Professor Dave Explains - 10 Challenges for flat earthers

While his tone is rather sardonic, i would like to see a FE response to this video.


Not even all 10 points, just a response to 1/some of his points.

point 9, take a flight.   He pointed out how flight paths dont work on a flat earth model.   While I agree with that, someone else in the comments pointed out that flight path times and fuel requirements are calculated using a spherical model.   The fact that planes are not constantly running out of fuel should indicate something about the shape of the earth.   But i guess the other possibility is that the airline industry is in on the flat earth conspiracy too, just like NASA.

A friend of mine flew from Sydney back home to Dallas last week, non stop, about 17 hours.  This flight is not possible on a flat earth.

If it's not worth your time to argue at least one of his points, I'm not sure you'll find anybody willing to attack it.

The argument you do manage to make is a bit silly. To say "the fact that planes aren't constantly running out of fuel" sorta presupposes that there are airlines out there that are filling up the tanks to their planes JUST ENOUGH to get to their destinations.

You start to make another argument around the flight from Sydney to Dallas which I believe I took years ago; I'm not certain why you think this flight is impossible though.

The argument you do manage to make is a bit silly. To say "the fact that planes aren't constantly running out of fuel" sorta presupposes that there are airlines out there that are filling up the tanks to their planes JUST ENOUGH to get to their destinations.

to clarify what i was trying to say, airlines calculate their flight times and fuel consumption based on a sphere model.  A flight from Los Angeles to tokyo on a round earth would take a different amount of time and use a different amount of fuel than the same flight on a flat earth.  Relatively short flights probably aren't THAT much different on a flat earth vs round earth.  However intercontinental flights would be drastically different in time and fuel needed. 
This is especially true for flights in the 'southern hemisphere' on a flat earth model.

You start to make another argument around the flight from Sydney to Dallas which I believe I took years ago; I'm not certain why you think this flight is impossible though.

You are correct, I did phrase this wrong.   I said a flight from Sydney to Dallas would be impossible on a flight earth model.    I don't know that such a flight would be 'impossible' on a flat earth, however I do know that the flight path would definitely be different if the earth were flat.   This is the way I should have phrased my statement.   The path flown was represented on a globe, basically over the pacific, north east over water for most of the flight, and coming in over Baja California, the Gulf of California, Northwestern Mexico and West Texas.
I would like to see the flight path modeled on a flat earth map, most flat earth maps have Australia in such a position that a flight from Sydney to Dallas would come in over the western United states, or possibly even Canada.

I'm not sure you've ever been on a commercial plane or experienced what that whole bit is about. They are a clusterfuck, and its very understandable why they needed bailouts and will again.

You are correct, I did phrase this wrong.   I said a flight from Sydney to Dallas would be impossible on a flight earth model.    I don't know that such a flight would be 'impossible' on a flat earth, however I do know that the flight path would definitely be different if the earth were flat.   This is the way I should have phrased my statement.   The path flown was represented on a globe, basically over the pacific, north east over water for most of the flight, and coming in over Baja California, the Gulf of California, Northwestern Mexico and West Texas.
I would like to see the flight path modeled on a flat earth map, most flat earth maps have Australia in such a position that a flight from Sydney to Dallas would come in over the western United states, or possibly even Canada.

It is bold for you to say that it would be different on a flat earth; I'd like to know why you hold that view.

That said, this sounds good. Want to help? Let's leverage apis that show flight paths and compare them to the speed they must be traveling, the gas etc. Help me gather that data, and I'm happy to help write something that helps contextualize it in software.

I feel it might be a bit useless honestly, and it might just show that the airlines aren't good at managing business due to them being federally regulated and federally subsidized from the 50s until the 70s. But okay...

I'm not sure you've ever been on a commercial plane or experienced what that whole bit is about. They are a clusterfuck, and its very understandable why they needed bailouts and will again.

Quote

You are correct, I did phrase this wrong.   I said a flight from Sydney to Dallas would be impossible on a flight earth model.    I don't know that such a flight would be 'impossible' on a flat earth, however I do know that the flight path would definitely be different if the earth were flat.   This is the way I should have phrased my statement.   The path flown was represented on a globe, basically over the pacific, north east over water for most of the flight, and coming in over Baja California, the Gulf of California, Northwestern Mexico and West Texas.
I would like to see the flight path modeled on a flat earth map, most flat earth maps have Australia in such a position that a flight from Sydney to Dallas would come in over the western United states, or possibly even Canada.

It is bold for you to say that it would be different on a flat earth; I'd like to know why you hold that view.

That said, this sounds good. Want to help? Let's leverage apis that show flight paths and compare them to the speed they must be traveling, the gas etc. Help me gather that data, and I'm happy to help write something that helps contextualize it in software.

I feel it might be a bit useless honestly, and it might just show that the airlines aren't good at managing business due to them being federally regulated and federally subsidized from the 50s until the 70s. But okay...

I took the image of the flat earth from the map section, i added 2 dots for approximate locations of Sydney and Dallas and drew a straight line between them.  (the shortest distance between 2 points on a flat plane is a straight line)  This is how I came to the conclusion that the flight route for Sydney to Dallas would not work on a flat earth map.  I realize there are others, but this is a common map i see among flat earthers.

As for researching airlines, what does being federally funded from the 50's to the 70s have to do with today?  Airlines are in it to make a profit (at least the non-nationalized airlines are anyway.)  They want to keep their customers happy and costs down.  Flying the shortest routes and using the least fuel is in their own best interests.  A plane doesn't need to be fully fueled for a 2 hour flight, but it would need more than 2 hours of fuel for unexpected emergencies, re routes to another airport, etc.  Even if such research into airline fuel usage was ever done, whatever the results were, both sides would just ignore the data, complain the results were biased or wrong, etc and it would really not prove anything.

My point was not necessarily to prove the fuel usage or flight paths, my point was that if the earth is actually flat, then the airlines have to be in on it too. 
Its not just NASA, its not just the government or scientists or engineers or the entire educational system.   There are so many jobs and industries around (yes i used the word 'around' on purpose) the world that only work on a globe earth.

Yeah.. I hate to be the one to break it you but that is a 200 year old map we've been pushing the media to feed rubes like you here.

We have advanced a lot further than that.

Do airlines really make a profit? They seem a bit like a side liberalist project funded by the government so Americans can "FLY THE SKIES!" But it is undermined by the small government that is pushed by the republicans. They have different names in other times, but that is them now.

Have you been in an airport? It's like a chinese fucking firedrill. When folks ask me to trust things because the airline industry can fly from point a to b, I have the remember all the wonderful and genius pilots I've met, and the circumstances under which they work. Just weeks ago a bunch of airline workers said the cabins were leaking poisoning gas. They have some suit around it I believe. People aren't driven to that level of dedication without cause.

I have to remember the many times folks have taken their little golf cart bullshit to drive me to a terminal to get to the flight they couldn't organize folks to get to so they could get money.

That is the capitialism we are living in today. That is the orthodoxy that allows uneven distributions of power.

Any time any of us have been on a plane, it has been a complete shit show. You are lucky now a days if you get a bag of peanuts or they don't fuck you over some other way.  I'ts like being in a sardine can. I was on a flight the other day, and they asked 20 people to volunteer to leave; I talked to the attendant did my usual schitck and found out just to have a fucking party because some stewardess got her "wings" they delayed 20 folks. I sat home on that flight on a 20 passenger less snooze fest.

On the other hand, I have been on a military plane, and I saw the space available. Just shit I don't give a fuck engineering between the two. Somehow the military made a more comfortable space than the commerce that is meant to sell to the people.

You've seen the films, where they say you can't film in an airport. Where they say the flight is delayed, then they act like the "sky law." Where they are all righteous. You know it is a shit situation, so when folks bring up that the airline industry is somehow awesome and doesn't waste fuel.

I mean really. That is almost harder to believe than our stance, and after 20 years of fighting the good fight I recognize how hard our fight is.

And then there's lost luggage! But the point stands. The airline industry is the perfect example of disfunctional capitalism.

And afterwards, you can go to the unclaimed baggage selling stations and buy the misery of others.  Deregulation of essential goods harms good and disproportionally it harms poor people.

It is interesting to compare the flights QANTAS QF27/28, Sydney to/from Santiago with the flight QF7 from Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth as shown here:

This post was mainly quotes from a QANTAS pilot on a QF28 non-stop flight from Santiago to Sydney:
             Flat Earth Debate / Re: Flat Earth Theory Debunked by Short Flights (QF27 & QF28).
The usual flight distance from Santiago to Sydney is about 11,600 km in about 13 hours 30 minutes.
Sydney to Santiago is faster and usually a shorter distance than the return flight from Santiago to Sydney because of the west to east jet-stream.

But on the "standard flat earth map", the "UN Flag" or "Ice-Wall", the shortest distance Sydney to/from Santiago would be about 25,500 km.
That would be quite impossible because of the range of aircraft and maximum speed. See:

Gleason's Map (Ice-Wall) - Sydney to Santiago - 25,500 km

So the flight distance for Qantas QF28 from Santiago, Chile to Sydney, Australia, is about 11,600 km and is flown in about 13 hours 30 minutes.
But on the usual flat Earth map, that distance is about 25,500 km and far outside the range of the Boeing 747Bs used and quite impossible to fly in the 13 hours 30 minutes taken for that flight.

And what might be more significant is that on that North Polar AEP map the flight from Sydney to Santiago would overfly Dallas Forth Worth yet from the following flight on Feb 24, 2020 the flight distance from Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth is about 13,800 km over 2000 km further than the Sydney to Santiago flight.


There certainly seems something grossly wrong with that flat-Earth map.

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

This is the Tao. It has had many names, and every time those names have been wrong or lost. We have seen that mathematics has shown us that logic is the only religion that can prove itself wrong; what then of philosophy? And then the epistemologies and their specializations?

I flew from Sydney to LA. The flight time matched the published distance and known airliner speed, which all matched RE maps and globe. Do you have a FE map that matches my experience and published data? On the FAQ map, taking the width of USA as 3000 mi, the distance is greater than the range of any airliner.

Would love to see a FE map that showed the distance from LA to Sydney as the distance the airlines and the internet say it is. Got one? If so, why is the obviously wrong FAQ map still there? I would think FE would be rushing out a FE map that matched distance published by airlines and consistent with maps and gps.

FE is a new kind of sciemce, one that publishes clearly wrong things and promises a good solution real soon now, but still no flat map/

We know the FAQ map is wrong, Australia is half again as wide as USA, excerpt we know that Australia is 2700 miles across, while USA is 3000.

Love tp see a map that shows Australia 10% narrower than USA and Sydney to LA close enough to

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Id love to see a flat earth map than answers flights for all 3 long distance Southern Hemisphere flights
South America - South Africa
South America - Australia
Australia - South Africa


I suppose you can just pretend one or all 3 of those flights dont exist.
Its the usual easy way out taken, Just ask Wise

Again, Jimster we do. The projection of the non-euclidean map is that of a globe. It's useful to navigate - in the old days they did plane sailing. It is pretty similar to what folks do now. If you want to talk topology and why you can't put a non-euclidean surface on a flat image for you to see on your computer, I don't know how to help you but to point you to Simulacres et Simulation.

Quote from: John Davis on February 28, 2020, 10:43:51 PM

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Id love to see a flat earth map than answers flights for all 3 long distance Southern Hemisphere flights
South America - South Africa
South America - Australia
Australia - South Africa


I suppose you can just pretend one or all 3 of those flights dont exist.
Its the usual easy way out taken, Just ask Wise

I don't ask wise about matters of fact. He is a visionary. I might as well ask a painter to solve a calculus equation. If you can't see that, you have eyes that cannot see, and in actuality you might need wise quite a bit.

First off - Give me some specific and real flight paths. Not three random continents and places. Beyond that, as an intelligent person you can surely invent a map that would fit your scenario. What does that say of your metrics? What if you proceeded as such and made a dinosaur of the whole thing - ad hoc it all the way?

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Wilmore's map is just the Lambert Globe projection. If used as an FE model, I'd say there are a lot of 'variances', as you call them, that would need to be ironed out. In other words, it solves some issues with the AE FE 'model' yet creates new ones all to itself.

I'm not following your sort of over-arching Yelp review of the airline industry logic and how it applies to any of this. Sure, air travel has become a less than glamorous and convenient mode of transportation in the past 30 years or so. But I can also still get door-to-door from SFO to JFK in about 6 hours for about 600 bucks. Not bad, really. Considering the alternatives if you're trying to get from A to B in an expedient manner. So I'm not sure, "Air travel sucks because I don't get free peanuts anymore..." = The entire industry is disreputable.

Hartle was not wrong when he said all points of data have more than one solution; I extend that to say - infinite solutions. It's apparent without proof as it is the chief problem of empiricism and religion at once. And yet proof comes easy if you even try to show it or prove it wrong.

Hold on responding to the new post in a second.

Yeah.. I hate to be the one to break it you but that is a 200 year old map we've been pushing the media to feed rubes like you here.

Well, where is your 2020 flat-Earth map?

The whole world seems to have gotten along fine with maps that have been projections of the Globe Earth for centuries and they seemed quite accurate.

For example, Kingsford Smith's flight from Oakland, Ca to Brisbane in 1928 used such maps to calculate distance and plot the course.
There were no modern navigation aids and no GPS. All navigation was dead reckoning plus Celestial Navigation.  Maybe you can explain how his route fits your flat-Earth map.
See Sunlight on a flat Earth map « Reply #36 on: May 21, 2019, 08:43:37 AM ».
If Harry Lyons got his distances or directions wrong they would never have found Suva in Fiji as shown on the chart:

Trove Harry Lyon map collection No. 2021
And that chart has Harry Lyon's annotation on it.

So where is this map of yours that has all these distances and directions correct?

Quote from: John Davis on February 28, 2020, 10:43:51 PM

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Wilmore's map is just the Lambert Globe projection. If used as an FE model, I'd say there are a lot of 'variances', as you call them, that would need to be ironed out. In other words, it solves some issues with the AE FE 'model' yet creates new ones all to itself.

I'm not following your sort of over-arching Yelp review of the airline industry logic and how it applies to any of this. Sure, air travel has become a less than glamorous and convenient mode of transportation in the past 30 years or so. But I can also still get door-to-door from SFO to JFK in about 6 hours for about 600 bucks. Not bad, really. Considering the alternatives if you're trying to get from A to B in an expedient manner. So I'm not sure, "Air travel sucks because I don't get free peanuts anymore..." = The entire industry is disreputable.

What I'm saying is yes they have been ironed out. And here we are. Unfortunately, you lot wish to think that anything that explains the same dataset you explain is the same idea. That someone is just taking your idea and "making it flat!"

It's not.

Secondly, there is a necessary nominalism to mathematics, and unfortunately that trickles down to empiricism.

As far as airports, come on. Yeah you get from a to b. That's about all you can claim.

Quote from: John Davis on February 28, 2020, 10:12:15 PM

Yeah.. I hate to be the one to break it you but that is a 200 year old map we've been pushing the media to feed rubes like you here.

Well, where is your 2020 flat-Earth map?

The whole world seems to have gotten along fine with maps that have been projections of the Globe Earth for centuries and they seemed quite accurate.

For example, Kingsford Smith's flight from Oakland, Ca to Brisbane in 1928 used such maps to calculate distance and plot the course.
There were no modern navigation aids and no GPS. All navigation was dead reckoning plus Celestial Navigation.  Maybe you can explain how his route fits your flat-Earth map.
See Sunlight on a flat Earth map « Reply #36 on: May 21, 2019, 08:43:37 AM ».
If Harry Lyons got his distances or directions wrong they would never have found Suva in Fiji as shown on the chart:

Trove Harry Lyon map collection No. 2021
And that chart has Harry Lyon's annotation on it.

So where is this map of yours that has all these distances and directions correct?

The world went along fine when it was a Portolan map as well. Or when we thought we could make salamanders out of fire. yeah, things get along fine even if we are dumb as a rock. Man navigated across oceans and then built the statues on easter island.

Your approximations are not as good as you think they are.  They might serve you well for sailing and building big rocks, but that says nothing of their truth.

We have always been wrong, when tested about our beliefs as mankind. Whether it was a map, or a globe or a stupid little idea. They have always shown us that there is another way of looking at things that is additive to the perspective.

But hey - not the flat earth society. That must be a damned fact.

Quote from: John Davis on February 28, 2020, 10:43:51 PM

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Wilmore's map is just the Lambert Globe projection. If used as an FE model, I'd say there are a lot of 'variances', as you call them, that would need to be ironed out. In other words, it solves some issues with the AE FE 'model' yet creates new ones all to itself.

I'm not following your sort of over-arching Yelp review of the airline industry logic and how it applies to any of this. Sure, air travel has become a less than glamorous and convenient mode of transportation in the past 30 years or so. But I can also still get door-to-door from SFO to JFK in about 6 hours for about 600 bucks. Not bad, really. Considering the alternatives if you're trying to get from A to B in an expedient manner. So I'm not sure, "Air travel sucks because I don't get free peanuts anymore..." = The entire industry is disreputable.

I'm sorry. Have you seen airports? They can't even put their fucking hat on, and you want me to think they plan the right amount of gas to fly any amount of distance, aside that those that design those airplanes and their tanks might well know that its a shit show in the civilian space. I .. I am at a loss. Yeah its a yelp review. Good job thinking critically about that one.

They fill up their tanks and get the next asshole to the next a to b.

Quote from: Stash on February 28, 2020, 11:22:14 PM

Quote from: John Davis on February 28, 2020, 10:43:51 PM

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Wilmore's map is just the Lambert Globe projection. If used as an FE model, I'd say there are a lot of 'variances', as you call them, that would need to be ironed out. In other words, it solves some issues with the AE FE 'model' yet creates new ones all to itself.

I'm not following your sort of over-arching Yelp review of the airline industry logic and how it applies to any of this. Sure, air travel has become a less than glamorous and convenient mode of transportation in the past 30 years or so. But I can also still get door-to-door from SFO to JFK in about 6 hours for about 600 bucks. Not bad, really. Considering the alternatives if you're trying to get from A to B in an expedient manner. So I'm not sure, "Air travel sucks because I don't get free peanuts anymore..." = The entire industry is disreputable.

What I'm saying is yes they have been ironed out. And here we are. Unfortunately, you lot wish to think that anything that explains the same dataset you explain is the same idea. That someone is just taking your idea and "making it flat!"

It's not.

Secondly, there is a necessary nominalism to mathematics, and unfortunately that trickles down to empiricism.

As far as airports, come on. Yeah you get from a to b. That's about all you can claim.

So far I haven't been privy to anything 'ironed out' other than you just now saying that issues with an FE map have been ironed out. So that's what is desired, the ironed out bits, in this case specific to flight paths/routes.

As to (we think) someone is just taking your idea and "making it flat!", no, we already did that for ourselves. Hence all of the various globe projections in the cartography realm. So we're all set. All anyone is asking of FE is what does the model look like, you know like roughly where stuff is, what's close to what, maybe in which general direction would you need to go to get from here to to there. Then, ultimately, an FE map that's as accurate as anything used in the RE world. That's all.

Yeah, you guys were all set with the piri reis map too. You positivists are always 'all set.'

Also the idea that you did it for yourselves - fuck no you didn't You just listened to someone else that said they did it. Fuck right off.

Wipe your own ass for once and then you can say your map is fucking accurate.

Quote from: Stash on February 28, 2020, 11:22:14 PM

Quote from: John Davis on February 28, 2020, 10:43:51 PM

Does there?

I mean honestly. Yeah the 1800s map isn't really that great. There have been many provided that are better fits; Wilmore's map is not a bad solution given the variance required.

The fact that you are so positive though for such a disreputable source. I don't get it. That's not science.

Wilmore's map is just the Lambert Globe projection. If used as an FE model, I'd say there are a lot of 'variances', as you call them, that would need to be ironed out. In other words, it solves some issues with the AE FE 'model' yet creates new ones all to itself.

I'm not following your sort of over-arching Yelp review of the airline industry logic and how it applies to any of this. Sure, air travel has become a less than glamorous and convenient mode of transportation in the past 30 years or so. But I can also still get door-to-door from SFO to JFK in about 6 hours for about 600 bucks. Not bad, really. Considering the alternatives if you're trying to get from A to B in an expedient manner. So I'm not sure, "Air travel sucks because I don't get free peanuts anymore..." = The entire industry is disreputable.

I'm sorry. Have you seen airports? They can't even put their fucking hat on, and you want me to think they plan the right amount of gas to fly any amount of distance, aside that those that design those airplanes and their tanks might well know that its a shit show in the civilian space. I .. I am at a loss. Yeah its a yelp review. Good job thinking critically about that one.

Sorry, you lost me here again with this mire of disdain for people who can't put on a hat? Who are these people with hats? Do they literally fumble with them as they attempt to put them on? You apparently have your critical thinking cap on right now. Do tell.

As for folks responsible for planning and filling planes with fuel, I think a lot of them have hats though I don't know if it's critical to their job to wear them. But yes, if you felt that these hat fumbling folks don't plan the right amount of gas to fly any amount of distance then I'm not really sure why you would fly. Seems quite illogical to not trust the system at all yet climb into a tube that will race across the sky at 500 mph 7 or so miles up. Why in the world would you do such a thing?

Yeah you are right. It's all about hats. Nicely played. No one ever drops a hat.