GEODESY

So, if the Earth is not an ellipsoid then how can 1˚ of longitude equal approximately 60 nautical miles and yet, at a latitude (North or South) of 90˚ it is equal to 0 nautical miles, and scales up and down in accordance with the curvature of the ellipsoid (allowing for delta major and minor differences), so that anyone using WGS84 in a ship, having to convert that into UTM Eastings and Northings, is able to, with pinpoint accuracy in a well calibrated system repeatedly find exactly the same spot.

Basically, if the Earth was flat then how come non-Euclidean (spheroid) geometry can be used in the real world with demonstrable, repeatable results and can easily be manually calculated and converted between co-ordinate systems?

If the Earth was flat then all geometric descriptions of the relative positions would conform to Euclidean geometry with only local geoid corrections to be applied (like mountains and valleys and stuff).

If the Earth was flat then gnomic charts and great circle navigation wouldn't work (at all) and yet ocean going vessels use them day in and day out for long transits and always get where they are going with no significant surprises.

So, if the Earth is not an ellipsoid then how can 1˚ of longitude equal approximately 60 nautical miles and yet, at a latitude (North or South) of 90˚ it is equal to 0 nautical miles, and scales up and down in accordance with the curvature of the ellipsoid (allowing for delta major and minor differences), so that anyone using WGS84 in a ship, having to convert that into UTM Eastings and Northings, is able to, with pinpoint accuracy in a well calibrated system repeatedly find exactly the same spot.

Basically, if the Earth was flat then how come non-Euclidean (spheroid) geometry can be used in the real world with demonstrable, repeatable results and can easily be manually calculated and converted between co-ordinate systems?

If the Earth was flat then all geometric descriptions of the relative positions would conform to Euclidean geometry with only local geoid corrections to be applied (like mountains and valleys and stuff).

If the Earth was flat then gnomic charts and great circle navigation wouldn't work (at all) and yet ocean going vessels use them day in and day out for long transits and always get where they are going with no significant surprises.

Hi! Could you show us some real examples and calculations, this is actually interesting, thanks!

Hi there, welcome to the forum. Your name is geodesy, and the thread is called geodesy, how creative . No no, sorry, ignore that .

Anyway, I think he's trying to imply that everyone is using ellipsoid model to measure and navigate around the earth with pinpoint accuracy. Because an ellipsoid can model the earth's surface accurately. If the earth was flat, this ellipsoid would be a super bad model to represent flat earth, therefore wrong measurements and inaccuracy would be everywhere, and ships would be lost in the oceans. Is that what you're saying, geodesy? CMIIW. So I don't think an equation or calculation can really give it a good debunk. It will require some data that will immediately claimed by the flatties as fake. But it's his expertise, maybe he can shed some light about it.

The Earth's surface is flat and non-euclidean.

Hey JohnDavis:

I will consider the surface of the earth as a 2-dimensional manifold (means it can locally be seen as a 2-dimensional plane), which is compact (somewhat meaning that it has a finite diameter) and has no boundary (or "edge"). Then we shall assume that this manifold has constant zero curvature (this may not be true for the surface (mountains, etc.), but we can just take the sea-level-line as our manifold). There are only a few manifolds with these properties. Two are the torus and the klein-bottle. I am not sure whether more exist, if you want I can look this up.

I redefine Euclids axioms by re-realizing the definition of a 'straight line' with coherence to the equivalence principle and Newton's laws. As far as I know, this hasn't been studied much so I doubt you can look it up. Similarly, you could define likely an infinite number of geometries that would have shapes with these properties.

... flat and non-euclidean.

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

Quote from: John Davis on June 07, 2016, 06:13:33 AM

... flat and non-euclidean.

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

No. Why would it be? Non-euclidean refers to any geometry that does not share Euclid's axioms.

I redefine Euclids axioms by re-realizing the definition of a 'straight line' with coherence to the equivalence principle and Newton's laws. As far as I know, this hasn't been studied much so I doubt you can look it up. Similarly, you could define likely an infinite number of geometries that would have shapes with these properties.

Okay, in the next days I will look into it 
My point stands in riemannian geometry, there are very few manifolds with constant curvature out there.

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough' as Bohr put it. And Einstein lived. The Flat Earth, in this way, is rock and roll science. Its not meant for everybody, but everybody loves enjoying it at least.

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough'

Presumably this means ignoring observation and experimentation?

Quote from: John Davis on June 07, 2016, 04:52:22 PM

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough'

Presumably this means ignoring observation and experimentation?

Of course not. Though, historically that's exactly what rock and roll science does. Copernicus' famous one tide ( a fact he would HAVE to know ) and Einstein's "the theory is correct" comes to mind.

Quote from: JimmyTheCrab on June 08, 2016, 01:49:02 AM

Quote from: John Davis on June 07, 2016, 04:52:22 PM

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough'

Presumably this means ignoring observation and experimentation?

Of course not. Though, historically that's exactly what rock and roll science does.

So No and Yes?

Anyway, it seems to be a phrase you've made up, so I'll have to take your word for it.

A good way to understand what I'm talking about is to read the Readers Digest version of Against Method. Its called Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science and is a fun read.

A good way to understand what I'm talking about is to read the Readers Digest version of Against Method. Its called Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science and is a fun read.

I am in base research and we literally try everything, from magic to "out of the box approach" and all of the clues from literature, Yeah, we are THAT desperate to produce results off course we silent about the magic part.... so how could we be more open minded ?

You heard it here first: Science uses Magic. 

Yeah, that's basically what Against Method and the book is about. That there is no real scientific method and its really just a somewhat organized anarchy.

Of course there are probably a lot of ways you could be more open minded, but it would be hard (if not impossible) for me to say how without more information. To function as a scientist you do have to take a lot of things as dogma simply to be able to perform routine tasks like curve fitting.

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough' as Bohr put it. And Einstein lived. The Flat Earth, in this way, is rock and roll science. Its not meant for everybody, but everybody loves enjoying it at least.

Science is not looking for answers that are "crazy."  Science is looking for the truth.  Science is forming a *falsifiable* hypothesis and subjecting it to experiment.  Falsifiability is critical.  After all, you can't prove there isn't a magic teacup careening through space light years away with my name on it.

Science is looking for the correct answers, whatever they may be. Sometimes we're wrong.  Sometimes an experimental result is misleading or variables confound interpretation.  Sometimes the answers we find are crazy though!

Also, yes, I am a scientist.  Ph.D, Duke Immunology, 2015.  Here's a paper I wrote - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25010390

You are about as qualified to talk about science as a bird is qualified to talk about ornithology.

No one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal' science.

You heard it here first: Science uses Magic. 

Yeah, that's basically what Against Method and the book is about. That there is no real scientific method and its really just a somewhat organized anarchy.

Of course there are probably a lot of ways you could be more open minded, but it would be hard (if not impossible) for me to say how without more information. To function as a scientist you do have to take a lot of things as dogma simply to be able to perform routine tasks like curve fitting.

No I spend most of my time questioning the literature, funny thing but we do have a thing called Dogma aaaaand its FALSE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_dogma_of_molecular_biology ,

I am half joking there, magic is the word for checking all the variables from air humidity to handling of pipettes, the guy above me gave the serious answer, listen to him also.

Like I said, no one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal science.'

Like I said, no one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal science.'

maybe its a shocking information for you but science is normal most of the time

You are about as qualified to talk about science as a bird is qualified to talk about ornithology.

No one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal' science.

Are you responding to the guy who just posted his credentials? 

Quote from: John Davis on June 08, 2016, 02:01:41 PM

Like I said, no one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal science.'

maybe its a shocking information for you but science is normal most of the time

Obviously. Hey, remind me, what group gained popularity during the last and arguably greatest scientific crisis involving our view of geometry?

Quote from: John Davis on June 08, 2016, 01:54:35 PM

You are about as qualified to talk about science as a bird is qualified to talk about ornithology.

No one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal' science.

Are you responding to the guy who just posted his credentials? 

Yes. Why would I trust a bird about ornithology, or a man about psychology? I'd go to those who actually study said things, not those who practice them.

Quote from: aisantaros on June 08, 2016, 02:06:16 PM

Quote from: John Davis on June 08, 2016, 02:01:41 PM

Like I said, no one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal science.'

maybe its a shocking information for you but science is normal most of the time

Obviously. Hey, remind me, what group gained popularity during the last and arguably greatest scientific crisis involving our view of geometry?

Quote from: Rama Set on June 08, 2016, 02:12:57 PM

Quote from: John Davis on June 08, 2016, 01:54:35 PM

You are about as qualified to talk about science as a bird is qualified to talk about ornithology.

No one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal' science.

Are you responding to the guy who just posted his credentials? 

Yes. Why would I trust a bird about ornithology, or a man about psychology? I'd go to those who actually study said things, not those who practice them.

Birds not practice ornithology LOL FYI to do good science you have to study science as a whole , especially culture history of science and natural philosophy with the modern scientific method. You want to paint science as a closed state of mind.... sorry that didnt happen.

I don't need to paint it like a closed state of mind because it is. I'm not the one doing the painting, Kuhn is.  More accurately, the reality of the situation makes it a closed state of mind.  How can deep specialization grow, for example, without a certain degree of closed mindedness?

I don't need to paint it like a closed state of mind because it is. I'm not the one doing the painting, Kuhn is.  More accurately, the reality of the situation makes it a closed state of mind.  How can deep specialization grow, for example, without a certain degree of closed mindedness?

For examples i have a physicist supervisor and a chemist co worker, and we discuss a lot.

I don't need to paint it like a closed state of mind because it is. I'm not the one doing the painting, Kuhn is.  More accurately, the reality of the situation makes it a closed state of mind.  How can deep specialization grow, for example, without a certain degree of closed mindedness?

How can it grow with a certain degree of open-mindedness? 

Yes. Why would I trust a bird about ornithology, or a man about psychology? I'd go to those who actually study said things, not those who practice them.

I am at a loss.  I will have to take you at your word and not trust you on your work on the shape of the Earth.  Good job.

You are about as qualified to talk about science as a bird is qualified to talk about ornithology.

No one is saying there isn't a place for 'normal' science.

If I'm not qualified to talk about science, who is?  You?  Why? 

Science is my career.  It doesn't pay very well, though. Its more of a "for the love of the game" thing.  But were I to make a discovery that proved the entire rest of the world wrong, you get Nobel Prizes for that sort of thing.  And speaking tours, book deals and all the money that comes with it.  Case in point, Marshall and Warren proving that Helicobacter Pylori bacteria cause stomach ulcers, not "stress" or "diet" or "spicy food." (unless your diet includes gross bacteria).  They hypothesized that their bacteria caused ulcers.  Then they grew up some H. Pylori and chugged it down and immediately got stomach ulcers.  The Nobel Prize came a bit later.

Yes. Why would I trust a bird about ornithology, or a man about psychology? I'd go to those who actually study said things, not those who practice them.

You clearly didn't read my work.  Why, I wonder?  It's free!  I study Immunology.  Intensely, and for many years (I follow other branches of science as well, but not as closely).  That paper was on the role of IL-13 in Sjogren's Syndrome, for what it's worth. You see, alpha-beta as well as gamma-delta CD4 T cells sometimes produce way to much of it, and this manifests itself into autoimmune attach on the lachrymal and salivary glands.  Its quite miserable, but if we can neutralize the IL-13 in circulation (or prevent it from being produced in the first place), disease progression stops.  That is science.  We observe elevated IL-13 in patients, we think it may be causative.  We take it out of patients and disease progression stops.  Therefore, IL-13 is an important component to disease and a potential therapeutic target.  Clinical trials upcoming.

I am curious as to your qualifications to speak on scientific topics.  Or what you know about real scientific training.  Or to be more accurate, your actual experiences in formal scientific training.  Please enlighten, without wild speculations and conspiracy theory. 

Quote from: JimmyTheCrab on June 08, 2016, 01:49:02 AM

Quote from: John Davis on June 07, 2016, 04:52:22 PM

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough'

Presumably this means ignoring observation and experimentation?

Of course not. Though, historically that's exactly what rock and roll science does. Copernicus' famous one tide ( a fact he would HAVE to know ) and Einstein's "the theory is correct" comes to mind.

I think you are a bit hard on scientists (or whatever you want to call them) of the middle ages.
Claiming that two tides a day was "a fact he would HAVE to know", why would he have to know that?


Just be a little cognisant of the fact that they simply did not have that data we have. We have tide information from all over the world and I have been in Derby, WA with tides swings of 8 to 12 m, then just a few hindered km south near Carnarvon with tides swings of 0.5 m.  Galileo, Copernicus and the rest did not have this information.

For a start I can't find much on Copernicus and tides, but I can find plenty on Galileo.

While writing the book, Galileo referred to it as his Dialogue on the Tides, and when the manuscript went to the Inquisition for approval, the title was Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea. He was ordered to remove all mention of tides from the title and to change the preface because granting approval to such a title would look like approval of his theory of the tides using the motion of the Earth as proof.

Gailieo lived in Italy and did much of his work at Padua, away from the sea. The Mediterranean has very small and uneven tides. I don't know where Galileo might have got his tide information, but Genoa has very uneven tides, some places in the world really do have only ONE tide per day, such as Pensacola, Florida.


So what about a bit of fair treatment for these people who were probably every bit as capable and honest scientists as you, but did have the benefit of another 400 years or so of data, accumulated with instruments they could not even dream of, and many of which many flat earther's claim are fake!

Quote from: John Davis on June 08, 2016, 06:05:21 AM

Quote from: JimmyTheCrab on June 08, 2016, 01:49:02 AM

Quote from: John Davis on June 07, 2016, 04:52:22 PM

I'm attempting to build from my own base premises. This fits my view of what science should be as a true love for science really means looking for the answers that are 'crazy enough'

Presumably this means ignoring observation and experimentation?

Of course not. Though, historically that's exactly what rock and roll science does. Copernicus' famous one tide ( a fact he would HAVE to know ) and Einstein's "the theory is correct" comes to mind.

I think you are a bit hard on scientists (or whatever you want to call them) of the middle ages.
Claiming that two tides a day was "a fact he would HAVE to know", why would he have to know that?

You are a very quick one to judge these people of what YOU think they should have known!

Just be a little cognisant of the fact that they simply did not have that data we have. We have tide information from all over the world and I have been in Derby, WA with tides swings of 8 to 12 m, then just a few hindered km south near Carnarvon with tides swings of 0.5 m.  Galileo, Copernicus and the rest did not have this information.

For a start I can't find much on Copernicus and tides, but I can find plenty on Galileo.

Do you have a reference on "Copernicus' famous one tide"?

Quote

While writing the book, Galileo referred to it as his Dialogue on the Tides, and when the manuscript went to the Inquisition for approval, the title was Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea. He was ordered to remove all mention of tides from the title and to change the preface because granting approval to such a title would look like approval of his theory of the tides using the motion of the Earth as proof.

Gailieo lived in Italy and did much of his work at Padua, away from the sea. The Mediterranean has very small and uneven tides. I don't where Galileo might have got his tide information, but Genoa has very uneven tides, some places in the world really do have only ONE tide per day, such as Pensacola, Florida.

Tides at Genoa, Italy

Tide Times at Pensacola, Florida

So what about a bit of fair treatment for these people who were probably every bit as capable and honest scientists as you, but did have the benefit of another 400 years or so of data, accumulated with instruments they could not even dream of, and many of which many flat earther's claim are fake!

Its a fact that I can show that has been known since Antiquity. Even when nonsense was excepted as fact, this was a so common an observance that anybody living near water would and have easily talked about. The reference for the claim though is from On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Are you really trying to claim that society did not know that there were two tides a day?! Let alone an expert of the field that changed the way we thought about everything we know about the universe? He knew his theory was elegant, even if it wasn't perfect.

Bollocks to call this. It is folly.

Are you sure you want to continue? I am not quick to judge them though, others have already judged this and I am but standing on their shoulders. We may continue if you wish...

Galileo was ordered to remove all mentions of many things. Because his work was patently false. He had no basis to use his experiments as they outstretched his knowledge of optics and often physics - as can be shown by the publishing date and record of his knowledge of Optics.  Or his ridiculous drawings of the moon! Not only this but it was against common knowledge physics  (look at his second Dialogue on the Tower of Pisa). As the rulers of Truth and the caregivers of a Society, and as judged by a group of his peers - experts in Astronomy and science as well as Church doctrine including Tycho Brahe the greatest astronomer to have graced our earth. His - Galileo's - work was seen as patently false and as such a danger to the community. The church had no issue changing its mind for science - and it still doesn't.  Whether it be the big bang or whether at the time the earth was flat. Either way, they were glad to yield as they knew the wisdom of Christ was beyond literalistic interpretation. And they understood - you tell parables when people have eyes that cannot see.

This is why Einstein said Galileo's work is aimed more at comprehension than at facts. Because he was trying to evoke a shift in thought that outstripped the empirical evidence. Again as I've said before much like any revolution.  And like Einstein did himself. To show this one can just look at when Einstein said that once the mathematicians got a hold of relativity, he could no longer say he understood it!

And yet he (Galileo) ignored the law, and all the better for us. And so we must to - ignore the law. And proudly proclaim - The Earth Is Flat.