What makes the earth accelerate in a FE model?

Ok, every time we start talking about the Universal Accelerator and gravity, we end up hopelessly derailed and spend pages upon pages quibbling about variables in the Lorentz transformation.

So let us assume that the earth is accelerating, let us assume that special relativity is correct and that we will never reach the speed of light from another reference frame, etc.

What I want to know is how does the UA function? In order for it to apply a constant acceleration on the earth, it would itself need to be propelling matter to the bottom of the earth at ever-accelerating speeds. Why? Do you have any explanation for this phenomenon? What is causing this change in speed of the aether, if you believe it is aether at all?

If not, what zetetic reason do you have to believe it exists at all.

Please limit your responses to the mechanism of the UA and your zetetic explanation for why the UA should exist at all.

If you are thinking of basing your arguments on something along the lines of the following, please don't;

"the earth is flat therefore there is a UA to produce the acceleration we observe",
"dark energy",
"why should there be gravity??",
"how can you prove there isn't a UA?",
"Read the FAQ",
etc.

I cannot possibly insure against all manifestations of idiocy with a complete list of exclusions every time I post, so please review your answer prior to submitting it. If it is stupid, doesn't make any sense, has nothing to do with my post, or seems funny to you but really isn't, please read it again and try to improve it before posting.

Thank you.

I don't believe in UA at all as it can easily be debunked using simple observations (this is being discussed in another thread). But I am seriously curious as to why FE believers believe it has to be UA (as opposed to others such as gravity). I am very interested to see if there is any serious answer from FE believers here.

I'm seriously pondering the possibility that they're all trolls. Or one troll. But why would trolls waste so much time making up a website and a wiki and a forum?

Maybe someone else has a better answer, but the UA exists ONLY to account for gravity on earth. To explain the movement of the other celestial bodies, they resort to "Celestial Gears". There's no other reason for UA to exist, unless you're sceptimatic and "things fall down because they do".

Maybe someone else has a better answer, but the UA exists ONLY to account for gravity on earth. To explain the movement of the other celestial bodies, they resort to "Celestial Gears". There's no other reason for UA to exist, unless you're sceptimatic and "things fall down because they do".

And why does it have to be UA that pulls you towards earth? What cannot it be something else? UA is flawed. It requires that the pulling force is constant throughout the face of earth, which is not the case.

The OP made a very explicit request that all posts address the mechanism of UA. I am also interested in an answer and Ll these musings only clutter up the thread. Could you take this conversation elsewhere?  Thank you.

The OP made a very explicit request that all posts address the mechanism of UA. I am also interested in an answer and Ll these musings only clutter up the thread. Could you take this conversation elsewhere?  Thank you.

OP also asked If not, what zetetic reason do you have to believe it exists at all.. That's the angle I was coming from in my reply.

Quote from: Rama Set on April 10, 2013, 08:11:34 AM

The OP made a very explicit request that all posts address the mechanism of UA. I am also interested in an answer and Ll these musings only clutter up the thread. Could you take this conversation elsewhere?  Thank you.

OP also asked If not, what zetetic reason do you have to believe it exists at all.. That's the angle I was coming from in my reply.

Zetetic reasons why it -does- exist. He is not interested in why you think it does -not- exist.

Zetetic reasons why it -does- exist. He is not interested in why you think it does -not- exist.

spaceman said that UA exists to account for gravity on earth. Everyone knew this. You can even read it in the FAQ. There is nothing new in spaceman statement. Instead of saying go and look at FAQ, he practically repeated what FAQ says here. And CMIIW OP doesn't want this kind of answer.

Ok, every time we start talking about the Universal Accelerator and gravity, we end up hopelessly derailed and spend pages upon pages quibbling about variables in the Lorentz transformation.

So let us assume that the earth is accelerating, let us assume that special relativity is correct and that we will never reach the speed of light from another reference frame, etc.

What I want to know is how does the UA function? In order for it to apply a constant acceleration on the earth, it would itself need to be propelling matter to the bottom of the earth at ever-accelerating speeds. Why? Do you have any explanation for this phenomenon? What is causing this change in speed of the aether, if you believe it is aether at all?

If not, what zetetic reason do you have to believe it exists at all.

Please limit your responses to the mechanism of the UA and your zetetic explanation for why the UA should exist at all.

If you are thinking of basing your arguments on something along the lines of the following, please don't;

"the earth is flat therefore there is a UA to produce the acceleration we observe",
"dark energy",
"why should there be gravity??",
"how can you prove there isn't a UA?",
"Read the FAQ",
anything by thork,
etc.

I cannot possibly insure against all manifestations of idiocy with a complete list of exclusions every time I post, so please review your answer prior to submitting it. If it is stupid, doesn't make any sense, has nothing to do with my post, or seems funny to you but really isn't, please read it again and try to improve it before posting.

Thank you.

Why do you disallow Thork from posting? That doesn't sound very open minded. Also, I don't know how UA works any more than you know how gravity sticks. 

Then how can you demonstrate its existence? Gravity is demonstrable.

Then how can you demonstrate its existence? Gravity is demonstrable.

Both UA (if we put aside how it could work at all) and gravity yield the same observable effect to objects on earth. Both pull objects down to earth.

Then how can you demonstrate its existence? Gravity is demonstrable.

I drop a pen and watch the earth accelerate up to it.

Like Rama already said, I don't want to talk about gravity and I know that when things fall they fall.

I want to get away from this my theory vs your theory stuff and try to understand why you think the earth is accelerating. What evidence is there for the earth to be accelerating, other than the fact that objects on earth exhibit a downward acceleration. Also, failing that, how do you think the UA could work? How can something constantly accelerate at the same rate as the earth, and why? How?

Again, please try to do this without referring to gravity or comparing your idea to any round earth theories.

Why do you disallow Thork from posting? That doesn't sound very open minded. Also, I don't know how UA works any more than you know how gravity sticks.

I don't want Thork to post because I've never seen him write anything constructive, there is no other reason. If he wants to write something constructive he is more than welcome to.

Quote from: Pongo on April 10, 2013, 09:56:31 AM

Why do you disallow Thork from posting? That doesn't sound very open minded. Also, I don't know how UA works any more than you know how gravity sticks.

I don't want Thork to post because I've never seen him write anything constructive, there is no other reason. If he wants to write something constructive he is more than welcome to.

What makes you think I'd want to respond to your OP? Narcissism? You've asked a question that I've answered dozens and dozens of times, you've not put any new angle on it, you aren't smart enough after over 350 posts to use the forum search function, you still haven't found the flat earth wiki and you are completely devoid of humour, empathy or manners.

Like you I come to this site for a bit of cerebral stimulation and hopefully some light entertainment. Can you imagine my face after reading that boring tripe that you've tried to dress up as a fascinating question? I will happily avoid your threads.

QED

Quote from: bluerabidrabbit on April 10, 2013, 10:35:22 AM

Then how can you demonstrate its existence? Gravity is demonstrable.

I drop a pen and watch the earth accelerate up to it.

are you saying the pen is stationary and the earth is moving towards it?

Quote from: bluerabidrabbit on April 10, 2013, 10:35:22 AM

Then how can you demonstrate its existence? Gravity is demonstrable.

I drop a pen and watch the earth accelerate up to it.

According to the equivalence principle, isn't it just as valid to say that the pen is accelerating towards the earth?

I drop a pen and watch the earth accelerate up to it.

That is proof only of the fact that one object is accelerating towards the other. Like Markjo said; the equivalence principle defines the direction as arbitrary until we can observe otherwise (which we can't assuming that space travel does not exist).

So far it seems like there is no evidence to suggest that the UA exists at all. Do you really have no evidence to suggest it exists at all? And if that is the case, how can you build your world view on an assumption that has neither social consensus nor evidential merit? I don't mean that as an insult, I just want to understand what is happening in your minds that causes you to believe the UA.

Quote from: Pongo on April 10, 2013, 03:12:46 PM

Quote from: bluerabidrabbit on April 10, 2013, 10:35:22 AM

Then how can you demonstrate its existence? Gravity is demonstrable.

I drop a pen and watch the earth accelerate up to it.

According to the equivalence principle, isn't it just as valid to say that the pen is accelerating towards the earth?

I would think if the earth is accelerating towards the pen then the weight of objects have no bearing.  if the pen and say a brick are dropped (so essentially stationary in FE world) and the earth accelerates towards them, then they should both hit the ground (or the ground hits them) at the exact same time.

I would think if the earth is accelerating towards the pen then the weight of objects have no bearing.  if the pen and say a brick are dropped (so essentially stationary in FE world) and the earth accelerates towards them, then they should both hit the ground (or the ground hits them) at the exact same time.

They do in the absence of air resistance. The equivalence principle is pretty solid.

I've brought this up in my own thread, but it never got addressed, and this seems like an appropriate place to mention it again.

Thork has likened the UA to be like a fluid, citing a certain fluid mechanics equation (but then failing to provide values for the variables that don't contradict the model's requirements) to demonstrate the point that after some distance, which we can conveniently force to be at or below 3000 miles, the UA "stream" is no longer blocked by the earth, and can thus push the other celestial bodies.

There is a very large problem with this model, however.  If the UA "stream" indeed behaves much like a fluid, then in order to maintain a constant force on the earth, the UA stream itself must also be accelerating, so that it will always be moving faster than the earth, so as to push it.  But the earth is closer to the "source" of the UA stream than the sun and the moon.  This means that the earth will feel the accelerating force before the sun and the moon do.  Therefore, the earth should be moving closer to the sun and the moon.  Continuing to treat the UA like a "stream", eventually the distance between them will shrink such that the earth is now blocking a significant amount of the stream from ever reaching the sun and moon.  Therefore, they will quickly begin accelerating toward the earth and end up crashing into it.

Expanding on the question posed by the OP: if the UA behaves like a fluid as Thork claims, why hasn't the sun and moon crashed into the earth?  How does the UA actually work so that this circumstance is avoided?  My current understanding (and Thork's numbers) gives rise to an impossible scenario, so therefore this model must be, at least partially, incorrect.

What makes you think I'd want to respond to your OP? Narcissism? You've asked a question that I've answered dozens and dozens of times, you've not put any new angle on it, you aren't smart enough after over 350 posts to use the forum search function, you still haven't found the flat earth wiki and you are completely devoid of humour, empathy or manners.

Like you I come to this site for a bit of cerebral stimulation and hopefully some light entertainment. Can you imagine my face after reading that boring tripe that you've tried to dress up as a fascinating question? I will happily avoid your threads.

OK I'm sorry if I was mean. It wasn't appropriate for me to mention your name and your post on laminar flow over the earth was very productive and interesting. I've taken your name out of the OP, I hope you won't stay mad

Having said that, I still think that what Thork has suggested in that thread is completely implausible, and since this is also related to the discussion at hand I'll go through it here:

(This is all rather rough so if you spot a mistake please let me know)

At first glance, I would guess the Reynolds of the UA would have to be in the order of at least in the billions based on our observations of the turbulence of atmospheric flows on earth. Take the earth, with a radius of 6,371 km. This gives it a projection area of according to a round earth model of;

A = pi * 6371^2 = 1.28e14 square metres (let's assume this RE convention to be correct for now, we can vary this number by an order of magnitude later to gauge its impact on the result)

Assuming a coefficient of friction (C) for a sphere of ~0.5, we have a force exerted of

F = 0.5 * rho * C * v^2

where v is the velocity of the aether and C is the coefficient of friction:

F = 0.5 * rho *0.5 * v^2

Assuming that the flat earth weighs "about" as much as the round earth (so in the order of 6e24 kg), this gives (let's assume gravity is 10m/s^2 for simplicity):

F = ma = 6e24 * 10 = 0.5 * rho *0.5 * v^2

This gives 2.4e26 = rho*v^2

Now taking a simple rule-of-thumb reynolds number calculation

Re = rho * v * L / mu

We know that rho*v = 2.4e26/v (from the above result), so that gives:

Re = 2.4e26*L / (mu * v)

Taking the diameter of the earth (around 10 million metres) as a reference length;

Re = 2.4e33 / (mu*v)

Assuming that the aether can't be travelling faster than the speed of light:

Re = 2.4e33 / (mu*c) =  2.4e33 / (mu*3e8) = 8e24 / mu;

Assuming that the UA is as viscous as water:

Re = 8e24 / 1e-3 = 8e27

That is an absolutely ridonculously large number. Given the scale of this number there is little point in testing it for the effect of small changes to the assumptions (such as the projection area of the earth).

There is no way that flow is laminar, even if the UA was made of solid titanium (however that would work). The above is assuming that the UA is travelling at the speed of light relative to the earth, is as viscous as water and the earth has a mass equal to the RE model. The earth would literally have to weigh less than a bacterium for that flow to be laminar. I haven't taken the lorentz transformation for the velocity of the flow into account.

Flows above 300,000 reynolds number tend to become turbulent if they are very viscous, but anything above 10 million is almost certainly turbulent. I don't think there is any substance that can remain laminar above 50 million, not to mention 1 billion. I don't even know what 10^27, but it's certainly not laminar!

Based on this, and my own intuition as an engineer specialised in transition flow hypersonics, there is absolutely no way that flow would not be turbulent. Anything above us should not be affected by the UA based on our understanding of turbulent flow and the possible materials the UA could be made of.

What evidence is there for the earth to be accelerating, other than the fact that objects on earth exhibit a downward acceleration.

Again, please try to do this without referring to gravity or comparing your idea to any round earth theories.

They exhibit no downward acceleration. This can be measured with an accelerometer.

They exhibit no downward acceleration. This can be measured with an accelerometer.

I don't want to have a discussion on semantics.

But it is not semantic. If you drop an accelerometer in a vacuum, the acceleration measured in free fall is zero. If you place the same accelerometer on the floor, you read the acceleration of the earth.

Having said that about Thork's UA model, it still doesn't really address the question I was hoping to answer with this thread, and that is the mechanism for the acceleration of the UA itself, and evidence for its existence.

At this point would it be fair to conclude that there is no direct evidence to suggest there is a UA that doesn't also fit with the gravity model? It seems like a fair conclusion from what I've seen so far here and in other discussions. I'm not trying to say that somehow invalidates UA, just that the evidence for the models seems to be mutually inclusive.

Also, can I assume that there has so far not been a documented explanation for the (possibly?) required continual acceleration of the UA itself?

But it is not semantic. If you drop an accelerometer in a vacuum, the acceleration measured in free fall is zero. If you place the same accelerometer on the floor, you read the acceleration of the earth.

I think you might be confusing acceleration with proper acceleration. An accelerometer only measures the latter.

Or because it isn't accelerating...