Sun is a spotlight?

I'm confused about how they got 32 miles for diameter because the formula for diameter is D = 2(tan(.5) * distance) where D is diameter and .5 is the subtend angle of the sun.

Here is an explanation of the subtend angle

http://www.mathopenref.com/subtend.html

From this I get 3400 miles.


Edit: Wait, I know what they did. They took the known diameter from round earth math and applied that.

They did this:

RE diameter = 864,327 miles
RE distance = 93,000,000 miles
FE distance = 3,112 miles

864,327/93,000,000 = x/3,112

solve for x and you get 28.9 miles

It's even lazier than I thought. They should probably fix the FAQ cause roughly 32 miles is wrong even on a flat earth.

This is how they allegedly came up with the 3,000 miles figure. However I strongly doubt that they really observed this themselves. I cannot find any document describing when, how or who did this "experiment". Two observers had to be at 45°N and 45°S at the same time. It's easy to be at 45°N but I can hardly find a place at 45°S.

Once they got the figure of 3,000 miles then they used RR deduction to come up with 32 miles diameter.

Quote from: Cartesian on October 04, 2013, 04:14:21 AM

Quote from: tomstar on October 04, 2013, 03:45:45 AM

A 32 mile wide sun is impossible.

1) It would not generate enough heat
2) It could not generate nuculear fusion at that size
3) It would of burnt out within a matter of minutes of ignighting
4) A sun or star needs a great enough mass to keep it from burning up instantly

I am an RE, but I just want to point out the weakness of your arguments against FE here. Above, you assume that the light in the FE sun is generated by the same reaction as the RE sun. FEer can only "explain" what can be seen or touched, everything else is just magic. You need to use directly observable arguments while discussing with FEers.

I appricate that was a bit of a flakey responce but my argument was mainly about a sun 32 miles wide in either theory not a FE in whole.

Can someone explain how a 32 mile wide sun 3000 miles above the earth generates the heat, light and radiation required to substain life on earth?

Reflection and refraction.

Quote from: tomstar on October 04, 2013, 05:58:38 AM

Quote from: Cartesian on October 04, 2013, 04:14:21 AM

Quote from: tomstar on October 04, 2013, 03:45:45 AM

A 32 mile wide sun is impossible.

1) It would not generate enough heat
2) It could not generate nuculear fusion at that size
3) It would of burnt out within a matter of minutes of ignighting
4) A sun or star needs a great enough mass to keep it from burning up instantly

I am an RE, but I just want to point out the weakness of your arguments against FE here. Above, you assume that the light in the FE sun is generated by the same reaction as the RE sun. FEer can only "explain" what can be seen or touched, everything else is just magic. You need to use directly observable arguments while discussing with FEers.

I appricate that was a bit of a flakey responce but my argument was mainly about a sun 32 miles wide in either theory not a FE in whole.

Can someone explain how a 32 mile wide sun 3000 miles above the earth generates the heat, light and radiation required to substain life on earth?

Reflection and refraction.

How can you explain heat just by using reflection and refraction?