Just posting this here so it doesn't get lost.
http://theflatearthsociety.net/relativity.htmlThe Ferrari Effect
Let us build first from the base of Newton.
Consider a theoretical object in a perfectly stable orbit around a theoretical planet in a traditional round earth manner. Remember from Newtons laws of motion: an object in motion tends to stay in motion and in the direction it is in motion. We can certainly say that the object in orbit that it feels no experimentally verifiable difference in force or pseudo-force - which is equivalent to saying it is experimentally not accelerating (and thus not changing direction or speed.) Remember, Einstein disillusioned our naive view of space based on the equivalence principle.
Our sight would lead us to believe this might be foolish, but if space is curved (and Relativity relies on the assumption that it is) it would be silly to not question our visual representation of space since by all accounts it appears as if our observational (and theoretical) language is ill equipped to deal with description of it.
We should assume that it is indeed travelling in a straight line as its experimental evidence points us to. The issue is with our naive view of geometry and space. Likewise we take the view that it is indeed in motion and not still.
Let’s interpret the ramifications of the statement: an object in orbit travels in a straight (and thus flat), line through space through further thought experiment. First, we can define our field of interest in that taking all such theoretical orbits of our planet and realize them rightly as flat, thus defining the bounding space of interest also to be flat. It follows, given any orbit of this planet to be flat, the planet itself is flat since it satisfies our definition of flatness.
Let us again venture into thought experiment: eject some pods towards the earth from one such of our imaginary satellites at regular intervals along our orbit such that they are in free fall. Again, we can assume these are straight lines extending below to a translatable location on the surface of the earth, its geolocation. We can say these lines are normal to the trajectory of the satellite and they are normal to the ground, thus making the lines parallel. Since the orbit is straight, and the orbit relates directly to the geographical locations it is above, we have come a long way to show the planet is also flat.
Now let us consider what acceleration means. Acceleration by its nature means either a change in speed or direction, which is to say a change in velocity. So when we look at the parabola formed by a ball in motion we can recognize that it is for the most part accelerating - it changes both direction and speed. Now, let us examine the path if we remove the influence of gravity from our model as well as unbound the start and end points to allow it to move freely.
If gravity was not forcing the object downwards, it would then be travelling a straight path, parallel perhaps to our imaginary satellite and in this case tangent to the apex of our balls climb.
We can see by comparison between a theoretical object in orbit and our ball at the apex of its climb that if not affected by gravity it would travel a straight line. By repeating this experiment again and again with lower apexes of our ball, various orientations, and so on we see the earth itself, not just the paths of satellites, is flat.
The effect of viewing the earth and it appearing round is known as the Ferrari Effect, based off of former Canadian Flat Earth Society President Leo Ferrari who first predicted this. This describes that effect.
Any honest judge will begrudgingly have to admit that I have shown that the flat earth theory directly follows from our laws of motion and coherence with relativity. Even worse is the realization that we would have been lead to relativity sooner if not for our strict faith-like belief in a round earth.
John Davis, American Flat Earth Society President
