I have a proposal for you, let’s get rid of the flat earth theory...
Flat eartherism is not a theory. It doesn't even qualify as a. hypothesis. It's more in the range of "hair brained idea".
And there is no need to test this. There is no reason to even entertain this notion. Many sciences rely on a spherical Earth. Aeronautics, space exploration, communications, travel and radio transmissions to name a few don’t work the same on a flat Earth. A spherical Earth is perfectly explained by existing, solid theory. I can look up on an especially clear night when there is lots of light from the Earth shining on the Moon and actually see the dark side, so I know that’s a sphere. I have seen Mars and Jupiter and Saturn with my telescope. I know that they are spheres. I have seen footage of the Earth rotating as seen from space. I understand gravity well enough to know why planets and stars form into spheres.
So what possible reason could you give me to even entertain the notion that the Earth is the ONE, SINGLE thing in the universe which is really flat and not spherical? You have to invent all kinds of magical sciences which we haven’t ever observed just to explain how the Earth could be flat, but seem like a sphere. Something about space being bent around the edges so you don’t know you’re actually turning or some nonsense. And yeah, that is a magical science which has never been observed unless the Earth is a black hole, with enough mass to actually do that. We can leave it, so it isn’t.
I have no idea what your interest in this is, but it’s a waste of your time. The Earth is not flat. There is zero evidence for. Just some misused anecdotal evidence and logical fallacies. Literally all of the evidence is evidence against a spherical Earth, a negative argument style more famously used to prop up intelligent design nonsense. I have no reason to even entertain any of the crazy theories which prop this one up.
Have we lost the notion to be together in this life so much, that when anybody comes around with a different idea we immediately discard it?
I think our way forward can only be together, and if I see a way to do that in a healthy way I’ll jump to aid. It’s not thy are crazy and we are not, I think we could end a thing here than go to the next one and solve that one. I think we should all strive for that.
To be real with you, I can feel the earth turning even on a cloud-free day. So I am not saying the earth is flat, look at some of there arguments and ask yourself is everything bulsh. I think their main argument is correct that we are wrong about the curvature of the earth. That is all I am saying.
“Have we lost the notion to be together in this life so much, that when anybody comes around with a different idea we immediately discard it?”
No one throws out good ideas. Even poor ideas are listened to and either corrected or discarded. But extremely stupid ones are routinely and rightly ignored by everyone who knows anything about the topic they are related to.
The idea of a flat earth is as stupid as they come and no one except those ignorant of science or mentally disturbed would waste their time with it.
But there’s no law that says you can’t dig into the facts about the shape of the earth and decide for yourself. If you want to watch videos of all the debunking of all the flat-earth myths, you can easily do a youtube search (here, I did one for you : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=debunk+flat+earth) and watch hours and hours of videos explaining the shape of the earth and how flat-earthers get it wrong.
So don’t get the idea anyone is throwing out ideas because they are uncomfortable. They are thrown out because they’re stupid. You’ll throw this one out too once you’ve watched a bunch of those videos.
“I think our way forward can only be together, and if I see a way to do that in a healthy way I’ll jump to aid.”
I totally agree. But since flat-earthers are pulling us backwards, we should educate them (or isolate them if they refuse to learn anything) and not give them the time of day.
Again, not all ideas are equal. Stupid ideas exist. If we grant stupid ideas the same time and effort we grant good ideas we’ll waste time and money and be further behind.
So, yes, lets all move forward together for the benefit of all. If stupid ideas and those who adhere to them are left behind, so be it.
What he’s saying is we’ve done the work. The problem with their being so much information these days is, we just tell kids that the earth is round, and tell them to memorize the name of the guy who said it was, but we don’t encourage them to do their own hands on experiment, we don’t walk them through it. Since we also need to teach them what a budget deficit is and how it’s different from debt and how government debt is different from personal debt, part of the reasoning is, there isn’t time. If you want to question a couple thousand years of science, do it on your time. But don’t go crying that it’s a new or different idea. Use the only methods that have ever produced results. You were born with the capacity to do that. There is no way to explain that reason and evidence don’t work, without using reason and evidence.
Two of us have told you that laser experiments have been done, and they agree with the calculator you can find here. Earth Curve Calculator
If you question any of that, show us your idea for an experiment that would gather data that might disagree with it. Or, use one of the steps of the scientific method and repeat the experiments that have been done and see what you get.
Sorry but I might be your unicorn then, I truly believe to the last fiber of my soul that a butterfly in a sandstorm could rescue the earth.
How does this apply here, I think every soul is worthwhile if you asked the right question. No one is just one thing if someone believes in flat earth there are so many other fings they are believing in, with that information we automatically discard them, I think we should try to see a bigger picture of all people. I know that is a controversial view but I think we can learn a little bit from everybody.
I am not set on my ways, I am very much open for discussion.
But how do you have a discussion? By asking a question that has so many easily available answers, then calling foul when someone points to those answers? You want to shift this to something about personalities or something, but it's not. Objectively, the question of the shape of the earth has a ton of data behind it. The best place to go is to that accumulated data. Using your method, if a child was walking out onto a highway, you would say that we should respect their creative mind and let them explore. Even if they stopped and tried to reason with you about why they wanted to do that, and they refused to be convinced, you should still say, "NO", I'm not going to let you do that. And, I've assumed you are an adult and told you to go ahead, explore your ideas all you want, just don't waste my time with them, unless you really think you have something.
Actually, I work on the shore of Lake Superior. I have a 6 mile view of it to Wisconsin. I would love to setup a big pole on one shore, then a telescope on the other, and have days during the summer where people can come look at it and see how the calculations match the observation. I have not doubt that they would. Why do you doubt?
Stefan said ; To be real with you, I can feel the earth turning even on a cloud-free day. So I am not saying the earth is flat, look at some of there arguments and ask yourself is everything bulsh. I think their main argument is correct that we are wrong about the curvature of the earth. That is all I am saying.
We do know the earths curvature with great precision, We can measure it from space looking down on the spherical object known as Earth.
The story is that Egyptians figured out the earth was round and calculated the diameter of the Earth at least 3,500 years ago. They noticed the angle of the noon sun in wells. They did an experiment by comparing the angles in wells north and south of a reference well. They got it right within around 4%.
If you want to do that same science you don’t need to dig wells, you can use a series of tall posts. Just make sure you get the posts vertical, an accurate north-south distance between the posts and the correct local noon time. You can use this type of sundial as a calendar, as a compass and to determine longitude. Its a very neat thing to have in your yard or near the entrance to your business. And don’t miss its relationship to structures like Stonehenge.
The Earth’s rotation creates an outward force that is highest at the equator and zero at the poles. Since the Earth is not perfectly solid throughout, this force results in the Earth being ‘squashed’ into a slightly flattened sphere.
The effect is quite small. The diameter at the poles is about 12,714km and at the equator is about 12,756km; hence the amount of flattening (or ‘oblateness’) is only about 0.3 per cent. However, this equatorial bulge (42km) is about twice the distance from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest part of the ocean.
If this small difference bothers you, consider that any differences are relatively smaller than the differences in the shape of a billiard ball.
Have we lost the notion to be together in this life so much, that when anybody comes around with a different idea we immediately discard it?
A common method of deflection. Act hurt by the sound rejection of your wild claim, pretend it was unfair and then attempt to get me to enter your world of make believe once again. I'm sorry, but science has this pretty sussed out. Do you know what the chances are that YOU have an idea that SCIENCE missed? They are astronomically low. There is almost zero chance that some uneducated (compared to scientists) random is going to discover some mystery of the universe that scientists have missed. And when that does actually happen the chances of that discovery coming solely from your own mental musings are astronomically low. That makes that chances double-astronomically low.
The world only works if we “work together”. I have no problem with that whatsoever. But I am under no obligation to entertain your fantasy, nor would that be in any way productive for either of us. If you want to work together on something, I’m up for that. Just make it something real.
How sad we are as a species to be having discussions about whether the Earth is flat?
Anyone, these days, who believes that the Earth is flat, who even entertains the notion that the Earth might be flat, is an utter fool. And there are still, apparently, many such utter fools among my species of homo “sapiens”.
It astounds me how people will just invent new realities to cling to long-disproved ideas. Some flat earthers entertain the notion of some sort of spatial warp around the planet to explain why you can go completely around it, for example. Still other people try to revive long dismissed aether theory with new pseudo science. I think I’ve seen that one here twice now. I don’t know what is so fascinating about disproved ideas that would even make you want to look into what they say, much less invent new wild “theories” (used in the common sense, not the scientific sense) to shoehorn them into reality as we now know it. Maybe it’s because they were simpler? Easier to understand because they were from at least decades ago? At least with aether theory there was some supporting evidence at the time, I believe. It was an explanation for something which was observed. It just failed every test and what replaced it didn’t.
Consider that our scientifically oriented cultural knowledge and relevant data is passed on through “the Literature” (the totality of scholarly based journals).
It occurs to me to wonder whether there might be a better way. I certainly don’t know. But I hadn’t thought to ask before.
