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Author | Topic: Flat Earth Society | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
I remember reading about an experiment that was done a hundred years or so ago in England: It's often been noted by the society that round earthers will suggest what they think would be experiments which would falsify a flat earth, but that they seem to lack the confidence to actually go out and do them. There was a stretch of canal that was perfectly straight for six miles or so. They set up markers at a fixed height above the water at each end and in the middle. Sighting along the markers, it was observed that they fell in a straight line, indicating that the surface of the water was perfectly flat. Unfortunately, the actual data has been lost and the canal no longer exists.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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I remember reading about an experiment that was done a hundred years or so ago in England: There was a stretch of canal that was perfectly straight for six miles or so. They set up markers at a fixed height above the water at each end and in the middle. Sighting along the markers, it was observed that they fell in a straight line, indicating that the surface of the water was perfectly flat. This was done by Alfred Russel Wallace, the other guy who thought up evolution and in effect forced Darwin to publish. Wallace did the canal experiment as a bet with a flat-Earther who refused to pay up when Wallace won. The flat-Earther in question was later imprisoned for libeling Wallace and issuing death-threats. Wallace would later go on to become a Spiritualist, proving that no-one's perfect.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1372 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
arachnophilia writes: near the antarctic should be significantly longer than circumnavigation near the arctic. bluegenes writes: But you would be measuring the times of voyages making "round earth" assumptions. no no, not longer time, longer distance.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Topologically, it is a sphere with handles. And every time a new clover-leaf highway interchange is built, we add more handles. There are also natural handles (natural bridges, caves with multiple openings). Geometrically, it is not a sphere -- there are too many hills and valleys for that. Those are all fairly minor deviations from a sphere. Far more significant is that the earth is actually bulges out into something like an oblate spheroid due to gravity and spin. The equator bulges out at about 26.5 miles which is far larger than any hill or ocean trench. Geodesy and the Earth's Size and Shape
quote: Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.Richard P. Feynman If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2506 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
arachnophilia writes: no no, not longer time, longer distance. The coastline of the ice wall ("Antarctica") measures 17,968 km. The circuit that Round Earthers consider to be the "equator" measures 6,378 km. Bring in the hard facts, and the RE position quickly becomes untenable.
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 377 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
quote:There you have it. Prove him wrong. I suppose that the tea leaves from Russel's teapot would suffice. Do they explain how the moon can be eclipsed by the earth if the earth is never between the sun and moon?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
The coastline of the ice wall ("Antarctica") measures 17,968 km. The circuit that Round Earthers consider to be the "equator" measures 6,378 km. According to my geometry, that leaves us a distance of 3,690 km between the ice wall and the equator. That is less than half the length of South America, which is mostly in the southern hemisphe....er, I mean, the outer-half section of the disc. So that can't be right.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2506 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Prototypical writes: Do they explain how the moon can be eclipsed by the earth if the earth is never between the sun and moon? I expect so, but I'm not an expert on the atmolayer, so I can't help. You could always start a topic on it on their board.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2506 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes: According to my geometry, that leaves us a distance of 3,690 km between the ice wall and the equator. That is less than half the length of South America, which is mostly in the southern hemisphe....er, I mean, the outer-half section of the disc. So that can't be right. How did you measure South America? I hope you didn't use your stake and wire method or make RE assumptions.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
How did you measure South America? I hope you didn't use your stake and wire method or make RE assumptions. I hiked it with one of these:
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2506 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
CS writes: I hiked it with one of these: When we say "flat", we don't mean it so literally that you can measure it by walking up and down the peaks of the Andes all the way from north to south with one of those things.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
They mention that the North Pole is the center of the disc and at the outer edge is an ice wall that corresponds to Antarctica. If they really cared to find out, they could measure the length of the circumference of Antarctica and figure out that its way to small to be the outer edge of the disc. Is there any reason why they put the North Pole in the middle, rather then ... well, anything else, it would work equally well.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
When we say "flat", we don't mean it so literally that you can measure it by walking up and down the peaks of the Andes all the way from north to south with one of those things. No, you mean it in an even more ridiculous way.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 94 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Good point!!
Ironically this smacks of them having adopted the conventional globe model of the Earth (with the North Pole at the top) and then flattening it out to suit their particular requirements. Flat Earth globe conventionalists....!!!
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Is there any reason why they put the North Pole in the middle, rather then ... well, anything else, it would work equally well. I think its so they can have the ice wall (Antarctica) surrounding everything and holding the oceans in. If you chose a different point, then the oceans would fall off the edge of the disc.
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