coldel

I had a very quick look at that video (too late to put in the half hour!) and it seems to have a very obvious flaw at the start maybe I missed it but its late, but they only measured two points, to prove its flat you need to measure a laser from one end to the other and have it pass through a third point in the middle which is the same height as the points at either end - otherwise you have variables at either end where inches make the difference in feet which prove or disprove it? I am out of my depth in terms of science on this one and can only try read up on it, but I guess the simple solution is there, big telescope look at America from Ireland, it should be right there in front of you. End of debate. Why hasn't it been done? Amateur photographers have put digital SLRs into plastic boxes attached them to helium balloons and taken photos like this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7514429/Father-captures-pictures-of-earth-using-camera-fixed-to-weather-balloon.html Surely flatearthers can just save themselves the hassle, send a camera up, take photos of a flat earth with a polar edge and its done?

But the shape is not the issue, flat earth can only explain time differences and seasons if the sun and moon in effect orbit the flat earth opposite each other, so what is causing the eclipse, it cannot be the earth because its not between the moon and the sun, both orbit in the sky above the flat earth according to the websites? Ships sailing over the horizon do not go up and down, draw a line straight through the centre of a circle, then draw a line 90 degrees through the part where that line intersects the circle, at no point does the circle go up and then down again - the only way you would see this on a circular object is to be very high up and very far away, not stood on a harbour. And a strong lens does not bring it back in to view, if its isn't there to be seen, again no evidence presented of this. If this were true we could simply put a big telescope on the west coast of Ireland and look at the statue of liberty, we have telescopes that can see millions of miles so the technology is available, flat earthers could easily just prove their theory doing this - so why havent they? I would like to see the data from the laser experiment if you could link it. As you rightly point out assuming the laser and recipient point are at identical heights above sea level it shouldnt be possible, but if there is just a few feet difference, say 20 or so then its very much fits the round model. I guess like most sites I read today, flat earthers do nothing to counter argue the arguments against their points i.e. the Cook example is very easily explained. Additionally they have no evidence to dispel round earth theory. Like I say, rather than grasping at various misinformed amateur conspiracies on the internet, get a powerful telescope and look from one country to another to show it can be done then its beyond debate...why has this not been done yet? Ignore all the daft minor issues, just do this and its debate over right?

They look cool?

Whats the actual question you are raising there?

Ha, no wasn't saying you were I have heard a few bits and pieces about it over the last year after some celebrity endorsements but spent 10 mins or so reading some of the pro FE websites and it really is daft, it really is that someone can read something so superficial and just go for it.

Nope. Every image from space has been doctored to show false ones and all true images of a flat earth are hidden in secret vaults under the Pentagon.

How can total eclipses happen if the earth is not circular, and when they do they are circular in shadow and not eliptical? Why do I see ships sail away from me and sink into the sea if its flat? From what I remember from Physics GCSE was that very large things with mass generate gravity at their centre, if the earth were flat would we not all be pulled sideways to the middle not downwards? And of course any one travelling into space is under instruction never to say the world is flat, somehow this has managed to have been applied to anyone from James May in a U2 to every astronaut ever that has gone up there from any country?

There is so much evidence against flat earth I cannot really buy into any of it. Why are different stars only visible from different places on earth? Why could I not see the ocean from the top of Mount Fuji when I was up there it is only 100 miles or so? I presume all the photos from space are just called out as fake news? A little google also shows Antarctic teams starting from opposite sides and meeting at a point in the middle? What I see is a mass acceptance of very specific scenarios which might support the theory and a rejection with no evidence of anything conflicting it. Its called Confirmation Bias and is common amongst conspiracy theories. I guess everyone who jumps in the U2 spy plane for tourist trips to the upper atmosphere have to sign Pentagon level NDAs not to tell the world that what they see is a spinning disc

I couldnt help but look into this and it is mental what people are saying, dismissing so many questions against flat earth by trying to highlight selective extracts of diaries from Cooks travels - these lot should be politicians the dodging of the questions is on a grand scale. There is the fact that a Cook trip to the Antarctic took 3 years and 60,000 miles to do which lends nicely to flat earth theory i.e. its the edges of a flat earth he traveled, but it ignores that over those 3 years he returned to many countries and headed back to it actually only spending a few months at a time looking at the ice barriers. Half the time he was lording it up in the sun in southern oceans, visiting 10 other countries. Also it doesn't explain how he successfully navigated Earth using celestial navigation which relies on your distance to the horizon vs position of the stars, which apparently wouldn't change on a flat earth. Apparently the reason from flat earthers is that the stars are much much closer than we are told - of course no evidence presented to back this up but thats that challenge sorted apparently

A quick Google (I admit I don't know enough about Mr Cook and his attempts at finding Antarctica) shows he knew Antarctica was there, made a number of attempts to reach it but was forced back by floating ice (unsurprisingly) But after a number of unsuccessful attempts to navigate the ice had actually crossed the Antarctic circle and had traveled further south than any one had done before. What are you referring to that doesn't add up?

Sold - thread locked

Sold - thread locked

Funny enough saw one parked up when I walked into town earlier, it looks overly long and flat it really does look quite, well, crap.

I tried reading a Clarkson book some time back and gave up it was dreadful. They tried to write it like he speaks on TV and it just doesn't work it was really tiresome.

Not sure I would take any notice of Clarkson in terms of properly reviewing a car!

You are entitled of course to call it - there is a lot of study by thousands of independent people on the same subject all coming to a similar conclusion, a quick google brings up this as the first result, have a read. https://www.space.com/21640-star-luminosity-and-magnitude.html Measuring the speed of light at home, using a microwave and a chocolate bar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpB1wezpJeE You can also do it using a light source, two mirrors one stationary and one rotating, to measure the speed of light as done by some French guy in the 19th century way before computers were around. I guess you are either in or out, but there are so many ways of measuring it from pinging websites along fibre optic cables to looking at Jupiter (how it was first done).

You are assuming only one point of reference. We can measure the brightness of the sun, relative to our position, we can then compare this to other stars moving outwards and generate multiple points of reference and extrapolate outwards. Size, brightness and anything in-between dictates distance and again is all provable (and has been and you can do it yourself if you doubt it with some simple experiments) your assumption that we are just measuring distance between two points is false from the offset. As with anything you need 'three sticks in the sand' to see trends and distance and mapping outwards lets you do this.

No assumptions on brightness and distance, its all doable here on planet earth turn on a light and measure the time in another position. I would imagine its clear that the further a light is away the harder it is to see. the less bright it is and the longer it takes to travel. So yes you measure how far light has travelled and I would say you assume there is a light emitting entity at the source which has fired off energy which has a destination which is where the telescope picks it up. Which isn't a daft assumption as again you can easily replicate here on earth. Clearly drastic changes in density can refract light and bend light (black holes?) which increases or decreases its brightness and thus distance but you have to drop that into the calculation, but a calculation that gets 99% right is still as good as anything and could be 100% accurate in the absence of abnormalities like black holes between us and the light source.

Because its simple maths if you try. You can look at a position in the sky of a star, then say half a year later look again (yes they are in different positions) and you have three points and simple trigonometry allows your to triangulate distance. Clearly the further away something is the less the angle so it becomes impossible as the distance the Earth rotates the sun is not big enough to make the angle sufficient to measure difference, thats when colour spectrums and brightness come into play. But in terms of distance, apparently it would take hundreds of millions of years for the sun to complete a single orbit of the galaxy, so the constellations havent moved in a 1000 years, well of course not, we have a long way to go. It really isn't that hard to believe, drive your car through a tunnel and hear the noise bounce off the walls, its energy and it moves and it takes time - light is an energy just like sound is you just need to use established and proven ways of measurement at a larger scale. Given that the planet has been around for millions of years, stars having not moved in say 1000 years is quite sensible (that said 1000 years ago there was not the technology to accurately place stars in the sky) if you move a marble on a table 1mm over the course of a year it will look like its in the same position.

Yep, could be looking at the past, something which disappeared.

By very clever people who understand physics much more than we do! Fact is that until we solve the survival challenge of space we rely on these sort of vessels to go explore on our behalf, it must be exciting and frustrating in the same instance that you have to wait years to see the fruits of your labour but when you see something no one has ever seen before...

Yes its effectively time travel, that we see things from many years ago, looking into the past. It really blows the mind to imagine that you are looking back in time as well as looking across the expanse of space. That in say 10000 years time another form of life could be looking in our direction and seeing our sun which might not be there and we are long gone.

As exciting as making a bigger rocket is this is amazing https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-captures-record-breaking-images-in-the-kuiper-belt Over three and a half billion miles away there is something man made getting on with looking further into space, it blows the mind. I know there were a lot of knockers when taking photos of the 'blue dot' a couple of years ago with Saturn in the foreground it really is astonishing that something can still pass information back to our planet from so far away.

Its one of those things isn't it. Tesla realise that fossil fuels will run out/atmosphere is dying, governments know it, car firms were making little progress in moving to EVs, US government keeps Tesla from going belly up for years with billions of dollars to develop the tech regular car firms were not willing to move to. Ultimately tech can be replicated, I can only see the big firms copy/purchase Tesla once they have it nailed down and everyones happy. Its quite common for governments to spend billions of taxpayers money on cleaner energy, the UK government gives plenty of money to companies to develop better energy solutions.

Space X is part funded by NASA, they are contracted to them to fulfill particular space development requirements whilst NASA work on other projects, from what I read - makes sense really to get private firms to focus on particular streams of development after all NASA only has finite staff, premises, equipment.