FLAT EARTH THEORY

Random chat: movies, books, games, technology, etcetera.

Moderators: Mexicola, 2020k, Fredd-E, Aesthetics

Boqurant
Status: Offline
Posts: 99
Joined: 1 Jun 2017
phpBB [media]
Palace Posy

Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Banned !
Posts: 2242
Joined: 7 Feb 2014
Location: Banned by request
Don't )-:
I'm supposed to be on Hiatus out of shear embarrassment but this is Valotonin bait.

You are not alone in entertaining this theory. I am on the fence but often find myself on the side of the FE community defending them against the insults of those that are too closed minded to be able to entertain two ideas at once or those who just want to take cheap shots at an alternative science they have done little to no research on. There really is a wealth of deeper theory behind it and it is a fascinating subject.

I hope this thread develops into a cool, calm discussion of ideas in the Twoism fashion rather than a heated debate.
I think the road to this conclusion first starts with establishing that NASA are constant liars and the vast majority of space or stratospheric photography (Both NASA and not) uses a fish eye lens that one can be trained to see as the curvature of the Horizion changes as the camera tilts, making the earth wrap around space when it reaches 180 degrees opposite and being perfectly flat at 90 degrees (The middle point of the two extremes of the fish eye lens and thus the true appearance of the horizon).

User avatar
Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Offline
Posts: 1741
Joined: 14 Feb 2009
OK, taking the points in the video in order.

Gyroscope (0:00) - A gyroscope doesn't orient itself to be "vertical", but the force of it spinning in one axis resists force of it being turned in another. So a gyroscope oriented vertically will stay vertical, but you can have one oriented any which way. Buy a kid's gyroscope, and try this yourself, or see: https://youtu.be/cquvA_IpEsA?t=110 for a gyroscope that's on an angle, and stays there while it's spinning. What is the force acting on a gyroscope in a plane? The big one would be gravity, and that's pulling the plane and everything else towards the centre of the earth. In a plane travelling around the earth, the direction of that force remains constant from the frame of reference of the plane, so the argument he gives "as the plane curves down to match the curvature of the earth you should see the gyroscope tilt back to remain upright" is just silly. It's akin to saying "why do people living in Australia not fall off" which he references later.

Water/land at the equator (3:05) - Again, gravity, which in terms of magnitude of force is much much stronger than that generated by the rotation of the earth. If I'm in a car travelling along a road and a bird flies into the side of my car I don't go careening off course, because the force of me keeping going forward is much more than that of the bird exerted on my car. (Likewise, I don't go flying off into space because gravity pulls me down to the ground stronger than the forward force of my car, but I guess that's only really something that comes into play if you accept the curvature of the earth. Still, we've all been over hills.)

Wet tennis ball (3:16), Yes, because look at the scale of it. Even if you could counteract earth's gravity for this experiment, your tennis ball exerts a tiny amount of gravitational attraction on the water compared to the force generated by you spinning it. Try it again with a tennis ball that has a mass of that of the earth and see what happens.

Stellar motion (3:32), This feels like a trick question it's so daft but Polaris is something like 400 light-years away. That is a vast interstellar distance compared to our distance from the sun, or the motion of the sun in space. Absolutely dwarfs any of those figures. So of course it seems to remain relatively constantly fixed in the night sky to the human eye.

"Scientists will tell you..." (5:01) This is a basic attack on science as a process and appeal to some kind of naive experience of the world to hold some kind of truth. You measure, or you don't, I'm not going to defend the worth of science here, but I am going to say that in the absence of measurement "whatever you first thought of" isn't a satisfactory substitute.

Bedford Level Experiment (5:28) Having dismissed calculation and experiment, he then brings up the Bedford Level Experiment which attempted to see if the curvature of the earth was visible over a distance of flat water, based on the calculations of what the expected curvature should be. His numbers here are a little off the facts (look them up) and "8 inches per mile squared" is amusing (why the square here?!) but ignoring that. The experiment as done, did indeed seem to show that the expected curvature was not visible, but even in its day, scientists challenged the results and accounted for the difference by taking into account refraction of light at measurement distances close to the earth. His tone of voice suggests he doesn't buy this argument, but (and if the person editing this clip didn't do this deliberately, it's hilarious coincidendce), the video cuts to some lovely clips of light refracting on the horizon.

Limits of human vision (7:00): He puts the observed phenomena down to the human vision system which has a limit of 3 miles. Which is why of course, we can't see the sun, stars, or moon with the human eye. :-) No, what happens at 3 miles is that the curvature of the earth comes into play and on flat terrain, all you see from ground level after that is sky. It's why if you climb a tall building there's not just a 3 mile circle around you and then fucking NOTHING, because guess what? With more height you can see FURTHER. You see the same thing, the earth curving away from you, from a plane too, of course, it's just further away. What you can't see with the naked eye from commercial flight level is the horizon itself curving *along its length*. This isn't because it's somehow different amounts of curvature it's just such a subtle thing over that distance that you can't percieve it. The guy in the video is comparing apples to oranges here and he either knows it or he's confusing two things. Get up high enough, and you totally can see it.

A bunch more stuff where he doesn't understand refraction... Antwerp Notre Dame Spire, which can be seen 240km away (more than the 3 miles he gave the human vision system earlier but OK). Chicago appearing as a mirage, yada yada

You see in a kind of pyramid (10:02) For the life of me I can't work out what the hell he's trying to say here. Perspective, and waves obscuring things you're looking at because they're between you and it.

Salt flats (11:05) Not understanding that a small section of a very big curve looks basically flat to the naked eye. "You can see (the other end) perfectly clearly 100 miles away", more than 3 miles he gave our human vision system again, but that's OK because now the reason we can't see further at sea is "the effect of the waves".

Earth from the moon (12:00) Not understanding compression artifacting.

There are no images of the earth from space (12:27) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zKARkpDW4 *drops mic* (OK, OK, it depends where you define "space" starting. Dat earth curvature though.) But seriously. SERIOUSLY. If you want shitty unprocessed images we're not talking about just NASA now, we've got civilian space missions that have even taken video of earth from space and can sort you out.

Blue marble (13:45) The specific Blue Marble images they show were from 2002 and it was never a secret that they were a composite. NASA take a bunch of hi-res imagery of a part of the planet at a time, someone stitched them together, and then someone else generated a pseudo-image from them to say "this is what the earth would look like if we took an ultra hi res image of it", which they don't (because their scientific mission has more interesting things to do than take glamour shots of the earth). They never attempted to pass it off as a "real photograph". By the way it's called the "Blue Marble" because they're naming it after the famous photo taken in 1972 from Apollo 17... with a film camera, when "photoshop" was just a place you took your holiday snaps to be developed.

Static cloud video (14:34) Not a NASA video, so irrelevent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVuqcEuIRgs I'm willing to bet the photos he has with the clouds in the same shape as in the video were the ones they used for making the video too.

Lets rotate Hubble! (15:12) Hubble being 90s technology, and designed specifically to take imagery from extremely great stellar distances, where as we discussed earlier the relative lack of motion due to distance means they remain fixed in position, which is good because its minimum exposure time is 0.1s which would give you motion blur in a camera ON EARTH. From Hubble, all you'd get is streaks. Lets assume we can actually rotate it to look at Earth, and that it could focus on something so close. You certainly couldn't "zoom in in real time" and get real time imagery.

But lets say you tried, why would that be an acceptable proof that the earth is actually not flat, yet, taking a camera up to the ISS would not be? Because people have done that https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=earth+from+ISS NASA isn't going to take a 1.5 billion dollar scientific instrument and retask it just so that you can silence the flat-earthers.

Plane madness (15:42) Not understanding map projection, radar tracking availability, flight lanes or what constitutes "the easiest place to emergency land"

GPS doesn't work in the southern hemisphere (18:04) I mean, it clearly does, which is why Australian cars have sat navs. I mean, what? Look at his face right after he says it. Dude knows he's talking crap.

Somebody has actually redrawn the flat map (18:26) Wait, are we allowed to redraw things now, or is that only bad when NASA do it? Is this map the flat earth map, the actual shape the earth is supposed to be, or is it not? Because if it is, it contradicts other flat maps. If it's not, it's irrelevent.

What about plane journeys that you can only do in that time in a spherical earth? (18:52) They're priced so high nobody can afford them, and if someone were to book one they'd cancel it. Do I need to point out that's crazy?

Polar flights (19:15) Planes go the best route from a to b which is a factor of distance, congestion, cost and weather. There are a few flights that go within a distance of the north pole. They don't hit it directly because... why would they, just to say they did it? The south pole isn't really on a line from anywhere to anywhere else and that's why Antarctica is kind of skirted around. Oh wait, no, it's cos it's a ring around the edge of the world, sorry. It's a nature reserve which is why there's a treaty limiting tourism but people do go there. It's also an inhospitable frozen shithole so like the Paris Climate Agreement people mostly decide they're happy with upholding that treaty.

OK now we're into Admiral Byrd (usually more one for the Hollow Earthers that), and US and Russian nuclear tests trying to find the top of the dome covering earth. Sure.

Mushroom cloud shapes (22:56) Oh OK we don't know how mushroom clouds work or what a condensation ring is. Say, doesn't that one picture showing the ring (which is where he says the level of the dome covering earth is) have a big fireball HIGHER than the ring? Is that fireball outside the dome then? What about the dome? Did we break it? Is the Hubble Space Telescope beyond the dome, or inside it, remind me?

Coriolis effect (24:26) this whole section is pretty stupid but mainly for "why is a plane, with it's fucking means of self propulsion different to a launched projectile without one"

And honestly at this point, we're a half an hour in and I'm boring myself, because if you believe this stuff I sure as shit won't convince you otherwise. Believe whatever pleases you, it makes no difference to me, or NASA, or the lizard people that cont- oh shit I've said too much.

User avatar
Moderator
Status: Offline
Posts: 8553
Joined: 30 May 2007
Location: Dorset, UK
Possibly, just possibly, the greatest post in Twoism ever. Bravo MrMessiah. Tempted to close the thread out of respect and sticky it.
Image

Slow down...

Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Banned !
Posts: 2242
Joined: 7 Feb 2014
Location: Banned by request
Disclaimer: I believe the earth is a sphere but I don't condescend people who wish to believe otherwise and speak to them like they are mentally deficient.

It is interesting that Aesthetics can post a thread relating to Chemtrails and, purely based on status, he is met with a mostly warm response and the kind of open minded discussion from both sides of a situation one wants to see on this forum. A new seed is effectively treated like he is mentally deficient and has moderator Bias against him. All of your points where valid but the paragraph at the end, if I where reading it in his position, would make me feel isolated and like I had been ridiculed based on presenting an alternative theory to a scientific consensus.

Why is it so heated from the other side? I believe the earth is a spherical object but I don't respond with ridicule and bias when someone says they believe otherwise. My first thought is always ''I wonder what has lead him to that conclusion, how interesting''

Unless you have personally been to space, everything is theory and all ideas however unlikely should be treated with respect I guess. You are nice people and you have both been very personally pleasant to me but you weren't very nice to this person and if there is a way to scare away new members it is this.

Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Banned !
Posts: 2242
Joined: 7 Feb 2014
Location: Banned by request
Hiatus resumed

Telepath
Status: Offline
Posts: 9999
Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Not a flat earther, but I think it's great when people dare to question general consensus. Fun fact, that's actually how some supposedly discovered the earth was a sphere in the first place!

Doesn't matter though, everybody's wrong, the earth is obviously shaped like a stellated dodecahedron. Anyone who says otherwise will be tortured to death. :evil:

Boqurant
Status: Offline
Posts: 99
Joined: 1 Jun 2017
hey, hello everybody and thanks for your responses.

MrMessiah wrote:Limits of human vision (7:00): He puts the observed phenomena down to the human vision system which has a limit of 3 miles. Which is why of course, we can't see the sun, stars, or moon with the human eye. :-) No, what happens at 3 miles is that the curvature of the earth comes into play and on flat terrain, all you see from ground level after that is sky. It's why if you climb a tall building there's not just a 3 mile circle around you and then fucking NOTHING, because guess what? With more height you can see FURTHER. You see the same thing, the earth curving away from you, from a plane too, of course, it's just further away. What you can't see with the naked eye from commercial flight level is the horizon itself curving *along its length*. This isn't because it's somehow different amounts of curvature it's just such a subtle thing over that distance that you can't percieve it. The guy in the video is comparing apples to oranges here and he either knows it or he's confusing two things. Get up high enough, and you totally can see it.


So what are you saying, if I'm undertsand correctly, is that it is impossible to notice the curvature of the earth, by it self, because of it's scale and size, but the higher you are, the furhter (over the horizon) you can see (plus you need take in to the consideration the limits of human vision) ,right?
Palace Posy

User avatar
Moderator
Status: Offline
Posts: 8553
Joined: 30 May 2007
Location: Dorset, UK
Seriously Valotonin? Moderator bias? My post was in praise of MrMessiah taking the time and trouble to systematically explain why this is patently pseudoscience, rather than putting the OP down per se. Your first post in the thread was almost a threat to anyone that dared to disagree with the OP, anticipating a negative response and I suspect therefore provoking a more heated reply. Self fulfilled prophecy?

I know MrMessiah personally and I promise you he's one of the kindest, intelligent, most thoughtful and considerate people on this forum. Frankly, I suspect many others simply couldn't be bothered to reply in as thorough a manner as he did, I know I certainly can't. Better things to do, but you carry on if you want to be offended. Sorry you feel that way,but honestly, it feels like you've gone out of your way to be so.

And for the record, no I don't believe the earth is flat. I'm also well aware of the benefit of challenging paradigms​, so do feel free to continue.
Image

Slow down...

User avatar
Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Offline
Posts: 1272
Joined: 21 May 2013
MrMessiah wrote:OK, taking the points in the video in order.


That's a bit of work there, fair play to you!

User avatar
Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Offline
Posts: 1741
Joined: 14 Feb 2009
CKAT-1 wrote:hey, hello everybody and thanks for your responses.

MrMessiah wrote:Limits of human vision (7:00): He puts the observed phenomena down to the human vision system which has a limit of 3 miles. Which is why of course, we can't see the sun, stars, or moon with the human eye. :-) No, what happens at 3 miles is that the curvature of the earth comes into play and on flat terrain, all you see from ground level after that is sky. It's why if you climb a tall building there's not just a 3 mile circle around you and then fucking NOTHING, because guess what? With more height you can see FURTHER. You see the same thing, the earth curving away from you, from a plane too, of course, it's just further away. What you can't see with the naked eye from commercial flight level is the horizon itself curving *along its length*. This isn't because it's somehow different amounts of curvature it's just such a subtle thing over that distance that you can't percieve it. The guy in the video is comparing apples to oranges here and he either knows it or he's confusing two things. Get up high enough, and you totally can see it.


So what are you saying, if I'm undertsand correctly, is that it is impossible to notice the curvature of the earth, by it self, because of it's scale and size, but the higher you are, the furhter (over the horizon) you can see (plus you need take in to the consideration the limits of human vision) ,right?


I think that's right, yes. I didn't explain it brilliantly. Wherever you look, the section of the earth's curve you see is very slight, from ground level. The higher you get and the further you see, the more of the curve you see and the easier it is to see it IS curved.

And just to be clear, my post was in no way meant to be unfriendly to the OP. There's plenty of stuff to be mystified by in the world, and in the stuff that's not scientifically proven or indeed provable. Even the stuff that's been disproven, can be entertaining. :) There was just a lot of wrong stuff in a short space in the video, including the assertion of scientific conspiracy and malice, not to mention lack of an open mind. If scientists didn't have open minds, we'd never have progressed.

Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Banned !
Posts: 2242
Joined: 7 Feb 2014
Location: Banned by request
I am genuinely sorry, Mexi.
Unfortunately I stand by my point.

It wasn't a threat or even a concealed threat to anyone that 'Dared to disagree', It was the vague hope that those that do disagree would do so in a kind manor. I don't want to be offended, I don't go out of my way to be offended.

The fact that there was a detailed response from Mr.Messiah was a positive thing save for the paragraph on the end which I felt was leaning too far in the direction of being sarcastic and generally patronizing and dismissive and, from the perspective of OP, I felt that he could have read that in a way that would have made him feel unwelcome on this forum. That alone wouldn't have been enough for me to comment on it.

I said moderator Bias because, and I know it wasn't fully intended, you said that you where tempted to lock the thread after the first response despite there being no grounds whatsoever to do so or to even toy with the idea of doing so. It felt that you said that so that someone with the same opinion as you could have the final word on a subject. No one was being confrontational, a discussion was on the verge of opening up and becoming interesting despite one or two more sarcastic and dismissive comments.

A new member posts a subject, he gets a constructive and detailed response followed by a little bit of sarcasm directed towards him and a moderator praises this post and says they are tempted to lock the thread that OP created? The only reason to lock a thread is to prevent further discussion. Why?

I don't want to make enemies and I don't want to go out of my way to feel offended. I am not personally offended, rather offended on the behalf of OP because I feel that the combination of first responses from you and Messiah where potentially hurtful and patronizing to someone who is new to the board and just wants friendly discussion.

User avatar
Posts Quantity
Status: Offline
Posts: 128
Joined: 26 Jul 2013
Location: Canada
The "Dare to disagree" argument is very silly for those who are adamant that the Earth is flat. The scientific community is overly encouraging to find out the truth for yourself they just ask it stand up to the rigor's of peer review. If 99% of people view the world from a similar perspective then it stands to reason that that consensus is correct based on empirical data. To play devils advocate for a moment I understand and empathize that the scientific community sometimes is TOO stubborn, and falls victim of their own Human emotional bias. Case in point the recent discover of the EM Drive that's breaking our current models of the laws of physics to generate thrust. It has been ridiculed and is still ridiculed by many physicists in the scientific establishment. But peer review after peer review is coming back with positive results. Personally I'll always side with the test results and peer review.

There is one very easy way for you to settle this yourself.

Go out and buy a weather ballon and attach a go pro. I'l bet you $10,000 that you discover that Earth has a curved horizon and is indeed a globe. Another really great example that the Earth is a sphere is made with fluid in a zero gravity environment. Does liquid form a disc or does it form a sphere? What happens when you put a drop of water on plate, tether it to a rope and spin it in a circle, does it remain a sphere ? or does it become flat?

This is why shows like Mr. Wizard exist. Because the laws of physics have consistency on the micro and macro levels of our universe and just because somethings are currently beyond human comprehension doesn't make them any less consistent.
I'm not trashing anyones pursuit of truth, however I am questioning the validity of the trajectory they're following to pursue it.

User avatar
Moderator
Status: Offline
Posts: 8553
Joined: 30 May 2007
Location: Dorset, UK
Valotonin, I'm sorry you feel that way. It's not how I'd hoped your return to Twoism would happen. However, I do think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one and I hope that's ok with you?

My point also stands. Your first reply was also the first reply to the op. Before anyone else had the chance to offer a more measured response, you appeared to decide that Twoism would offer collective ridicule and felt the need to return from a self imposed exile to point this out. Your post felt unfair and premature. Certainly, when I read it I felt I had to bite my lip and refrain from replying. This is where my ire, such as it was, was directed, not the op.

The thread remains open, despite any perceived moderator bias and I hope the discussion can return to the original topic.
Image

Slow down...

Boqurant
Status: Offline
Posts: 99
Joined: 1 Jun 2017
MrMessiah wrote:
CKAT-1 wrote:hey, hello everybody and thanks for your responses.

MrMessiah wrote:Limits of human vision (7:00): He puts the observed phenomena down to the human vision system which has a limit of 3 miles. Which is why of course, we can't see the sun, stars, or moon with the human eye. :-) No, what happens at 3 miles is that the curvature of the earth comes into play and on flat terrain, all you see from ground level after that is sky. It's why if you climb a tall building there's not just a 3 mile circle around you and then fucking NOTHING, because guess what? With more height you can see FURTHER. You see the same thing, the earth curving away from you, from a plane too, of course, it's just further away. What you can't see with the naked eye from commercial flight level is the horizon itself curving *along its length*. This isn't because it's somehow different amounts of curvature it's just such a subtle thing over that distance that you can't percieve it. The guy in the video is comparing apples to oranges here and he either knows it or he's confusing two things. Get up high enough, and you totally can see it.


So what are you saying, if I'm undertsand correctly, is that it is impossible to notice the curvature of the earth, by it self, because of it's scale and size, but the higher you are, the furhter (over the horizon) you can see (plus you need take in to the consideration the limits of human vision) ,right?


I think that's right, yes. I didn't explain it brilliantly. Wherever you look, the section of the earth's curve you see is very slight, from ground level. The higher you get and the further you see, the more of the curve you see and the easier it is to see it IS curved.

And just to be clear, my post was in no way meant to be unfriendly to the OP. There's plenty of stuff to be mystified by in the world, and in the stuff that's not scientifically proven or indeed provable. Even the stuff that's been disproven, can be entertaining. :) There was just a lot of wrong stuff in a short space in the video, including the assertion of scientific conspiracy and malice, not to mention lack of an open mind. If scientists didn't have open minds, we'd never have progressed.


So once again, what are you saying, it is impossible to notice the earth's curve, with naked human eye, unless you are high enough (lol, high enough). Higher than the most commercial flights, I'm right?

Image

Kyla wrote:There is one very easy way for you to settle this yourself.

Go out and buy a weather ballon and attach a go pro.


that's interesting. this is probably possible to make with my own resources...

phpBB [media]


Kyla wrote:Another really great example that the Earth is a sphere is made with fluid in a zero gravity environment. Does liquid form a disc or does it form a sphere?


you mean this?

Image

Valotonin wrote:Why is it so heated from the other side? I believe the earth is a spherical object but I don't respond with ridicule and bias when someone says they believe otherwise. My first thought is always ''I wonder what has lead him to that conclusion, how interesting''

I think this is mainly a distrust between goverment and the people. Failing in going step by step together, rather pursuing your own interests.
And the scope of this possible conspiracy is just mind-blowing. But someone who was there and saw for him self would probably say, that

"this is nothing compared to the grandios scope of this..."

Image
Palace Posy

Boqurant
Status: Offline
Posts: 99
Joined: 1 Jun 2017
Btw, MrMessiah, thanks for your time explaining it to me, appreciate that.
Palace Posy

User avatar
Posts Quantity
Status: Offline
Posts: 128
Joined: 26 Jul 2013
Location: Canada
CKAT-1 wrote: that's interesting. this is probably possible to make with my own resources...


Yup, yup and yup! Sure looking like Earth is a sphere alright! Now on to more pressing matters. Like am I a witch or not?

I submit this as evidence.
phpBB [media]

User avatar
Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Offline
Posts: 1741
Joined: 14 Feb 2009
CKAT-1 wrote:
MrMessiah wrote:
CKAT-1 wrote:So what are you saying, if I'm undertsand correctly, is that it is impossible to notice the curvature of the earth, by it self, because of it's scale and size, but the higher you are, the furhter (over the horizon) you can see (plus you need take in to the consideration the limits of human vision) ,right?


I think that's right, yes. I didn't explain it brilliantly. Wherever you look, the section of the earth's curve you see is very slight, from ground level. The higher you get and the further you see, the more of the curve you see and the easier it is to see it IS curved.

And just to be clear, my post was in no way meant to be unfriendly to the OP. There's plenty of stuff to be mystified by in the world, and in the stuff that's not scientifically proven or indeed provable. Even the stuff that's been disproven, can be entertaining. :) There was just a lot of wrong stuff in a short space in the video, including the assertion of scientific conspiracy and malice, not to mention lack of an open mind. If scientists didn't have open minds, we'd never have progressed.


So once again, what are you saying, it is impossible to notice the earth's curve, with naked human eye, unless you are high enough (lol, high enough). Higher than the most commercial flights, I'm right?



Perhaps much higher, and I say that in the piece you quoted "what you can't see from commercial flight level is the horizon curving along its length"... My point about getting higher up on earth was that you can see further than the 3 miles or so that you see from ground level. To actually see an appreciable curve you would have to get much higher still.

But ok let's complicate matters here by considering the difference between the human vision system and cameras. Humans have a field of view of basically just over 180 degrees but our perception of detail over that angle is not uniform. We have a sweet spot in the center, and the further out you go the more vague and fuzzy things get. Your brain does a great job of filling in so you don't notice this, but by the time you get to the extreme edges of human vision you're basically registering light levels and changes for all the good it does.

Cameras on the other hand have a rectangular sensor where light is focused by the lens. Each point on that sensor is pretty much equally sensitive so a picture taken on a camera is crisp enough even at the corners. The tradeoff is that most lenses give you a comparatively tiny field of view.

I think this may be where he was going with his "seeing in a pyramid" bit. You don't, but cameras do: the projection back out through the lens of the rectangular sensor area being essentially a pyramid (or frustrum). The choice of lens etc affects the view angle a camera gets but it's usually way way less. You can get lenses that give you a much wider view, including 180 degree plus fisheye lenses.

Unsurprisingly, because of how geometry works, the wider a lens is they tend to make things look more curved. You'll notice that a common tactic of discrediting aerial photography as proof of earth curvature is "but it's a fish eye lens! Of course it looks curved!" Two things there. One: though you can buy lenses called fish eye lenses, like I said fish eye distortion is just a function of geometry at wider and wider angles. Two: the presence of fisheye distortion need not be the end of the story. You can, knowing your distance from an object, the angle of your lens, predict exactly *how curved* something flat will look. And see if accounting for that distortion what you are looking at is flat or not. It is not sufficient to debunk or attempt to debunk aerial photography by saying "fish eye lens". Do the maths.

All of which is a long arsed preamble to my point which is this: as to how high you would have to get to see the earth's curvature along the horizon, that depends. Are you looking with the naked eye? Are you looking through a camera? What's the resolution of that camera and what lens do you have fitted? Because at low resolutions would you have enough data there to be able to account for lens distortion, measure, and be outside some comfortable margin of error? Would you percieve a curve with the naked eye from a height that an off the shelf camera with a bog standard lens would not because of your wider fov? Would you be able to count on that perception given the unreliability of your vision detail at the margins?

What I'm saying is you would percieve it at some point, different points for the naked eye or your chosen camera. But you couldn't prove it. To prove it you would need to measure and that either involves accurate recording equipment, maths on data taken from less accurate equipment or in the end just to go out so far it makes no difference. And that's all been done. Someone mentioned a go pro on a weather balloon and that's been done by school kids the world over. In a few decades when we solve global warming and we can all afford edge-of-space flights we'll all be able to see it for ourselves.

User avatar
Dayvan Cowboy
Status: Offline
Posts: 1409
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: where teh wild things are
MrMessiah wrote:...

Salt flats (11:05) Not understanding that a small section of a very big curve looks basically flat to the naked eye. "You can see (the other end) perfectly clearly 100 miles away", more than 3 miles he gave our human vision system again, but that's OK because now the reason we can't see further at sea is "the effect of the waves".

...


I'm cherry picking, but can personally verify this.

I visit the salt flats in Utah probably more than anyone currently alive--I'm obsessed. The one-inch of water mirror happens all Spring during a storm, and then quickly drains off. Even though our salt flats are 100 miles long as well, and about 50 miles wide, I've read that they're 100 times smaller than those referenced in Bolivia. Even then, looking South from virtually any point and at any altitude on the Silver Island Mountain range allows you to easily see the curve of the Earth. The Earth is gigantic--it's not an obvious dinner plate curve, but it's definitely there. You don't need to be in an airplane.

Telepath
Status: Offline
Posts: 9999
Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Image
Looking south from silver island mountains as mentioned by zeitgeist. Definately a curve!
Image
source in case anyone wants to call fisheye-lens.

Quite a sight, really messes with ones sense of perspective!

Next

Return to The Playground

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests