A flat Earth thread for Tradosaurus

[bknight]

If gravity doesn't exist, why do things fall when you drop them?

Dangit, you beat me to asking this question. 

For a degreed Engineer, he makes some really dumb observations.  Like Neil Baker, I'm ashamed to call him a fellow Engineer.

[bknight]

If gravity doesn't exist, why do things fall when you drop them?

Dangit, you beat me to asking this question. 

What I hate is when I pour myself a cup of coffee in the morning and it floats up to soak into the ceiling tile.  It's so irritating.  Don't you hate it when it happens to you?

Coffee spew moment!

[raven]

If gravity doesn't exist, why do things fall when you drop them?

Dangit, you beat me to asking this question. 

What I hate is when I pour myself a cup of coffee in the morning and it floats up to soak into the ceiling tile.  It's so irritating.  Don't you hate it when it happens to you?

Coffee spew moment!

Did it float to your ceiling?

[bknight]

Dangit, you beat me to asking this question. 

If gravity doesn't exist, why do things fall when you drop them?

What I hate is when I pour myself a cup of coffee in the morning and it floats up to soak into the ceiling tile.  It's so irritating.  Don't you hate it when it happens to you?

Coffee spew moment!

Did it float to your ceiling?

The ejection velocity was great enough to make it to the lap screen before any upward motion.

[raven]

Ah. OK, joking aside, from what I understand, Flat Earther's think the Flat Earth is accelerating upward at the rate of gravitational acceleration. Which makes sense, at least compared to other Flat Earther  claims, except . . . correct me if I am wrong, but does not the force of gravity vary by region (slightly, but significantly in the statistical sense). If it was caused by the Earth accelerating upward, would it not be the exact same anywhere on the the planet?

[Trebor]

Ah. OK, joking aside, from what I understand, Flat Earther's think the Flat Earth is accelerating upward at the rate of gravitational acceleration. Which makes sense, at least compared to other Flat Earther  claims, except . . . correct me if I am wrong, but does not the force of gravity vary by region (slightly, but significantly in the statistical sense). If it was caused by the Earth accelerating upward, would it not be the exact same anywhere on the the planet?

The measurable acceleration due to gravity does change, from about 9.78 m/s2 at the Equator to about 9.83 m/s2 at the poles. This is due to centrifugal force due to the rotation of the Earth offsetting gravity to a small amount. The earth also bulges at the equator, which makes a difference. Also due to the rotation of the planet.

[raven]

Ah. OK, joking aside, from what I understand, Flat Earther's think the Flat Earth is accelerating upward at the rate of gravitational acceleration. Which makes sense, at least compared to other Flat Earther  claims, except . . . correct me if I am wrong, but does not the force of gravity vary by region (slightly, but significantly in the statistical sense). If it was caused by the Earth accelerating upward, would it not be the exact same anywhere on the the planet?

The measurable acceleration due to gravity does change, from about 9.78 m/s2 at the Equator to about 9.83 m/s2 at the poles. This is due to centrifugal force due to the rotation of the Earth offsetting gravity to a small amount.

I know. I'm just asking if the world was a pancake accelerating upward (like the floor of a rocket capsule accelerating upward) would it not be the same in all places?

[bknight]

I know that the distance from the center of the Earth results in a different gravitational constant, I 've not read of any other variance.

[DonQuixote]

I am always cautioning the students who see these videos to not think the camera is showing the curvature of the earth. It's simply an artifact of the very wide angle lenses on these small cameras. It would take some care to depict the true shape of the horizon.

In a video of Adam Savage of the Mythbusters flying at 70,000' in a U-2, he does claim he could visually discern the curvature of the earth.

Good stuff!

I've been using this one I ran across of Derek Deville's rocket launch

versus this record-breaking launches from GoFast back in 2004 and 2014

to illustrate that the curvature, even at the altitudes they reach, is subtle and very much subject to fisheye distortion. Deville's use of an old Fliphd in a side-mounted view seems to suffer from the least distortion, but I'm far from what anyone would consider an expert in this(or sadly, any) field.

As a layman with some grasp of the relevant fields, I've been endeavouring to explain to some of the more scientifically/mathematically-challenged that even at the height of 73 miles that GoFast attained, they've only risen to an elevation of 0.59% above the maximum observable circumference(half of a sphere, in other words, in this case 12,450.8 miles).

Now let's say you have a bowling ball 27 inches in circumference, it's observable circumference being 13.5 inches, the relative elevation above its surface would be

13.5 * .0059 = .079 inches

After a bit of searching, I found something of roughly this same thickness - 12-gauge copper wire.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge

So by way of analogy, these rockets would enjoy relatively the same view as an ant atop a 12-gauge wire atop a bowling ball.

[Trebor]

Ah. OK, joking aside, from what I understand, Flat Earther's think the Flat Earth is accelerating upward at the rate of gravitational acceleration. Which makes sense, at least compared to other Flat Earther  claims, except . . . correct me if I am wrong, but does not the force of gravity vary by region (slightly, but significantly in the statistical sense). If it was caused by the Earth accelerating upward, would it not be the exact same anywhere on the the planet?

...

I know. I'm just asking if the world was a pancake accelerating upward (like the floor of a rocket capsule accelerating upward) would it not be the same in all places?

I guess if it was wobbling at the same time there would be some variation....
Imagine if the Earth flipped over!

[DonQuixote]

I know. I'm just asking if the world was a pancake accelerating upward (like the floor of a rocket capsule accelerating upward) would it not be the same in all places?

Your reasoning is sound. If "flatworld" were accelerating upward as they claim, there would be no change in measured drop rate(avoiding the "g-word" here to keep things as "flat" as possible). No matter where you stood, it would always be the same.

[Allan F]

But how fast would it go? Depends on when it was "created"? If it was 6000 years ago, it would be quite a lot faster than light. 6200 times faster.

[Peter B]

Here is something for you globe-earthers to think about.

Can you personally prove the following, that is by measurable or observation experiments?
1) The earth is round

Triangulation and distances. According to the map of the Earth you adhere to, a drive from Sydney to Adelaide (east to west) would be about four times longer than a drive from Sydney to Brisbane (south to north). In reality the drive to Adelaide is about 1.5 times longer. People drive around Australia all the time and so the distances between major cities are well verified. They match a spherical Earth, not a flat Earth.

2) The earth is spinning

Foucault's Pendulum. Or the Coriolis Effect, which affects even artillery shells.

Or do you think that soldiers would willingly degrade the effectiveness of their weapons in order to maintain the conspiracy?

3) The earth orbits the sun.

Stellar parallax. The fact that Venus shows phases, which are directly related to its angular size. That's impossible according to your illustration.

4) The moon orbits the earth.

Everyone on the half of the Earth with the Moon above the horizon sees the Moon showing the same phase and the same size at the same time, and against the same background stars. That's impossible in the scenario provided by your map.

5) Water adheres to a curves surface rotating at 1,000 mph

Gravity. The same gravity which makes things fall to the ground, and which makes the Earth and Moon orbit each other, and which make the Earth-Moon system orbit the Sun, and which control the motions of the spacecraft we send into orbit around the Earth or off to distant planets. That is, a single concept governs a range of related situations.

6) Gravity exists

See above.

What causes everything to stay on the Earth in your Flat Earth view? Intelligent Falling? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_falling)

7) A person doesn't feel the change in rotational speed as he moves from the equator to the north pole where the rotation velocity goes from 1,000 mph to 0 mph.

Because a person is moving with the surface of the Earth. Exactly the same way, as JayUtah pointed out, your cup of coffee doesn't fly off the back of the table when you let go of it while travelling on a train.

ETA: In the meantime you might like to explain why I can watch the stars in the southern sky move around a point which doesn't contain the Pole Star.

[LunarOrbit]

Ah. OK, joking aside, from what I understand, Flat Earther's think the Flat Earth is accelerating upward at the rate of gravitational acceleration.

It just makes me wonder... what is causing the acceleration? Giant rocket engines on the underside of the flat Earth? What is fuelling the rockets?

[bknight]

Ah. OK, joking aside, from what I understand, Flat Earther's think the Flat Earth is accelerating upward at the rate of gravitational acceleration.

It just makes me wonder... what is causing the acceleration? Giant rocket engines on the underside of the flat Earth? What is fuelling the rockets?

The FE Gas Bags