So as we all probably know from the wiki, the sun is apparently 3000 miles from the earth and since the winter solstice is coming up, I invite everyone here to test whether or not the earth is actually flat. I propose that on the day of the Winter Solstice, Dec 21st, let's measure the angle to the sun from our various locations and plug in the proper trigonometry to see if we all come up with the same answers. If the FE theory is correct then we should arrive on or about the 3000 mile mark for the sun's distance (or if not 3000 then we should at least have a similar answer as Voliva could have simply been wrong). There will be some science to do so be warned. There will be 3 phases to this experiment:
Find your distance to the tropic of capricorn.1. Do a Google search by typing "distance [your city] to tropic of capricorn"
2. It should return a result from dateandtime.info, click the link
3. The link will show you your distance to the tropic of capricorn in km and miles. Record your distance to the tropic of capricorn in miles.
Measure angle of sun above horizon at noon on Dec. 21st. 1. There are many methods for measuring the angle of the sun but let's just use something you might already have, a protractor.
2. At solar noon on Dec. 21st, make the base of your protractor parallel with the earths surface and then point the other end of it toward the sun. Record the angle of the sun in degrees.
Here is a link that goes in a little more detail about how to measure an angle with a protractor.
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/geology/powell/scale_module/protractor/protractor_roll.htmHere is a link to help you determine when solar noon is for your location:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/Calculate the distance to the sun.This will just be some brief trigonometry but I will also provide a link to a trig calculator if you'd rather not do the calculation.
You will need to use the following formula:
where A is the angle you measured, b is the distance to the tropic of capricorn and a is the distance to the sun. Solve for a.
Here is the
online trig calculator where you can just input the numbers above to obtain the length for side a.
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Alright then. Let's see what happens.
Edit: removed misuse of the word azimuth, included solar noon calculator