OK, I'm hooked..I can't get enough of this...just a few questions

 DAMN!! This is better than porn!!     anyhoo...curiosity has gotten the better of me and I can't help from asking a FEer..
  To believe that the world is flat, you have to buy into alot of things that are patiently absurd. Worldwide conspiracy, ice wall patrols, fake photos, etc.  I just can't help from wondering what it was that pushed you over the edge so to speak?

 

Well, if you're willing to be patient with the absurdity, we are too.

Rolexx,

I became an FEer by doing the following:

- Taking a international commuter flight on a airliner at above 40,000 feet and looking for a single degree of curvature. The horizon was completely and absolutely flat when compared with a straight edge. Mathematically there should be a visible arc.

- Asking passengers around me if they could see a curve or arc. None of them could.

- Reproducing the principle experiments outlined in Earth Not a Globe.

- Reproducing a many number of other experiments in the vast Flat Earth Literature.

- Contriving of my own types of experiments that proves the earth flat.

- Each and every one of my results suggested a Flat Earth.

- Researching the journals of James Clark Ross and finding that his expeditionary fleet actually did find a vast impenetrable 150 foot high Ice Wall, which he was unable to circumnavigate around over a period of months.

- Circumnavigation of the earth is possible on FE due to its magnetic layout.

- The figure eight in the Analemma of the sun suggests a Flat Earth.

- Taking note of the inconsistencies of the Foucault Pendulum at different latitudes and with different experimenters. Sometimes it spins in the wrong direction. Also noticing the extreme lack of pendulums in the Southern Hemisphere.

- Snope's debunking of the Coriolis force on liquids.

- The Federal Reserve is a private corporation.

- There is no such thing as a privately satellite. They are built and sent up by Government contractors.

- Military airspace starts at altitudes past 60,000 feet. No one is allowed to breach into military airspace.

- There are vast inconsistencies between various NASA Round Earth images.

- Past the Arctic and Antarctic circles the magnetic field lines are vertical and magnetic compasses are useless for navigation at those latitudes. They just spin around wildly. Polar explorers have an extraordinarily hard time navigating. Any claim of reaching a pole is untrusted.

- Vertical magnetic field lines within the entirety of the Arctic circle are unexplainable in RE.

- Only one person has claimed to successfully have completed a transcontinental journey across the diameter of Antarctica. Without a compass he did it using "guess work." The other person who tried it conveniently froze to death in the process.

- The refractive index of Snell's Law may indeed provide an illusion of curvature from the altitude of a satellite.

-  In the 90's when the 150 year old Flat Earth Society was gaining momentum again its main library of unique Flat Earth literature was conveniently lost in a fire.

- Even if there WAS a world wide conspiracy, it would only need to be conducted by very few people. No need for an army of Ice Wall guards. At this point anyone claiming the world to to be flat would automatically be labeled by society as mistaken, foolish, or 'crazy'. They'd then be summarily ignored.

- The Conspiracy and the pocketing of NASA's 1.6 trillion dollar net gain over the years is ingenious in retrospect, since everyone of the world already believes in a Round Earth. No one is willing to consider otherwise.

- That's not even counting how much money the Conspiracy has made off of the Russian Space Agency.

- We are led to believe that the ancients, being the dimwits they were, believed in a Flat Earth. In reality the ancient Greeks, dating back to 2700 B.C, as well as most ancient other societies clearly believed in a Round Earth.

- I am an athiest who came to the conclusion of a Flat Earth through scientific proofs, experiments, and observations. I hold a ~ Redacted By Administration ~

There are many many other reasons for my believing in a Flat Earth of course, but these are just a few I'll provide for now.

Most FE'ers hold their beliefs due to trusting their own eyes over what people tell you. Some (but not many if any on here) hold their beliefs for religious reasons.

- Reproducing the principle experiments outlined in Earth Not a Globe.

- Reproducing a many number of other experiments in the vast Flat Earth Literature.

- Contriving of my own types of experiments that proves the earth flat.

- Each and every one of my results suggested a Flat Earth.

Really? Fascinating. Can you link to some of your results? Something describing your theory and method as well.

The Federal Reserve is a private corporation.

Eh? What does that have to do with anything? Have you been watching Team America? "Let me explain to you how this works. You see, the corporations finance Team America. And then Team America goes out and the corporations sit there in their, in their corporation buildings and, and and see that's, they're all corporationy, and they make money. Mhm."

Snope's debunking of the Coriolis force on liquids.

Come on, you're reaching again. You know as well as I do that the coriolis force is only observable in large-scale systems.

Military airspace starts at altitudes past 60,000 feet. No one is allowed to breach into military airspace.

Except SpaceShipOne, which did. And several commercial sounding rockets. And a few amateur rockets. And, soon enough, several more commercial spacecraft owned by Richard Branson.

Really? Fascinating. Can you link to some of your results? Something describing your theory and method as well.

Experiment 1:

Take any four points on earth with a significant distance apart (London, Madrid, Athens, and Kiev, for instance) and measure the angles between the points. If the earth were a globe the angles would add up to more than 360 degrees. This is called positive curvature and would prove the Earth is round. If the angles measure to be exactly 360 degrees, as they do in plain-old Euclidean geometry, it implies that the earth is a flat surface. Quadrilaterals whose angles measure less than 360 degrees implies a negative curvature (like a horse saddle).

Result: Flat.

Experiment 2:

I live along the California Monterey Bay. It is a relatively long bay that sits next to the Pacific Ocean. The exact distance between the extremes of the Monterey Bay, Lovers Point in Pacific Grove and Lighthouse State Beach in Santa Cruz, is 33.4 statute miles.

On a very clear and chilly day it is possible to see Lighthouse Beach from Lovers Point and vice versa. With a good scope, laying down on the stomach at the edge of the shore on the Lovers Point beach 10 inches above the sea level it is possible to see people at the waters edge on the adjacent beach 33 miles away. Since the supposed curvature of the Round Earth inclines at 8 inches per mile, this should not be possible. There should be a bulge of water twenty two feet tall blocking my view.

Result: Flat.

"The Federal Reserve is a private corporation."

Eh? What does that have to do with anything?

Do you not see anything fishy that the entity which prints and lends the money to the United States of America is a private corporation with private undeclared stock holders? An entity, I must remind you, that has never been audited by congress.

Come on, you're reaching again. You know as well as I do that the Coriolis force is only observable in large-scale systems.

It's not realistically possible to test large scale systems in a closed environment. The debunking of small scale systems is a first step.

"Military airspace starts at altitudes past 60,000 feet. No one is allowed to breach into military airspace."

Except SpaceShipOne, which did.

SpaceShipOne is built, operated, and maintained by Scaled Composites. Scaled Composites is a government contractor.

Ah Tom...problems, problems, problems...

I live along the California Monterey Bay. It is a relatively long bay that sits next to the Pacific Ocean. The exact distance between the extremes of the Monterey Bay, Lovers Point in Pacific Grove and Lighthouse State Beach in Santa Cruz, is 33.4 statute miles.

On a very clear and chilly day it is possible to see Lighthouse Beach from Lovers Point and vice versa. With a good scope, laying down on the stomach at the edge of the shore on the Lovers Point beach 10 inches above the sea level it is possible to see people at the waters edge on the adjacent beach 33 miles away. Since the supposed curvature of the Round Earth inclines at 8 inches per mile, this should not be possible. There should be a bulge of water twenty two feet tall blocking my view.

Actually there are a LOT of problems with this one. Firstly,

33.4 statute miles.

What's your source for this? I've seen that picture Tom when you posted it. It can't have been more than 10 miles. Consider, the distance from Dover to Calais is roughly 30 miles. On a clear day, you're still struggling to make out the other shore-line. However on your picture...it's highly visible - in fact I'd say less than ten miles.

Since the supposed curvature of the Round Earth inclines at 8 inches per mile, this should not be possible.

Probably the crappiest statement I've heard all day. And what is your source for this? I seriously doubt it is 8 inches per mile Tom. More like one inch per 8 miles.

If it were really 8 inches per mile...

There are 1600m in a mile. So let's divide by two, that's 8 inches in 800m. Again that's 4 inches in 400m.
If such a ridiculous claim were true, you would be able to see the curvature of the earth by lying on your stomach and looking sideways, given a flat and non-restricted view.

SpaceShipOne is built, operated, and maintained by Scaled Composites. Scaled Conposites is a government contractor.

That shows nothing. It might be built and maintained by them, but it's not OWNED by them. And it's not operated by them at all. I'll admit two of the astronauts were engineers of Scaled Composities, but two others had no affiliations to the goverment. One was a test pilot.

And just because they are a government contractor doesn't mean they are part of a conspiracy - the government had nothing to do with this mission. Just becuase Scaled composites have built stuff for the government in the past doesn't negate this particular mission.

I've done jobs for my local council. Doesn't mean they conspire with me.

Do you not see anything fishy with the entity that prints and lends it to the United States of America being a private corporation with private undeclared stock holders? An entity, I must remind you, that has never been audited by congress.p

It might be fishy. What does it have to do with the earth's shape?

"Firstly, 33.4 statute miles."

What's your source for this?

Any map of the Monterey Bay Area.

I've seen that picture Tom when you posted it. It can't have been more than 10 miles. Consider, the distance from Dover to Calais is roughly 30 miles. On a clear day, you're still struggling to make out the other shore-line. However on your picture...it's highly visible - in fact I'd say less than ten miles.

It was an accurate picture. I don't know what to tell you. When I provided it I got all sorts of wild guesses for the distances from as close as a mile away. Since you have not seen a coast from thirty miles away the human mind really doesn't have anything to compare it to. Maybe you have seen a coast from thirty miles away and you didn't know it.

The mind is not very good at all at comparing far away distances without a frame of reference. Consider the stars and the sun. An airplane. Can you tell how far away they are just by looking at them?

Probably the crappiest statement I've heard all day. And what is your source for this? I seriously doubt it is 8 inches per mile Tom. More like one inch per 8 miles.

Reference 1: "Hence the earth's surface curves at approximately 8 inches per mile."

Reference 2: "On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile)."

For kicks here's a reference by "Dr. Math" who calculates it at 16 ft per 10 miles (about 19 inches per mile).

If such a ridiculous claim were true, you would be able to see the curvature of the earth by lying on your stomach and looking sideways, given a flat and non-restricted view.

The figure of 8 inches per mile is even printed on Trivial Pursuit cards. You're just bad at math like "Dr. Math."

And just because they are a government contractor doesn't mean they are part of a conspiracy

Government contractors with access to sensitive information don't operate under strict rules and regulations, going through various screenings, signing various contract and promising to abide by these confidentiality rules laid out for the foreseeable future under the threat of prosecution? I'm pretty sure they do.

- The figure eight in the Analemma of the sun suggests a Flat Earth.

The earth's orbit is an ellipse, a slightly flattened circle. Contrary to popular opinion, we are closest to the sun (perihelion) in early January, about two weeks after the winter solstace. We are farthest from the sun (apehelion) in early July, about two weeks after the summer solstace. As anyone who remembers high school physics can attest, the earth moves faster along its orbit when nearer the sun, and more slowly when farther from the sun. This means that when we are near perihelion there are slightly less than 24 hours between when the sun is directly overhead (astronomical noon) on two consecutive days. When we are far from the sun it is slightly more than 24 hours. Over the course of the year it evens out, 24 hours is the average length of a solar day.

 The sum of these slight offsets causes the sun to become "ahead" of our clocks for part of the year, and "behind" our clocks for part of the year. The sun is usually not directly overhead at noon, and sunrise and sunset are usually not perfectly centered on 6 o'clock. Combining this offset with the angle north or south of the equator that the sun is at on a given day and the length of the day due to the season yields the earth's analemma. It is almost a perfectly symmetric figure 8 because apehelion and perihelion are close to the solstaces. If they were close to the equinoxes it would be a very flattened figure 8. The more squashed the elliptical orbit, the wider the analemma would be.

^^A copy and paste to why the analemma is a figure eight.  Therefore, the analemma proves nothing.

Government contractors with access to sensitive information don't operate under strict rules and regulations, going through various screenings, signing various contract and promising to abide by these rules laid out for the foreseeable future under the threat of prosecution?

I signed a similar contract with my landlord, promising to pay rent and keep the house in a reasonable standard, also under threat of prosecution. The whole point of contract law is to stop things like conspiracies and illegal activity happening.

Besides, since when is spacecraft design sensitive information? It's all derived from the laws of physics. You don't have to work for the government to know it, you can look it up.

I signed a similar contract with my landlord

A contract with your landlord is hardly an analogy to sensitive government clearance, where if one breaches the echelons of classified security they are immediately tried under the threat of execution.

In such a trial, the judge or attorneys wouldn't even need to know the details. They'd just have to prove that you provided "Document 1234.6a" to person X.

But lets not get off topic. I'm awaiting your "rebuttal" to the remainder of my post.

Tom do you live in a sealed bunker?

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I signed a similar contract with my landlord

Hardly an analogy to sensitive government clearance. Where if one breaches the echelons of classified security they are immediately tried under the threat of execution.

In such a trial, the judge or attorneys wouldn't even need to know the details. They'd just have to prove that you provided "Form 1234.6a" to person X.

But lets not get off topic. I'm awaiting your "rebuttal" to the remainder of my post.

Which post?

Tom
Experiment one.  Looking at a map is not an experiment.  A map will always give you 360 degrees.  You would have to actually go to those places and then messure while walking in a straight line.

Two.  There are private satellites despite what you say.  Feel free to call up a company and order a picture.  Or better yet get satellite radio.   

Three.  There is no conspiracy in the Federal Reserve System.  That’s just as stupid as the FE theory.

Four.  While flying at 36,000 feet the horizon looked to have a very slight curve.

Five.  You never did one experiment from Earth: Not a Globe.

Rollexx, as you post on here you will see how Flat earth people will change there views to make almost anything fit the flat earth theory.  First Tom said all pictures from space were photoshoped.  Then recently he siad they were fisheyed because of Snells law, which was his new favorite word at the time.

Hardly an analogy to sensitive government clearance. Where if one breaches the echelons of classified security they are immediately tried under the threat of execution.

And what parts of satellite technology are classified? I can go to my university science library and get out any number of books that, if I had the time the read them, would give me lots of knowledge on them. To what knowledge are you referring?

For instance, we started with the specific example of SpaceShipOne. As far as I am aware, none of the technology used in its construction was in any way classified.

Quote

Hardly an analogy to sensitive government clearance. Where if one breaches the echelons of classified security they are immediately tried under the threat of execution.

And what parts of satellite technology are classified? I can go to my university science library and get out any number of books that, if I had the time the read them, would give me lots of knowledge on them. To what knowledge are you referring?

For instance, we started with the specific example of SpaceShipOne. As far as I am aware, none of the technology used in its construction was in any way classified.

He doesn't know what hes talking about.  Private companies build parts for NASA all the time. 

And what parts of satellite technology are classified?

Try the part that puts it into the skies.

The government does not make its rocket designs available to the public for militaristic purposes. It may be possible to know the general principles of how a rocket works, but the direct engineering details and principles of large payload rockets are highly classified.

Like a nuclear bomb, one can know the general physical process of a nuclear reaction, but the government doesn't exactly release the specific complex engineering details of plutonium/uranium extraction.

Experiment one.  Looking at a map is not an experiment.  A map will always give you 360 degrees.  You would have to actually go to those places and then measure while walking in a straight line.

I have a coworker who owns a fishing boat and fishes in the bay. He regularly travels from point to point, pier to pier. I asked him directly what the distances were between the shorelines of Lovers Point and Lighthouse State Beach. He told me it was a little over 30 miles.

On a day and time clear of traffic, when traveling along the 65 mph highway that runs along the coast of the Monterey Bay it takes me at least 50 minutes to reach Santa Cruz from Pacific Grove. The distance across the bay is clearly not one, five, or even ten miles.

Two.  There are private satellites despite what you say.  Feel free to call up a company and order a picture.  Or better yet get satellite radio.

Each of those satellites were built by and put into the atmosphere by Government Contractors. Entities like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are contracted by companies like XM Radio to design a satellite and put it into the skies. XM Radio itself is hardly in the position to reverse engineer NASA rockets, patented satellite technologies, and such. The budget for that sort of thing would be enormous! Not to mention the extensive testings of trials and errors.

Instead, XM Radio or DirectTV would contract a Government Contractor who has access to such space and rocket technologies. The Government Contractor profits on the order of tens of millions of dollars a pop.

Three.  There is no conspiracy in the Federal Reserve System.

Then why are the shareholders of the Federal Reserve CORPORATION kept private from the public? Why has this entity never been audited by congress? They make and lend the money to the US Government after all. They lend the money to all of us. They even charge interest.

As most of us should know, the federal reserve note is no longer backed by a gold standard. They are essentially making money from nothing!

Four.  While flying at 36,000 feet the horizon looked to have a very slight curve.

We have a pilot on this forum who says he has never seen the curvature of the earth.

First Tom said all pictures from space were photoshoped.  Then recently he siad they were fisheyed because of Snells law, which was his new favorite word at the time.

I have simply provided three different possibilities which could account for why the earth might look curved in a photograph: Digital manipulation, natural occurring illusion, and wrong lens type.

I have provided several challenges to Round Earthers that have went unfulfilled.

For example, in this popular photograph with the NASA logo in the corner there are dark shadows under the clouds over Argentina and NorthAmerica. This image is usually posted on this forum with an accompanying 42 point bold red caption of "THE EARTH IS RUOND MORONZ!!!"

Yet in no other Round Earth photographs from space, of the "millions" I'm so very often quoted, can one find a shadow under a cloud.

Wait, you live in Cali?  I thought in an earlier post you said you were a physics professor for Georgia State University.....

You were reading my post in the rotation thread wrong. The link I provided for the centripetal force calculator comes from gsu.edu and was made by a physics professor from that school. Hence, the people making up their own centripetal force equations in that thread were 'arguing with a physics professor from Georgia State University.'

Read the post over again: http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=12599.msg181836#msg181836

Damn, my victory over the GSU physics professor was a sham!

Still got my victory over the basement dwelling troll tho, good enough for me.

Try the part that puts it into the skies.

Liquid oxygen is just supercooled oxygen (20-ish percent of the air)

Is the Earth still flat?

There is no such thing as a privately satellite. They are built and sent up by Government contractors

Oh now I'm confused Tom. In the FAQ, if I'm not mistaken, it says there are no satellites.

Liquid oxygen is just supercooled oxygen (20-ish percent of the air)

I'm speaking the engineering specifics of rocket design, not its fuel.

Do you truly believe that it is easy to build a large stable rocket which could reach escape velocity?

Oh  now I'm confused Tom. In the FAQ, if I'm not mistaken, it says there are no satellites.

It depends on how we define Satellite.

You could find as much information as you can and work on engineering your own rocket...oh wait that requires thinking, damn.

Heh jk about the thinking thing, but really why couldn't you make a rocket in your backyard?  I'll tell you why, you don't choose to.  If you put your mind to it instead of thinking up some crackpot theory to unite two of your contradicting theories (NOTE: Not talking about this issue) you could be putting in time to build yourself a rocket....I'm sure you'd get in trouble after you used it but you could get away with it long enough to get the proof of a flat earth all through the internet.

Becoming a "rocket scientist" is just a matter of looking up stuff on the internet, right?

The instructions for building a Nuclear Bomb are right there on the internet after all. A single person just needs to put a little time into it and he could build one for himself!

P.S. I'm still waiting to see a single different Round Earth picture from space with a shadow under a cloud..

Do you have children Tom?

Um...yeah.

You may kill or injure yourself in the process of building your own rocket, but I never said that wasn't possible.  The information is out there to build whatever you want.  If you can't find information you do more research to figure it out on your own.  Someone at some point made these things right?  Before they knew how to make them?  Oh my, yes!

BTW have you heard of someone named Homer Hickam?
*Tom googles the name*

P.S. I'm still waiting to see a single different Round Earth picture from space with a shadow under a cloud..

Is this pic on the NASA website?  Anyway, why would it matter?  Apparently, anyone can fake a pic of the earth.

Here you go.  My grandpa was the senior vise president of the federal bank in Chicago up to 1989.   He was ask to be on the board of governors.  He was no conspirator.  At his funeral I met the President and the Vice President, the one that took his job.  They did not strike me as conspirators either, although there pocket protectors and thick glasses struck me as nerdish.   

We have a pilot on this forum who says he has never seen the curvature of the earth.

The Engineer does not fly 767s.  Hes probably never flown above 20,000 feet.  I was looking for the curvature.  It was hard to see it, not like pictures from space, but it seemed to want to curve. 

I have simply provided three different possibilities which could account for why the earth might look curved in a photograph: Digital manipulation, natural occurring illusion, and wrong lens type.

I have provided several challenges to Round Earthers that have went unfulfilled.

O yes the fisheye lense.  The one that magically makes the earth fold into a ball.  In reality if the earth was flat it would make the flat earth curve, not make it into a globe. 

For example, in this popular photograph with the NASA logo in the corner there are dark shadows under the clouds over Argentina and NorthAmerica. This image is usually posted on this forum with an accompanying 42 point bold red caption of "THE EARTH IS RUOND MORONZ!!!"

Yet in no other Round Earth photographs from space, of the "millions" I'm so very often quoted, can one find a shadow under a cloud.

I cant tell since you reposted it so small.  But I can recall the thread that you claimed the video was fake because the earth had a reflection.  You then posted 15 pictures saying none of them had it, yet 8 of the pictures did so you then removed the link.