why I think the Earth is flat

I think he was actually quite close to the rope (a few paces perhaps?), and using it as a reference line to determine whether the ship, which was several miles away, was traveling a curved path. Of course, this is just another ambiguous "experiment" that tells us nothing about the true shape of the earth.

I think he was actually quite close to the rope (a few paces perhaps?), and using it as a reference line to determine whether the ship, which was several miles away, was traveling a curved path. Of course, this is just another ambiguous "experiment" that tells us nothing about the true shape of the earth.

Well, it might make a little more sense, but it is still a total, mind bogging piece of crap. If you look at two objects with a telescope, and one is a few paces away and the other several miles away, one of the two objects will be a total blur. If you focus the boat, the rope will be so out of focus that you will see it as a smudge of color. If you focus the rope you will not even distinguish clearly the sea from the sky.

So, I still stand on my claim that Rowbotham did not even try to do this experiment, and made it in his head instead. That is called intellectual dishonesty.

So, I still stand on my claim that Rowbotham did not even try to do this experiment, and made it in his head instead. That is called intellectual dishonesty.

I've picked through ENaG a bit, and I get the feeling there are a few instances of Rowbotham just thinking something up and not actually trying it. Like, for example, his proposed test for orbital motion of the earth.

Howdy Gang! Okay let's see if I can toss a few more bits out there.

How far south are we talking (re difficulties with southerly travel)? Australia is only between 10 and 40 lat south (maybe 44 if you add Tasmania?). There's a lot more down there!!

Moon phases don't pose a problem. The Moon is a certain shape, and it probably has a rotation so that the growth that it induces can be regulated according to its design.

I'll risk a trigonometry-free argument, re the rope view of a lateral ship transit. What I like about that experiment is that it removes the normal refraction argument. The ship is mostly at pretty much an equal distance from the viewer the whole time (with some potential confusion, it seems to me, regarding what constitutes a truly straight and parallel line with the rope). Here is the segment, from ENAG.




What's interesting is that the curvature math suggests a height difference that would be greater than the ship, or a large fraction of the ship.

---

Now other thoughts.

For the most part, spherical-earth believers are just that: believers. They believe that the gravitation-based system, with its mathematical enormity, has been worked out successfully and sufficiently, so that it is a safe belief. I would wager that it's a rare spherical-earth believer who understands even the gravitational math that keeps the sun, earth, and moon in their supposed relationship.

The rotundity-through-rotation movement seems suspect. Liquid matter does not necessarily form a roundness. I would expect a molten blob to fail to cohere in a roundness.  But this is essential to the creation-from-nothing-but-spinning-exploding-matter theory.

Air is plainly expansive. It is truly remarkable that it is held in place by gravity. I would expect it to just float away, especially given the opportunity based on the various motions that are available to it, according to astronomy.

Why doesn't light wrap around the earth and deny night-time to the other side? The sun is so large, and the earth is so small, and there should be a lot of refraction.

Now, for some religious blathering. Man's preference for sin explains his preference for imaginary systems. Astronomy is bizarre and imaginary, but, it is coherent insofar as it is God-denying, and Scripture-denying. A pattern is worthy of notice.

It is common to posit the 'days' of Genesis to be ages, but the sabbath was never understood that way. That reflects a pick-and-choose view of the Scriptures.

Feel free to ignore the religious points.

Gravitation belongs to metaphysics. This is a partly religious observation, partly a matter of philosophical classification.

Howdy Gang! Okay let's see if I can toss a few more bits out there.

How far south are we talking (re difficulties with southerly travel)? Australia is only between 10 and 40 lat south (maybe 44 if you add Tasmania?). There's a lot more down there!!

Sure is! But:

I searched around a bit and found a few links worth looking at:

South pole tourism flights

A discussion on commercial flights over/near the South pole

The first South pole overflight

Moon phases don't pose a problem. The Moon is a certain shape, and it probably has a rotation so that the growth that it induces can be regulated according to its design.

The moon does rotate, but at a rate that keeps one side always facing the earth. This can be seen by observing the moon over a period or 4 weeks and noting that visible features can always be seen in the same position (a particular crater, for example, will always be at, say, a 3 o'clock position, halfway from the 'edge' to the centre).

I'll risk a trigonometry-free argument, re the rope view of a lateral ship transit. What I like about that experiment is that it removes the normal refraction argument. The ship is mostly at pretty much an equal distance from the viewer the whole time (with some potential confusion, it seems to me, regarding what constitutes a truly straight and parallel line with the rope). Here is the segment, from ENAG.




What's interesting is that the curvature math suggests a height difference that would be greater than the ship, or a large fraction of the ship.

I'm still not sold on this experiment. If the ship was sailing "directly westwards", then it was not a constant distance from the observer, and it's path would appear straight on a round earth anyway (it would, however, appear curved on a flat earth in this case). There's maths involved in that, but I'll leave it alone for now!

Now other thoughts.

For the most part, spherical-earth believers are just that: believers. They believe that the gravitation-based system, with its mathematical enormity, has been worked out successfully and sufficiently, so that it is a safe belief. I would wager that it's a rare spherical-earth believer who understands even the gravitational math that keeps the sun, earth, and moon in their supposed relationship.

Thanks! I'm rare! 

The rotundity-through-rotation movement seems suspect. Liquid matter does not necessarily form a roundness. I would expect a molten blob to fail to cohere in a roundness.  But this is essential to the creation-from-nothing-but-spinning-exploding-matter theory.

Place a drop of water on a non-absorbent, preferably hydrophobic, surface. It will form a flattened sphere. The flattening is due to what is known as gravity (I say "what is known as" to avoid the "no such thing as" argument). If you could allow a quantity of water to remain untouched and undisturbed in zero gravity for a little while, it would form a perfect sphere.

Air is plainly expansive. It is truly remarkable that it is held in place by gravity. I would expect it to just float away, especially given the opportunity based on the various motions that are available to it, according to astronomy.

Air does have mass though, and mass acquires weight in the presence of acceleration (or an accelerating force such as gravity). There is quite a lot of air in our atmosphere, and the upper reaches are quite thin, which is in tune with your expansive statement (there's less air on top of it to hold it down).

Why doesn't light wrap around the earth and deny night-time to the other side? The sun is so large, and the earth is so small, and there should be a lot of refraction.

The sun is also a long way away in RET. It does light a little more that 50% of the earth's surface directly, due to it's size, and a little extra through refraction. There is then a portion of the earth's surface lit by sunlight reflected within the atmosphere (twilight). If you ask me, the entire earth's surface should be lit directly by the sun in FET, but there are other threads on that!

Now, for some religious blathering...

Ignored as suggested!

Hope that was all enlightening, and not too argumentative!

Right let's have a look at this ENaG example, well give it a try anyway. There's very little information to go on in the description above but I think we can make do.

First the location "In Brighton on some rising ground near the racecourse" well that's a great description, is it to the north or south of the racecourse, does it have a local name etc. Anyway I think I found it near a road called Monument View, the hill (I think it's Whitehawk Hill) is marked by a red cross below


Fortunately for us it's the perfect location for a 160m+ tall TV signal tower.



So he was pretty high up observing the area between Beachy Head and Selsey. Alarm bells are ringing as this would only be a relevant experiment if he was at the same altitude as the point on the ship he was observing and viewing horizontally still let's plow on.

So I hope he's standing at a fixed point, viewing (using what apparatus) a ship (what type of ship) moving across his field of view. I'm guessing he's using a telescope as he uses one elsewhere in the book. He's observing the sea between Beachy Head and Selsey which is approximately 40 miles from point to point, and his viewing position is approximately 14 miles west and 6 miles north of Beachy Head. Simplified diagram below to illustrate the approximate field of view

The posts the line is strung between are 6 yards apart so to get this field of view he's stood/sat just over 80cm away from the line, or if his telescope is on a tripod then the pivot point is there. I'm not sure how he's focusing on an object 20 miles away and 80cm away at the same time though. You can also see that 1 20 mile section takes an angle of 111^o and the other takes just 32^o from this fixed point. So he's too high and in the wrong place for this, I'd like to plow on but without knowing what type of ship he was observing and how far away it was it's hard to keep going.

We can make a reasonable assertion though.
If the ship was sailing directly east to west just beyond the coast then at it's nearest point it would only be just over 6 miles away and at it's furthest 25 miles away, given the observers elevation (and that the horizon is at least 25 miles away) then there would have been significantly more sea visible behind the ship (it would have appeared lower) at it's closest point compared to the most distant. He gives no evidence though to suggest the ship was sailing directly westwards, I think it's more likely the ship was following a course taking it from the main channel shipping lanes into Portsmouth, in which case it would have been closer to following the visible horizon.

Like usual with Rowbotham when you start to look at his writings he comes across as, at best, a poor researcher. It's amazing he's held in such high regard in the FE community and yet someone as meticulous as Henry Cavendish is dismissed.

Quote from: odes on May 10, 2013, 12:03:07 AM

Air is plainly expansive. It is truly remarkable that it is held in place by gravity. I would expect it to just float away, especially given the opportunity based on the various motions that are available to it, according to astronomy.

Air does have mass though, and mass acquires weight in the presence of acceleration (or an accelerating force such as gravity). There is quite a lot of air in our atmosphere, and the upper reaches are quite thin, which is in tune with your expansive statement (there's less air on top of it to hold it down).

A note to that, if you wonder. The skies reach up to around 150 km. At around 150 km space begins. The air is not evenly distributed over those 150 km. About half of all the air is in the lower 5 km.

I'll risk a trigonometry-free argument, re the rope view of a lateral ship transit. What I like about that experiment is that it removes the normal refraction argument. The ship is mostly at pretty much an equal distance from the viewer the whole time (with some potential confusion, it seems to me, regarding what constitutes a truly straight and parallel line with the rope). Here is the segment, from ENAG.

...

For the most part, spherical-earth believers are just that: believers. They believe that the gravitation-based system, with its mathematical enormity, has been worked out successfully and sufficiently, so that it is a safe belief. I would wager that it's a rare spherical-earth believer who understands even the gravitational math that keeps the sun, earth, and moon in their supposed relationship.

Sorry to tell you this, but you are just the latest of a lot of people who try to make an argument without mathematics where mathematics are absolutely necessary. All those subtle words like "mostly" and "pretty much" and "truly straight" are in essence a way to talk numbers without the precision of Mathematics and Physics.

The horizon looks straight if seen from an altitude of less than some 30000 feet and nobody here is denying it. It is a simple fact that comes from mathematics and is the same whether the Earth is flat or round. Rowbotham is just trying to disguise this fact with talk about ropes and ships.

And it is also a simple fact that any knowledge can be presented as a belief. I cannot know that the Sun will not disappear in the next 24 hours, so I can describe myself as a "Next Day Believer" but it is all just a word game. There are beliefs that come  backed by science and beliefs that come backed up by nothing.

Quote from: Thork on May 07, 2013, 03:20:09 PM

the point is, if moonlight shares no characteristics with sunlight, how can you claim its the same light? Its not scientifically demonstrable.

Science. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

I'm a bachelor in physics.

Don't involve black body radiation unless you know what it means.

Your name is icanbeanything or "I can be anything".  And you state that, "I'm a bachelor in physics".  Based on the evidence that your own name says that you pretend, and that no one with a degree actually calles them self "a bachelor" of anything, I conclude that you have come here to just irritate us with incorrect stories about how the earth is globular.  Like God was blowing bubbles one day.  Its laughable. 

Right let's have a look at this ENaG example, well give it a try anyway. There's very little information to go on in the description above but I think we can make do.

Have you said why the experiment was impossible, or not factual?

One thing that is remarkable about it is, we're discussing a ship that is so far away that it shouldn't be visible. In other words, the experiment catches the curvature occurring laterally. It should be twenty miles to the center of the arc, perpendicular to our position, then twenty miles to the other extreme. Over twenty miles, the curve should amount to 266', wasn't it? So the ship should rise 266', then fall 266 feet.

But it's 40 miles away! So it should be 1066 feet under curvature. Surely we should be criticizing that.

Quote from: Scintific Method on May 09, 2013, 02:34:27 AM

I searched around a bit and found a few links worth looking at:

South pole tourism flights

A discussion on commercial flights over/near the South pole

The first South pole overflight

I looked at those, but I didn't see anything other than questions, and nibbling around the edges of the ice, going a little ways up, etc. Did you find something that was clear overflight?

I'm still not sold on this experiment. If the ship was sailing "directly westwards", then it was not a constant distance from the observer, and it's path would appear straight on a round earth anyway (it would, however, appear curved on a flat earth in this case). There's maths involved in that, but I'll leave it alone for now!

I was getting at that myself, but, I think it will be fairly trivial compared to the 266 feet, not to mention the 1066 feet.

Place a drop of water on a non-absorbent, preferably hydrophobic, surface. It will form a flattened sphere. The flattening is due to what is known as gravity (I say "what is known as" to avoid the "no such thing as" argument). If you could allow a quantity of water to remain untouched and undisturbed in zero gravity for a little while, it would form a perfect sphere.

But it's not undisturbed, according to astronomic origins theory. It's whirling, exploding, and being bothered by all sorts of things.

Air does have mass though, and mass acquires weight in the presence of acceleration (or an accelerating force such as gravity). There is quite a lot of air in our atmosphere, and the upper reaches are quite thin, which is in tune with your expansive statement (there's less air on top of it to hold it down).

I think it would just float away. Whee!

Other reasons: the movements of every sort of projectile are calculated without regard to the problem that the earth is supposedly whirling in various directions. The answer is always inertia, which is related to gravity. Proofs of the effects of inertia are subject to the same interference of theoretical gravity. It amounts to another case of hopeless ambiguity. In other words, how can we test for inertia/gravity, if there is gravity? The results will always be ambiguous.

If you launch a cannon ball, and it travels only a few hundred feet in each direction instead of farther in one direction than another, you can claim that inertia governed the outcome. A rocket aimed toward Ascension Island that doesn't land near Easter Island instead, can be explained thus: "That's inertia at work!" Or we can say that the earth is flat and unmoving.

Why shouldn't a car facing E-W with the brake off, in neutral, suddenly achieve fantastic speeds? If a BB is placed on a Lazy Susan, and the Lazy Susan spun, the BB will suddenly achieve speeds on the platter's surface (although it will stay a bit still and then roll). Or, block the BB in place, spin the platter, and remove the block. Suddenly the B will move relative to the surface. There should be some connection that is light and loose enough to enable the earth's movement to become obvious. A car in neutral, a rocket in flight. But the idea of gravity is that it is always operative, until a fantastic speed is achieved, called the escape velocity, the calculation of which seems a little dodgy to me! 

Not every sort of projectile. Artillery gunners and long-range snipers must take the Coriolis force into account when setting up a shot (especially artillery, the well-being of their colleagues depends on it!) This force simply would not exist on a static earth, and would not reverse direction in the Southern hemisphere compared to the Northern hemisphere if the earth were flat.

Your spinning examples are assuming a much higher angular velocity than we experience on earth. The angular velocity of the rotating earth is only 7.27x10^-5 radians per second, and centripetal acceleration at the equator is only -0.0337ms^-2, which has a measurable but imperceptible effect on the acceleration due to gravity.

You also assume that there is some drag force resisting the rotation of the earth, which (if it existed) would cause anything not physically attached to the earth to accelerate to the West (edit: relative to the earth, just in case anyone misunderstood that) until it reached the rotational velocity of that part of the earth, thus remaining static while the earth rotated under it. No such force exists, there is simply no mechanism through which it could operate.

For a demonstration of the Coriolis force, read this section of ENaG: Deflection of Falling Bodies. Yes, I did just reference ENaG! Rowbotham denies that the evidence shows a rotating earth, but only because they were looking for an Easterly deflection and instead got a Southerly deflection (and probably an Easterly one as well, but too small to measure). At least he reports the results accurately.

edit: If you want to, have a look at my thread on that section of ENaG.

Thanks Scin!  I'm about out of arguments, really, so I just thank you all for being fine discussants. I enjoyed our chat. I still think the earth is flat!  If something else occurs to me I'll drop by.

But the idea of gravity is that it is always operative, until a fantastic speed is achieved, called the escape velocity, the calculation of which seems a little dodgy to me! 

Some potential ideas to help in this regard. For one, gravity always acts, escape velocity or not. The question is whether you can escape an object's gravity well, that is, to leave its influence, that is, defeat its gravitational pull.

In physics, any bound system (an electron orbiting a proton, an object on the surface of a planet) has less total energy than the sum of its components. The energy of an electron plus a proton (taken separately) is greater than the energy of a bound hydrogen atom. The binding energy in any such system is represented as negative (the difference between the composed energy, which is lower, and the sum of components, which is greater). The binding energy represents, basically, the amount of energy needed to be put into the system, for the components to be separated. If you think about it in terms of conservation of energy: since you need an amount of energy to separate two things, it follows that their bound state has a lower energy than when they're separated, and the difference is exactly this binding energy.

The calculation of an escape velocity comes from the idea that, in order to leave the gravitational influence of a body, you need to input at least the binding energy of your object on that body (which results in the energy of the two separate objects).

Then you just take a simple calculation of kinetic energy (either classical 1/2*m*v^2; or relativistic m*c^2), and knowing the mass of your object, and the binding energy of the two (which results from the expression of the force of gravity), you end up with an expression for the velocity of your object (v), needed for that object to leave the gravitational influence of the body.

This does not mean that the body doesn't exert any more gravitational force on your object. Gravity will always and constantly act between the two. But the escape velocity is the velocity which, if your object attains, it will never fall back to the body it was previously bound to (unless another force acts upon it). Regardless of gravity still acting between the two. If you send a rocket at escape velocity off Earth, if no other forces come into play (this will not ever be the case), it will never return to Earth, but it will still feel Earth's gravitational pull forever. This is solely because the sum of their energies is now at least as much as they'd need to be completely separated, they are no longer energetically bound.

Of course, all this can seem confusing, but it takes a few years of study in mathematics and physics to start to understand it well.

I agree with you the rope should curve.

Of course, all this can seem confusing, but it takes a few years of study in mathematics and physics to start to understand it well.

When I was younger the idea of an escape velocity also seemed strange. I think that our direct experience, which occurs in the presence of air, makes us think more in terms of slow speeds to achieve the goal of counteracting gravity, not high speed.

Your explanation gets right to the point. Escape speed is what you need to eventually escape to where Earth's gravitational pull is insignificant without ever applying any additional force to your ship. It is not what you need to reach orbit, it is not necessary if your ship will have a rocket permanently on. You could eventually escape Earth at a constant speed of 1 kilometer per hour, moving straight up, but it would be incredibly inefficient and expensive, and not feasible with our current technology.

Escape speed is very relevant with our current technology, where you have a huge rocket that fires only for a few minutes. We are not accustomed to this kind of ballistic behavior because we do not see it in our everyday lives. We are more accustomed to our car needing a permanent push all the way to the end of the trip. But that does not mean we should think like these flat Earthers for which, if you do not see it in your cereal box, it does not exist.

Some potential ideas to help in this regard. For one, gravity always acts, escape velocity or not. The question is whether you can escape an object's gravity well, that is, to leave its influence, that is, defeat its gravitational pull.

In physics, any bound system (an electron orbiting a proton, an object on the surface of a planet) has less total energy than the sum of its components. The energy of an electron plus a proton (taken separately) is greater than the energy of a bound hydrogen atom. The binding energy in any such system is represented as negative (the difference between the composed energy, which is lower, and the sum of components, which is greater). The binding energy represents, basically, the amount of energy needed to be put into the system, for the components to be separated. If you think about it in terms of conservation of energy: since you need an amount of energy to separate two things, it follows that their bound state has a lower energy than when they're separated, and the difference is exactly this binding energy.

The calculation of an escape velocity comes from the idea that, in order to leave the gravitational influence of a body, you need to input at least the binding energy of your object on that body (which results in the energy of the two separate objects).

Then you just take a simple calculation of kinetic energy (either classical 1/2*m*v^2; or relativistic m*c^2), and knowing the mass of your object, and the binding energy of the two (which results from the expression of the force of gravity), you end up with an expression for the velocity of your object (v), needed for that object to leave the gravitational influence of the body.

This does not mean that the body doesn't exert any more gravitational force on your object. Gravity will always and constantly act between the two. But the escape velocity is the velocity which, if your object attains, it will never fall back to the body it was previously bound to (unless another force acts upon it). Regardless of gravity still acting between the two. If you send a rocket at escape velocity off Earth, if no other forces come into play (this will not ever be the case), it will never return to Earth, but it will still feel Earth's gravitational pull forever. This is solely because the sum of their energies is now at least as much as they'd need to be completely separated, they are no longer energetically bound.

Of course, all this can seem confusing, but it takes a few years of study in mathematics and physics to start to understand it well.

I highlighted a couple of segments which illustrate that your calculation is somewhat self-referential. Your calculations involving gravity rely on your understanding of gravity.

Your calculations involving gravity rely on your understanding of gravity.

I think you could say that calculations involving any concept rely on your understanding of that concept. I see what you are getting at though, and you're right, the calculation of escape velocity depends on an understanding of gravity.

I highlighted a couple of segments which illustrate that your calculation is somewhat self-referential. Your calculations involving gravity rely on your understanding of gravity.

Kinetic energy, whether classical or relativistic, has nothing to do with gravity. Binding energy, also. These concepts don't come from anything to do with gravity. The calculation for escape velocity is the same in concept for any kind of acting force, you just need to know the expression of the force to substitute it and do a precise calculation. As for the rest...

Of course you need an understanding of something to do any calculations based on it... what were you expecting?

Quote from: odes on May 21, 2013, 10:52:21 PM

I highlighted a couple of segments which illustrate that your calculation is somewhat self-referential. Your calculations involving gravity rely on your understanding of gravity.

Kinetic energy, whether classical or relativistic, has nothing to do with gravity. Binding energy, also. These concepts don't come from anything to do with gravity. The calculation for escape velocity is the same in concept for any kind of acting force, you just need to know the expression of the force to substitute it and do a precise calculation. As for the rest...

Of course you need an understanding of something to do any calculations based on it... what were you expecting?

Not to mention that all quantities and mathematical relationships in classical gravitation are derived from observation and first principles. The understanding we have of gravitation is that it is invariant except on very large and very small scales.

Someone tell me; If I stood up really high in Chicago, and then removed all the clouds and stuff, then why cant I see Sydney or New Delhi?

Someone tell me; If I stood up really high in Chicago, and then removed all the clouds and stuff, then why cant I see Sydney or New Delhi?

Because air is not completely transparent.  You can only see a relatively short distance.  Also, perspective makes far away things very small. 

Someone tell me; If I stood up really high in Chicago, and then removed all the clouds and stuff, then why cant I see Sydney or New Delhi?

Apparently, the air is "not transparent enough" for a feeble eye to see so far (yet you can see the moonrise, which is much farther). Anyway, if not with the naked eye, it should easily be visible through a telescope. But FET logic...

Quote from: Boba Fett on May 31, 2013, 12:02:39 AM

Someone tell me; If I stood up really high in Chicago, and then removed all the clouds and stuff, then why cant I see Sydney or New Delhi?

Because air is not completely transparent.  You can only see a relatively short distance.  Also, perspective makes far away things very small.

This thread shows the atmospheric opacity argument to be unmitigated crap.

1)      Whats the deal with the atmosphere in the FET? Does it just stop right above the edge of Antarctica, or wrap around to the other side of the disc?

2)    Just how thick is the actual plane of the earth?

3)    How do the seasons work in the FET?

1)      Whats the deal with the atmosphere in the FET? Does it just stop right above the edge of Antarctica, or wrap around to the other side of the disc?

2)    Just how thick is the actual plane of the earth?

3)    How do the seasons work in the FET?

I suggest you look around for answers a little bit more, or make a new thread. We try to keep threads uncluttered by discussing one thing at a time.

BUMP.

In light of the apparent conversions ( ? ? ? ) of DD and Sceptimatic, I thought I'd bring this thread up again.

However, even if I'm the last to get the joke, I still think the earth is flat.

EDIT: I didn't mean to make this figure:

BUMP.

In light of the apparent conversions () of DD and Sceptimatic, I thought I'd bring this thread up again.

However, even if I'm the last to get the joke, I still think the earth is flat.

Scepti has converted?

Did I not understand that correctly? I thought he decided that the flat argument was better. Wasn't that the upshot or beginning of Scepti's theory?

Did I not understand that correctly? I thought he decided that the flat argument was better. Wasn't that the upshot or beginning of Scepti's theory?

Well yeah he is flat earther. Guess I didn't know he was a round earther.