Tell me this

"A strong cast-iron cannon was placed with the muzzle upwards. The barrel was carefully tested with a plumb line, so that its true vertical direction was secured; and the breech of the gun was firmly embedded in sand up to the touch-hole, against which a piece of slow match was placed. The cannon had been loaded with powder and ball, previous to its position being secured. At a given moment the slow match at D was fired, and the operator retired to a shed. The explosion took place, and the ball was discharged in the direction A, B. In thirty seconds the ball fell back to the earth, from B to C; the point of contact, C, was only 8 inches from the gun, A. This experiment has been many times tried, and several times the ball fell back upon the mouth of the cannon; but the greatest deviation was less than 2 feet, and the average time of absence was 28 seconds; from which it is concluded that the earth on which the gun was placed did not move from its position during the 28 seconds the ball was in the atmosphere. Had there been motion in the direction from west to east, and at the rate of 600 miles per hour (the supposed velocity in the latitude of England), the result would have been as shown in fig. 49. The ball, thrown by the powder in the direction A, C, and acted on at the same moment by the earth's motion in the direction A, B, would take the direction A, D; meanwhile the earth and the cannon would have reached the position B, opposite to D. On the ball beginning to descend, and during the time of its descent, the gun would have passed on to the position S, and the ball would have dropped at B, a consider-able distance behind the point S. As the average time of the ball's absence in the atmosphere was 28 seconds--14 going upwards, and 14 in falling--we have only to multiply the time by the supposed velocity of the earth, and we find that instead of the ball coming down to within a few inches of the muzzle of the gun, it should have fallen behind it a distance of 8400 feet, or more than a mile and a half! Such a result is utterly destructive of the idea of the earth's possible rotation.

The reader is advised not to deceive himself by imagining that the ball would take a parabolic course, like the balls and shells from cannon during a siege or battle. The parabolic curve could only be taken by a ball fired from a cannon inclined more or less from the vertical; when, of course, gravity acting in an angular direction against the force of the gunpowder, the ball would be forced to describe a parabola. But in the experiment just detailed, the gun was fixed in a perfectly vertical direction, so that the ball would be fired in a line the very contrary to the direction of gravity. The force of the powder would drive it directly upwards, and the force of gravity would pull it directly downwards. Hence it could only go up in a right line, and down or back to its starting point; it could not possibly take a path having the slightest degree of curvature. It is therefore demanded that, if the earth has a motion from west to east, a ball, instead of being dropped down a mine, or allowed to fall from the top of a tower, shall be shot upwards into the air, and from the moment of its beginning to descend, the surface of the earth shall turn from under its direction, and it would fall behind, or to the west of its line of descent. On making the most exact experiments, however, no such effect is observed; and, therefore, the conclusion is in every sense unavoidable, that THE EARTH HAS NO MOTION OF ROTATION."
-Earth Not a Globe



According to this, it sounds to me that Rowbotham hasn't heard of inertia. The cannon ball only moved from a few inches to a few feet due to it's inertia gained from the rotating planet as the ball rises the air provides a resistance slowing the balls movement which began equal in both speed and direction of the Earth. If we were to use Rowbotham's ideas of this type in another way, for example, a bus and a lead ball. If the bus were moving down a straight stretch of highway at ,we'll say, 70mph and the lead ball was tossed up into the air within the bus, it would appear to shoot back and put a good sized dent into the back of the bus(or possibly someone's head ), and this would be due to the ball's total lack of inertia according to Rowbotham's expiriment. When infact the ball will simply come back down just very slightly back from where it was due to friction within the air.

Someone give me a reason why his expiriment is considered to be without fault.

One of many things Rowbotham lied about.  Good post. 

Earth Not a Globe reads like satire sometimes.  It's ridiculous and amazing to think that people would actually take it seriously.

Heheheh. Silly Rowbotham. Newton's laws are for...well, pretty much anything.

~D-Draw

...
According to this, it sounds to me that Rowbotham hasn't heard of inertia. The cannon ball only moved from a few inches to a few feet due to it's inertia gained from the rotating planet as the ball rises the air provides a resistance slowing the balls movement which began equal in both speed and direction of the Earth. If we were to use Rowbotham's ideas of this type in another way, for example, a bus and a lead ball. If the bus were moving down a straight stretch of highway at ,we'll say, 70mph and the lead ball was tossed up into the air within the bus, it would appear to shoot back and put a good sized dent into the back of the bus(or possibly someone's head ), and this would be due to the ball's total lack of inertia according to Rowbotham's expiriment. When infact the ball will simply come back down just very slightly back from where it was due to friction within the air.

Someone give me a reason why his expiriment is considered to be without fault.

Your point about the initial velocity of the cannonball is valid. In fact every body has the same component of the velocity of the Earth with respect to an inertial reference frame.

The reason for the deflection of a vertically fired cannonball is the so called Coriolis force, a non – inertial force which arises when there is a relative motion with respect ot a rotating reference frame. This is the same force that causes the plane of oscillation of the Foucault pendulum to shift.

I have calculated that the distance of the point of fall from the point of fire in the horizontal plane is given by the formula:



where t_f is the flight time of the projectile, g is the acceleration of free fall (g = 32 ft/s²) and T_E is the period of rotation of the Earth (T_E = 24 h x 3,600 s/1 h = 86,400 s). The angle between the direction of fire – fall line and the direction of East equals the latitude λ of the point from where the projectile was fired.

The cannon used fired the projectile at an initial speed of about 310 mph and its maximum range was 1.2 miles. The deviation would have been about 17 feet in south – eastern direction. The effects of air resistance were neglected in all of the above calculations.

All this experiment tells me is that the FE theory of the UA is invalid.

Earth, at a height of 'A' fires cannonball straight up.  The ball goes up for 14 seconds to a height we call 'B', then down for 14 seconds.  If the UA was real, then when the cannonball was at its apex, the Earth below it would be at a height greater than 'A'.  So if the cannonball goes from A to B, the Earth is now at a new height, we will call 'C'.  Distance of AB is greater than that of CB.  So, the cannonball first travels AB, then when it begins to fall, it falls AC, a less distance than AB, so therefore, should take less than 14 seconds.  If the UA was real, the cannonball would go up for 14 seconds, but only fall like 10 seconds.

So, this experiment doesn't prove or disprove FE or RE, I think it is a clear debunking of the UA.

All this experiment tells me is that the FE theory of the UA is invalid.

Earth, at a height of 'A' fires cannonball straight up.  The ball goes up for 14 seconds to a height we call 'B', then down for 14 seconds.  If the UA was real, then when the cannonball was at its apex, the Earth below it would be at a height greater than 'A'.  So if the cannonball goes from A to B, the Earth is now at a new height, we will call 'C'.  Distance of AB is greater than that of CB.  So, the cannonball first travels AB, then when it begins to fall, it falls AC, a less distance than AB, so therefore, should take less than 14 seconds.  If the UA was real, the cannonball would go up for 14 seconds, but only fall like 10 seconds.

So, this experiment doesn't prove or disprove FE or RE, I think it is a clear debunking of the UA.

I have thought of that before but it think its still what we see.  I think the ball would still look like it went up for 14 seconds and then down for 14 seconds.  Although the ball would not actually change velocity.  But still, there is no UA so it doesn’t matter.

Couple this with his hilariously flawed perspective argument and you've already debunked about half of that stupid book.

But Tom keeps referring us to it over and over and over again as though that guy isn't a complete moron. How can Tom expect anyone to take him seriously so long as he actually thinks that Earth Not A Globe is a valid source?

I want to point out that the formula I posted previously is incorrect. The correct formula should be:


with all the notations same as above and that the direction of this declination is always westwards! So, for the latitude mentioned in the book (I found that latitude with the data about the speed of the Earth, which was supposed to be 600 mph. This means that the circumference of the circle on that latitude is 600 mi/h x 24 h = 14,400 mi = 23,200 km. The circumference of the large circle is 40,000 km, so cosλ = 23,200/40,000 =  0.58, or
λ = 54.5°), we get the following value for the declination:

3.14 x 32 ft/s² x (28 s)³ x 0.58/(3 x 8.64 x 10⁴ s) = 4.9 ft

This is approximately the same as Rowbotham supposedly measured. I guess he proved the Earth was rotating but the theory he used to interpret his data was flawed!

I know people have posted maths heavy answers to explain this but I have a very simple method of disproving  Mr Rowbotham.

Stand on a bus with a mobile phone when it's traveling @ 30mph. toss your phone into the air.  does it smack you in the face at 30mph because it stood still as the bus moved? NO.

Exchange 'bus' for 'earth' and 'phone' for cannonball' and you have his experiment in a nutshell

Exchange 'bus' for 'earth' and 'phone' for cannonball' and you have his experiment in a nutshell

The problem with that analogy is that the phone isn't experiencing centripetal acceleration as it would in a rotating frame. The phone and the bus are simply moving at a constant velocity.

Haha very good Tom, you have in fact alluded to the exact effect NOT observed in the far south, by which any projectile would indeed travel off course significantly were the Earth flat and rotating. Rowbotham is wrong, and so are you!

Haha very good Tom, you have in fact alluded to the exact effect NOT observed in the far south, by which any projectile would indeed travel off course significantly were the Earth flat and rotating. Rowbotham is wrong, and so are you!

IF the Flat Earth was spinning there would indeed be an effect due to centripetal acceleration. But the effect at the edge would be minimal due to the shallow curve and slow revolution, as we've already discussed in the rotation thread. The effect does not increase exponentially along the radius.

I know people have posted maths heavy answers to explain this but I have a very simple method of disproving  Mr Rowbotham.

Stand on a bus with a mobile phone when it's traveling @ 30mph. toss your phone into the air.  does it smack you in the face at 30mph because it stood still as the bus moved? NO.

Exchange 'bus' for 'earth' and 'phone' for cannonball' and you have his experiment in a nutshell

I don't see the analogy. The air resistance and weight cause the phone to move relatively to the bus. Consider this (not for the FE-ers): A space shuttle opens its bay door and out comes a satellite. What’s the relative motion of the satellite with respect to the space shuttle?

Quote

Haha very good Tom, you have in fact alluded to the exact effect NOT observed in the far south, by which any projectile would indeed travel off course significantly were the Earth flat and rotating. Rowbotham is wrong, and so are you!

IF the Flat Earth was spinning there would indeed be an effect due to centripetal acceleration. But the effect at the edge would be minimal due to the shallow curve and slow revolution, as we've already discussed in the rotation thread. The effect does not increase exponentially along the radius.

Indeed we did discuss it, and you were demonstrated to be full of shit. A quick summary: All inhabitants of Australia would feel about 5N of force on them in a southern direction at all times, which is both significant enough to be noticed in everyday life, and far too much to go undetected by precise instruments. If you threw a ball up pretty high, it would visibly drift away...

Next?

That 5 Newtons of force only applies to the very edge. Australia is not at the edge of FE.

Oh thats right the "ice wall" is there, and where us the evidence of this?...or any of your crackpot theories.

There is a 150 foot Ice Wall at the edge of the Round Earth Antarctica as well.

The difference between the models is the distance of the Ice Wall. Polar explorer James Clark Ross reports circumnavigating a distance of 60,000 miles around the Ice Wall.

Its not an ice wall; its a continent covered with ice.

Its not an ice wall; its a continent covered with ice.

There is indeed an Ice Wall at the foot of Antarctica. The Ice Wall is a massive wall of ice that surrounds Antarctica. It is several hundred meters thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 50 meters high above the water surface.

The Ross Ice Wall was named after Sir James Clark Ross, an explorer who was among the first to venture to Antarctica in an attempt to determine the position of the South Magnetic Pole. Upon confronting the massive vertical front of of ice he famously remarked 'Well, there's no more chance of sailing through that than through the cliffs of Dover.'

James Clark Ross and his expeditionary fleet sailed around the Ice Wall for a number of months. Between pit stops in Europe and his polar expeditions, he spent the next five years of his life vainly in search of a south sea passage to the other side. Ross reports a circumference of over 60,000 miles.

Beyond the 150 foot Ice Wall is anyone's guess. Some hold that the tundra of ice and snow stretches forever into infinity.

Edge of the known world: http://uwamrc.ssec.wisc.edu/images/gallery/B15Aedge.jpg

Temperatures approach absolute zero the further one explores outwards. Exploration in that type of pitch black freezing environment is impossible for any man or machine. We live on a vast plane with an unknown diameter and an unknown depth. Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham held that knowing the true dimensions of the earth is something which will be forever be unknowable by man.

Yes but the two ice walls you speak of are very different. One covers a continent (which most reger to it as an ice shelf) and the FE keeps the water from leaving earth.

Beyond the 150 foot Ice Wall is anyone's guess.

I'd say satellite images give us a good idea. As do the numerous expeditions to the South Pole.

Also stop copy-pasting that bit about Ross everywhere!

Good points. Tom i am sick of seeing links that you post that lead to the most biased sites on earth.

Quote from: Chrissetti on May 04, 2007, 04:06:28 AM

I know people have posted maths heavy answers to explain this but I have a very simple method of disproving  Mr Rowbotham.

Stand on a bus with a mobile phone when it's traveling @ 30mph. toss your phone into the air.  does it smack you in the face at 30mph because it stood still as the bus moved? NO.

Exchange 'bus' for 'earth' and 'phone' for cannonball' and you have his experiment in a nutshell

I don't see the analogy. The air resistance and weight cause the phone to move relatively to the bus. Consider this (not for the FE-ers): A space shuttle opens its bay door and out comes a satellite. What’s the relative motion of the satellite with respect to the space shuttle?

What i was trying to say was that as long as the bus is in constant motion, everything within the 'bubble' of the bus, the air and stuff moves relative to the bus. when the earth moves or rotates everything within earth's bubble (the atmosphere) moves relative to it as well UNLESS the bubble is accelerating/decelerating. toss your phone in the air as the bus screeches to a halt or blasts off the lights THEN we see relative motion of the phone. So in conclusion if the earth is travelling at a near-constant velocity then we wont see the effects Mr R expected to see.