Earth: Not A Globe

Undesired Walrus

Penultimate Amazing
Undesired Walrus
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Apr 10, 2007
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Inspired (Fascinated) by the recent thread on the Flat Earthers, I came across this book from their website entitled "Earth, not a Globe". In the chance that space is no longer explored and those who have been up there and looked down, it may be a good idea to prevent a dark age for humans in which we have no arguments to refute the above literature.

This bloke allegedly did several experiments that 'prove' the Earth is flat. Such as 'Experiment One'. He also attempts to explain the boat drifting below the horizon.

Any comments on these explanations for a flat earth?
 
Undesired Walrus said:
In the chance that space is no longer explored and those who have been up there and looked down, it may be a good idea to prevent a dark age for humans in which we have no arguments to refute the above literature.
Click to expand...

So how does one get satellite television if the world is flat? Just how far do those satellites go, and why do we see them streaking across the sky in a straight line instead of going around in a circle?
 
I suspect that if we ever reach a point at which satellites are no longer being sent into space, this thread will probably have vanished into the mists of history as well.

As long as we have satellites, GPS would seem to provide a reasonable refutation of a flat earth. It can be confirmed that it "works" by an individual. Satellites orbiting a globe makes sense; satellites swarming like moths above a flat earth, not so much.

We can see the sun moving through the signs of the zodiac over the course of a year, and (if we have trustworthy contacts on the far side of the equator) that "winter" and "summer" alternate. The alternation of summer and winter might be explained by a sun that flies in a "small" circle for the northern hemisphere, and a "large" circle for the southern hemisphere, but We can observe the planets in the same "ecliptic" as the sun, and observe that Venus and Mercury are sometimes between us and the sun, and sometimes not, while the outer planets are never between us and the sun. A good telescope can verify that Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are globes, just as the eye can for the sun and the moon. People can travel the globe themselves, verifying that the time zones on their watch are accurate, and that the sun rises and sets at computable times, but is always shining somewhere. Both solar and lunar eclipses can be observed.

I really don't think "flat earth" is a hypothesis that merits any serious debunking effort. There is plenty that people can observe for themselves that contradicts it. I have a hard time believing that the flat earthers today aren't just pulling peoples' legs and having fun seeing how many people they can troll with their joke.
 
Simple test:

1) Assume the earth is flat.

2) Using any flat map, determine the direction you should walk to get from wherever you are to the nearest big city. The further away the big city, the better.

3) Walk in a straight line in that direction.

4) Sit down and try to puzzle out why you missed your target city.

This is a common problem in surveying, especially when surveying between triangulation stations that are very far apart. Surveyors will often refer to grid azimuth (the way it looks on a flat map) and geodetic azimuth (the way it is in the real world). At short distances, the two are almost identical. Over large distances, the deviation can be clearly seen. For even more fun, the geodetic azimuth from Point A to Point B is not simply 180 degress off of the geodetic azimuth from Point B to Point A (as would a pair of grid azimuths). If you get too close to the poles, the math is wacky. Most software used to calculate geodetic azimuths from grid (and vice versa) include corrections for an ellipsoidal earth, rather than a spherical one.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
He also attempts to explain the boat drifting below the horizon.
Click to expand...

His "explanation" is essentially that the boat is too far away to see clearly, and so one can't make out the hull. Anyone that's actually watched this happen, particularly through binoculars (as I have), knows that this is wrong. See here for example.

The "explanation" proposed in the thread I linked to is that light bends up. Unfortunately that can be immediately ruled out by yourself with some mirrors and a laser pointer, or by the countless optical setups in labs across the globe.

Reading that thread does provide an interesting window into human psychology...
 
I will say this for the Flat Earthers: They are one of the more entertaining crackpot groups, and don't seem to have the nasty tendacy for violence that a lot of kooks do.
That does not make them any less crazy, though.
 
Well technically the earth isn't a perfect sphere... it's actually slightly flatter (north to south) than it is wide (east to west) however it is NOT flat.
 
sol invictus said:
His "explanation" is essentially that the boat is too far away to see clearly, and so one can't make out the hull. Anyone that's actually watched this happen, particularly through binoculars (as I have), knows that this is wrong. See here for example.

The "explanation" proposed in the thread I linked to is that light bends up. Unfortunately that can be immediately ruled out by yourself with some mirrors and a laser pointer, or by the countless optical setups in labs across the globe.

Reading that thread does provide an interesting window into human psychology...
Click to expand...

Yet light does bend around great masses, but isn't 'up' anywhere in space?

I don't even understand how light bending upwards helps the theory.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
I don't even understand how light bending upwards helps the theory.
Click to expand...

Think of it this way: imagine you draw out a curved line on some stretchy paper to represent the curved surface of the ocean. Put yourself on one end of the curve, then put the boat on the other, so that it's disappearing over the edge of sight for you. Now draw a straight line between you and the boat to represent your line of sight. Now what happens if you stretch the paper so that the ocean surface becomes flat? Well, the formerly straight line-of-sight line becomes curved upwards. So light curving upwards would recreate the same optics on a flat ocean as straight light on a downward curving ocean.

There are other tests you can do to show real curvature of the surface of the earth which this would do nothing about, but for this single observation it would work.
 
I read briefly through his Experiment 1. I haven't done the math, but I get the idea that his statement

But if the earth is a globe, the surface of the six miles length of water would have been 6 feet higher in the centre than at the two extremities,
Click to expand...

would make for a very tiny earth indeed.
 
I always thought the Flat Earthers were like the FSM worshippers.

They're a satirical organisation no?
 
One false, one very real.

Somebody on this site said that after an evening of debating with the Flat Earthers, they began to believe them. Thankfully this didn't last long.
 
NobbyNobbs said:
I read briefly through his Experiment 1. I haven't done the math, but I get the idea that his statement would make for a very tiny earth indeed.
Click to expand...

Actually, it doesn't. Using Wiki's radius of 6378 km, an arc of 9.6 km gives an angle of 0.08624 degrees. This mathemagically gives a difference of 1.8 m in height.
 
Madalch said:
Actually, it doesn't. Using Wiki's radius of 6378 km, an arc of 9.6 km gives an angle of 0.08624 degrees. This mathemagically gives a difference of 1.8 m in height.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's pretty cool....and for some reason, very counterintuitive. Is the fact that 1mile arc gives 1 foot in height a coincidence from using 6 miles, a feature of Earth, or a generality to all spheres? I wouldn't think it would be this last one....
 
NobbyNobbs said:
Wow, that's pretty cool....and for some reason, very counterintuitive. Is the fact that 1mile arc gives 1 foot in height a coincidence from using 6 miles, a feature of Earth, or a generality to all spheres? I wouldn't think it would be this last one....
Click to expand...

The size of the bump in the arc isn't linear with the length of the arc, but quadratic (assuming arc lengths much less than the radius). If a six-mile arc gives a six foot bump, a one-mile arc should only give about a two inch bump. Given that nonlinear relationship, there will always be some x for which an x mile arc gives an x foot bump. That x happens to be six is a feature of the earth's particular radius - pick a larger radius, and x will be larger, pick a smaller radius, and x will be smaller. Pick too small a radius and you get an x much less than one.
 
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