Continued from
my previous post...
You must be mistaken.
This has been measured many times, and from multiple locations and it certainly does not prove a round earth. While some of these measurements certainly support round earth models
Indeed they do. Thank you. Given the nature of proof in science, "proof" is a non-issue.
they also overwhelming support flat earth models.
Do you really think so? Why? If the earth were flat, how could the sun even be on the horizon at one place on earth and be directly above another place on earth a finite distance away at the same time? This is easy using the spherical earth and distant sun model. What do you have?
This is completely coherent with my model. Above this, it was explained in other models as well, albeit less elegantly.
Saying it's coherent doesn't mean it actually is, but maybe I'm thinking of the wrong model; the one I think you're talking about, based on the premise of the "shipping [container] experiment", has the surface of the earth as a flat plane and rays of light are straight lines. If so, it doesn't fit what we know happens.
Sunsets remain an enormous bugaboo for flat-earth models. They're easy to explain with a spherical earth, like everything else we observe, for the simple reason that the earth
is a large sphere.
Rowbotham, I believe, dedicates a section of his book to this. In it, he uses the analogy of a stick with a circle on it. As you recede away from it, you will note that the bottom half of the circle appears to disappear until eventually it will appear as if the bottom is completely gone. This is much like the sun.
If you can provide a real reference instead of a vague "I think it's somewhere. Maybe." I'll look for it. Using simple geometry, however, there is no reason to believe an immobile circle on a stick would disappear from the bottom up as you recede from it on a plane. It's easy to see why it would on the surface of a sphere, however.
If the earth was a globe, we should see this in easily replicable experiments such as the one above. We do not.
Actually, we do, time and time again. Without fail. Maybe you don't see it, probably because you don't want to.
Except we don't see it in the experiment above, and we don't see it other easily replicable experiments such as Foucault Pendulums, aeroplane rides, and even the gravitational measurements of the planet (see gravitational anomaly maps.) There's a reason there are so many flatists about now clamouring for someone to "show them the curve." Its because they've looked for it and can't find it.
The problem is what you claim we should expect to see in these experiments seems to be different from what the real spherical-earth model predicts. IOW, that's a strawman argument.
Are you saying that the spherical earth model predicts that light would magically bend downwards?!
No. What makes you think I said that?
Another strawman.
Can you explain what you expect the shipping container experiment would show if the earth were a globe with a radius of about 6400 km, and how it differs from what it does show (or what you think it would would show if you actually performed it)? If you use math, please show and clearly explain your work.
I've asked for this before. You seem reluctant to provide it. You're making a claim you refuse to back up. Why?
I would expect the shipping crate to be lit starting upwards, and moving downwards throughout the day. This is in my original post. My math is "up is up, and down is down."
'If, as we are told, the earth is round then we would expect the top of the crate to be illuminated first - as it should have a better vantage point for the sun as it rises above a horizon.'
It is irrelevant how much of this top would be illuminated. This will differ based on the supposed size of the magical globe earth.
Exactly. The example you illustrated
requires an earth radius of about 20 meters. Even you should know this is not a realistic model for the spherical earth. If you used a more reasonable value, like 6,000,000 meters for the earth radius (it's closer to 6,400,000m, but what's a few percent between friends), and a few dozen meters for the altitude of the top of the container, then made the relevant calculations (presuming you know how), you'd see the result differs only very slightly from the flat-earth results. Realistically, this experiment, if conducted, would fall into the 'ambiguous' category because it's too crude to tell the difference between a plane and the surface of a large sphere at the scale involved.
No magic required, just a realistic model and some high school math.
Such as? How significant is the adjustment? What is the justification given for the adjustment?
Are you attacking the idea a simple spherical model works well enough for a large number of problems, but a much more complex (but more accurate) ellipsoidal model is necessary when higher precision is needed, and an even more complex, but more accurate still, geoid is necessary to explain very small effects? Each has its own realm where it is most suitable, and the reasons for the differences between them are known.
Oh, could any man not be an amazing baseball player if only his hits were tallied? What if he refused, like the globe model, to leave the plate once he struck out?
Again, please explain why you think what happens with a properly-conducted "shipping container experiment" would be a strikeout? What do you think the spherical earth model would predict? How much does that differ from what the flat-earth model (assuming you could have a sunrise or sunset at all) would predict. Please show your reasoning in enough detail that it can be understood.
He would like us to believe you can see this curvature in the shadows of sticks in the ground, but not in the shadows of much larger shipping crates!
It sounds like you're referring to Eratosthenes. Shipping crates are tiny compared to the distances necessary to determine the radius of the spherical earth, using shadow lengths and basic equipment, with reasonable accuracy. The distance between them (hundreds of miles in Eratosthenes' case) is much more significant than the length of the whatever is casting the shadow.
Apparently it still stings. A Greek dude was getting better answers more than 2000 years ago, with a simpler model, using very simple measurements, than you can do today.
We have shown the globe to be false again and again through experiment, reason, and every one of our senses.
Citation needed. One clear and unambiguous example would be a start. Otherwise, this is yet another baseless bluster.
There can be no doubt that we are not swirling about space at ridiculous speeds, hanging from our feet like action figures tied to a centrifuge.
"Hanging from our feet." Lol.
The speeds are what they are; you call them ridiculous, but you're making inappropriate comparisons to human scale activities on earth. What is ridiculous is the sort of hyperbole you think has "shown the globe to be false". It's just words.
The fact of the matter is you haven't read the appropriate literature and have no legs to stand on when you say it is ridiculous hyperbole that the globe is false.
A vague reference to "appropriate literature" is not an example or evidence. It's an evasion.
Whether true or not, you don't have a counter-argument here because you have made yourself purposely ignorant to the truth - like a child singing a song and plugging his ears to avoid being told he has to eat his broccoli. [I like broccoli; always did if it wasn't overcooked. When lightly steamed, then tossed with melted butter and a little salt (optional) it's delicious, but don't let it cook too long - maybe 3 minutes for the tops and 5 minutes for the stems (peel the thickest part of the stems and cut into 1" sections before cooking)! My kids loved it this way when they were little, too, and they still do. You should try it if you think broccoli is icky!][Thanks... now I'm hungry!] Instead you rely upon me to read these books to you via forum post. A citation is not needed, you simply need to do your own research and stop relying upon me to explain every single stumbling step you have.
My research shows unequivocally that the earth is spherical. Everything presented in this site and elsewhere, and in literature like EnaG that argues that the earth is flat, has been shown to be either wrong (usually very easily) or no better than ambiguous (like your shipping container experiment). Maybe there's a better argument. If you think you have one, let's hear it, or see a reference to it.
Eratosthenes did nothing but assume the earth was round.
Well, no... he did far more than that. He made a damn good determination of its size.
In fact, he stole his work from the far earlier Taoist scientists that used the exact same experiment to show the earth was flat by not taking this assumption first. Additionally, this experiment has been repeated both by modern flatists as well as Rowbotham. The details to his experiment I believe are outlined within his work.
With different baseline lengths and locations you get different answers for the height of the sun if you assume the earth is flat. Rowbotham's "work" is fraught with errors. Much (most? all?) of his data can't be replicated. There's no evidence a lot of it was not simply made up; at the very least it was was poorly collected.
Now, you can quibble about angles all you want, but the fact is as the sun breaches the horizon, it is below the top of the shipping crate.
Ever so slightly, yes. I calculate 0.1° or less if the top is less than 10m above horizon level, which is difficult to tell without precision instruments. It's certainly nothing like the 39° your drawing shows [if you want to know how I calculated these angles ask - it involves basic trigonometry, though].
By the way, what did those earlier Taoist scientists say was happening when the sun breaches the horizon? Did they think the sun moved below the plane of the earth at sunset and reappeared in the other direction at sunrise? This is unlike more modern flat-earth notions that now at least recognize that the sun is above the horizon on at least part of the earth at all times. The former makes explaining sunsets vastly easier, but is counter to what we now know happens. This is, really, problem #1 facing anyone that wants to believe that the earth is flat.
Do not expect me to post in this thread again;
Smart idea.
"If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."
- Will Rogers
I will not be party to these silly attacks.
If you're tired of being reduced to silly attacks due to an absence of meaningful answers, that's another good reason to stay away.
Clearly, stepping away is the best solution. Let's see if you can stand to give your arguments up for dead, though.
[Edit] Fix malformed URL to earlier post.