courage to get up in the morning.

However, it just makes it easier.  Now, according to Wikipedia, the Earth's radius, if it is in fact a globe, is 924,375,700 km.  

Oh wow is Wiki getting worse and worse...  :roll:

I have no clue what the hell that number is supposed to be, length of earth's orbit? It's 6 times larger than the distance from the earth to the sun. As to whoever 'checked' your numbers, as well as you, how dumb can you both be? God, I know getting it down to the kilometer is hard, I probably would have left it alone if you even guessed it to be about 10K km, but to be fucking off 6 orders of magnitude, wow...

Actual radius of earth: 6,378.1 kilometers

I'm not going to harangue you about this, but you were wrong too. Closer, but wrong...

Actual radius of basketball: 12.5 cm
Actual distance you can see: ~10km

Number you're looking for: ~.1mm

So, while your point remains somewhat valid, being this wrong on the math sure makes you look pathetic and laughable.

If you do not double-check the math you do not have the right to reply to this post.

...

"It looks flat." Is officially and un-deniably de-bunked as of this moment. I will refer to this thread every time it is mentioned from this point forward.

I'm going to have to keep this quote and associated thread under my favorites list when people come in here claiming how clueless FEers are.  :lol:

And as Nova said about driving a car, FE theory says everything is moving and the driver is the one that is stationary - because it looks that way. Obviously not correct just like the FE theory.

Boy, Einstein would smack you up side the head so hard...

Wow.  I totally misread everything.  That's...bad.  Let me retry that.  The earth's circumfence is actually estimated to be about 40,041.47.  Assuming my vision radius is still about 1 km (I don't get where you get the idea that I can see for 10 km), that would place the ratio at 2.5 * 10^-5.  The circumfence of a basketball is actually 76 cm, not the radius, and multiplying those to figures produces my radius of vision scaled to the basketball, about 2mm.  While not as small as my original figure (which was crazy small, I must admit), it is still quite small, and, if you look at that little 2mm radius circle, and just that little 2 mm circle, you would probably not be able to even register that the surface was curved.

Shit.  I really screwed up my facts on that.  There goes any credibility I had.

Actually, the horizon when viewed at sea level is about 3 miles away, which works out to about 5 kilometers. However, the human eye can see a bit farther than that, if we are at a high vantage point (the horizon is farther away the higher up you go), and 10 km sounds right to me.

I don't get where you get the idea that I can see for 10 km

More math of course.  

I mean, I understand where you're coming from with the 1km because of houses and other human development, but that's rather contrived. You might as well argue it down to the point of me looking around my apartment. So, let's go for maximum visible distance. Now, I have no clue about how valid the following is, but, it seems reasonable. I know people will be confused who look this thread a year later because the pic will be gone, but oh well, too bad, prove me wrong in that case.



Now, that's of course the radius of your field of vision. You can actually see 10km of land (turn around, another 5km). I don't say 11 because your sight distance is more than the length of land you're looking at. I didn't feel like figuring it out because there was so much other stuff orders of magnitude more important, but I'm sure 10% is generous at a height of just 2 meters.

Ah, but he said to look out my window.  We aren't discussing the horizon or any of that.  And while it is possible to see 10 km, the height at which you must stand to do so is considerable.  The horizon at the ocean is a much more reaosnable distance, one that just about everyone has seen, and at a length of 3 km, it's length scaled to a basketball is still not even a centimeter, and it still appears to be either completely flat or have a curve that is so small that it is nearly impossible to detect.

Edit: Qwerty snuck something in as I posted.  But even assuming that you can see for 10 km, the distance you can see is so miniscule compared to the size of the earth that it is really not that much of a strecth to assume that it appears flat.

h = 2m. That doesn't even mean standing 2m above sea level, it just means your eyes are. Now, for my American friends, 2m = 6.5 feet. I realize this is about a foot above where most people's eyes are, so I redid the calculation. Using h = 1.67m, you can see 4618 m in either direction. Again, turning around, the average human adult can see a bit over 9km of land.

Now that we have that behind us, on to the important point.

I call this argument the coulda, woulda, shoulda philosophy, and it's quite entertaining.

Person A: I posit A to be true because of B
Person B: You don't know B to be absolutely right, thus I posit that C is right because it isn't B
Person A: Huh?

Now for the real life example

FE person: The earth is flat because it looks flat out of my window
RE person: You don't know if it's flat, it could just be too slowly curved to notice, thus the earth has to be round because it isn't flat
FE person: Huh?

Now, the important point is that Person B has not invalidated Person A in any way. I could say that the moon is actually a huge alien space ship disguised with rocks, and the fact that you can't absolutely say it isn't, doesn't make me right. Nothing could be absolutely true, but experimental evidence is what it is. What you're trying to argue is the validity of the experiment, but never actually invalidating it. Simply stating an experiment could be invalid, doesn't automatically invalidate it. It's possible for any and all experiments to possibly be completely wrong.

Take another example:

Person A: Starch and iodine produce a deep blue color
Person B: You don't know if it does, it could just be invisible gremlins release dye packets every time someone does that, thus starch and iodine w/ blue coloring is caused by gremlins, because that's not your theory
Person A: Huh? (again)

But even assuming that you can see for 10 km, the distance you can see is so miniscule compared to the size of the earth that it is really not that much of a strecth to assume that it appears flat.

I don't think anyone disputes that besides Humble_Scientist, and I'm pretty sure he's having us all on.

Now, the important point is that Person B has not invalidated Person A in any way. I could say that the moon is actually a huge alien space ship disguised with rocks, and the fact that you can't absolutely say it isn't, doesn't make me right. Nothing could be absolutely true, but experimental evidence is what it is. What you're trying to argue is the validity of the experiment, but never actually invalidating it. Simply stating an experiment could be invalid, doesn't automatically invalidate it. It's possible for any and all experiments to possibly be completely wrong.

This entire board is based on that style of arguement.  Nearly every topic I've seen involves someone saying "This is why the earth is round", to which someone invairiably responds "This clearly proves that the earth is not round, ergo it must be flat".  That was the entire reason I started this topic.  There is no proof that the earth is flat, just people slapping down points that say it's round.  And, as nice as the "look out your window" arguement is, it's not really enough to create a monstrous conspiracy theory.

FE person: The earth is flat because it looks flat out of my window
RE person: You don't know if it's flat, it could just be too slowly curved to notice, thus the earth has to be round because it isn't flat
FE person: Huh?

That's called a strawman. I don't think anyone's ever used that argument on this board. All that is said is that the "It looks flat" argument doesn't hold up, because we would expect the Earth to appear equally flat in either model.

This entire board is based on that style of arguement.

Only by the people who have no clue have to debate properly. I think you might have misread what I said. The 'disproves the theory' part never actually happens. All that happens is the statement that the theory could be wrong, and this is supposed to somehow imply another unexplained theory is right somehow. Should you actually be able to disprove a theory, proclaiming yours as the valid one is quite proper.

Maybe I could clarify this a bit more. This is actually a case when Occam's razor doesn't work very well. This specific instance has 1 condition though, only the validty of 'looking outside your window' is argueable.

Question: "What shape will the land be when I look out of my window?"

Flat earth theory: "Flat"
Round earth theory: "Flat"

The important question: "Why?"

Flat earth theory: "Because the earth is flat"
Round earth theory: "Because the earth is actually curved, but the gradient of the curve over your visible part is only (whatever) meters, which given the distance covered along with air refraction, when processed by the eye falls below the level of perception as established in modern neurology by (whoever)."

Now, given two theories of equal predictive powers, which is right? Well, by Occams razor, the simplier one, which here is flat earth theory. You can't really argue that the simplier theory is that which posits something that can't be detected.

Now why do I bring this up? Simply because whenever someone raises an issue, and an explanation is provided, the argument against it consists of the RE being simplier, and thus correct by Occam's razor. It's annoying at times because sometimes stuff is just complex in life.

That's called a strawman.

I really wouldn't say so. I could be reading what I wrote myself incorrectly, but at no point does person B distort what person A's beliefs are.

It's not just that one is simpler. You have to take into account the fact that all of RE follows from basic laws of physics, and all the things it requires have been observed to exist, whereas FE requires all sorts of new objects and mechanisms that have never been observed, such as your Universal Accelerator, disk to obscure the Moon during an eclipse (which of course requires the stars to be closer than the Moon), Ice Wall, etc.

This specific instance has 1 condition though, only the validty of 'looking outside your window' is argueable.

Those weren't just some random words I threw in to fill up space. We're trying to find a theory that has strong predictive powers when looking out my window. Given RE & FE, FE is 'better' by Occam's razor. Now, if you want to violate my quote and explain the universe, that's different.

Now, according to Wikipedia, the Earth's radius, if it is in fact a globe, is 924,375,700 km.

Since the original definition of a meter is 1/10,000,000 the distance from the pole to the equator, that would mean that the circumfrence of the globe is about 40,000,000 meters or 40,000 KM.  So 3.14 * 2R = 40,000 and the radius of the earth is about 6369 KM.
or as wikipedia says:

The Earth's equatorial radius, or semi-major axis, is the distance from its centre to the equator and equals 6,378.135 km (≈3,963.189 mi; ≈3,443.917 nmi).

(so sue me for rounding)

If you wish to prove the earth is a sphere, all you have to do is deomnstrait that following precice latitudes, the distance increases from the north pole to the equator, but decreases from the equator to the south pole.  A flat earth would have to continue to increase.