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Flat Earth

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benparry:
Good Afternoon All

every now and again while debating the moon landings on facebook I come across somebody who believes they were fake because they believe In the flat earth theory.

my always to go answer is ships over the horizon, different stars etc but a guy recently showed me a video of somebody just zooming in onto a ship in the distance to show it was still there. they also quote the world photograph distance record showing no curve.

am I correct in saying that 1. the earth doesn't curve very much at all over those short distances and 2 with photos you don't know if you are on the same level.


he was insinuating that the ship doesn't disappear as he zoomed in and there it was. is this simply because it hadn't curved very much in that time or had it gone below the horizon and we could only see the top half.

Peter B:

--- Quote from: benparry on August 01, 2018, 07:33:16 AM ---Good Afternoon All

every now and again while debating the moon landings on facebook I come across somebody who believes they were fake because they believe In the flat earth theory.

my always to go answer is ships over the horizon, different stars etc but a guy recently showed me a video of somebody just zooming in onto a ship in the distance to show it was still there. they also quote the world photograph distance record showing no curve.

am I correct in saying that 1. the earth doesn't curve very much at all over those short distances...
--- End quote ---

Yep, the Earth doesn't curve much over small distances. But it does curve to a measurable and visible extent.

These sorts of things are more easily visible if you live near a large body of water - either a lake where you can get a sightline of a few kilometres, or the sea. However it's worth keeping in mind that the air itself can play tricks with light, making small effects sometimes difficult to detect.

As for the video, never mind one video where the ship remains in sight for a while. Ask yourself instead what happens to the ship after the video ends? But if you live somewhere like south-east England, and can watch shipping cross the English Channel, you'll soon see the effects of the curvature of the Earth.


--- Quote ---...and 2 with photos you don't know if you are on the same level.
--- End quote ---

Can you provide a link to these photos, please. I don't fully understand the nature of the claim.

Peter B:
But for me, the main argument against a Flat Earth is the fact that I live in the southern hemisphere. Whatever arguments seem plausible to people living in the northern hemisphere completely fail when dealing with the reality of the southern hemisphere.

The reason for this is that map distortions caused by the requirements of FE stories (sorry, they don't rate the term "theories") are much smaller in the northern hemisphere and much larger in the southern hemisphere.

For one example, look at maps of how Flat Earth is supposed to look. Look in particular at Australia. Now compare that shaped Australia with the shape of Australia in conventional maps or on a globe. See how FE Australia is weirdly stretched out in FE maps? The distances between the major cities of Australia are very well known, and they do NOT correspond to the distances you would measure on FE maps.

For another example, consider flying from Sydney (Australia) to Buenos Aires (Argentina). According to FE flight plans you go via Los Angeles because that's the straight-line course. But according to the airlines themselves you go via the south Pacific and never cross the equator - in fact you swoop down towards Antarctica. Now go to the internet and compare the flight times between those three cities. How is it that flying from Sydney direct to BA is 16 hours, while flying Sydney to BA via Los Angeles is 14 + 14 hours = 28 hours?

Al Johnston:
A lot of Flat-Earthers absolutely deny the existence of Australia in particular and the Southern Hemisphere in general for those very reasons.

They've been around a long time: Alfred Russell Wallace of evolution fame once failed to collect a £500 bet from one. Markers were set up on the Bridgwater Canal, and viewed through a telescope. All present (with the predictable exception of the member of the Zetetic Society Wallace was wagering with) could observe that the mid-distance markers were elevated above those at the end points, indicating curvature...

Glom:
How far away was the ship? We can do wonders with trig to work out what sightlines should be.

Unless flat earthers deny Euclid. I wouldn't put it past them.

The Erastothenes experiment is the clincher for me. That and flat eartherism being beyond illucid.

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