Flat Earth theory

[dilligaf0]

Wasn't the world supposed to end at the end of the Mayan calendar on 12/12/2012?
Sometimes I think it's too bad they were wrong.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Mark my words, mockery will first become intense, but it wont be able to stop it, in 2 or 3 years it will reach critical mass and people will start saying it publicly.

Sort of like 'you can't observe it without altering it'. Interesting.

 

[briandf255]

a) Where did I say I believe in it? I don't, I just have a lot of doubts and the more I look into this the more doubts I have. I spend all my free time researching this... I watch flat earthers explain themselves and I think "oh god it has to be flat.." then I watch other people on YT refuting flat earthers and think "oh god, no, it's round, of course it's round" and over and over again. I simply cannot pick a side because I am still trying to understand all the information I am picking up. You can't deny someone's legitimate right to doubt. It is the basis of science to be able to doubt and ponder, and see different sides of a thing.. and asking questions. It is not because I am stupid or gullible or because the education system failed me. It is really condescending to think this way about other people, especially when it is clear to me you haven't taken a single minute to watch anything I posted.

I like the part I bolded.

I'm more sceptical than you because I already come to this topic with some knowledge. I'm not rejecting flat-earthers because I'm closed-minded, but because I already have good reasons to think they are wrong. I studied physics and I have a bachelor's degree in science. If I didn't then I would probably be right where you are, trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong.

b) Where did I say that flat earthers would overthrow the current model? I merely said that we will see this movement grow exponentially in the following 2 or 3 years. Mark my words, mockery will first become intense, but it wont be able to stop it, in 2 or 3 years it will reach critical mass and people will start saying it publicly. And in a few more years we will see model wars online, like we saw in the past elections.

Here:

Most people prefers to mock them, insult them, call them stupid and take out some science book off their shelves.. so they don't speak up. But there are A LOT of people in that movement and it's only going to grow. Then when things invariably happen... like Trump winning.. your side is blindsided and so, so surprised.. all the signs where there.. you just had to listen.

Invariably: [adverb] in every case or on every occasion; always.

Always has to include this case, which means you're saying it will happen. If you said "sometimes" instead of "invariably" then there wouldn't be a problem.

c) Here is the thing... you haven't been to space. You haven't done your own experiments or read about experiments being done or you would understand that Earth movement has never been proven in fact every experiment that has ever been done proves the opposite: that it is stationary, this is why Einstein came up with Relativity to explain it away... and he did.. theoretically. The thing with theoretical physics is you can build an empire on a wrong assumption. Tesla thought it was completely divorced from reality.

So when you flat out deny something from the start without even looking into it, that means you don't believe in science, you believe in the word of famous scientists. This is a lot like faith, like religion. You see, science is about empirical observation and demonstration, about being able to replicate the results of experiments. It doesn't take a lot to debunk a long held theory, it only takes exceptions to call it into question. When new information is available that proves that the current model is mistaken then you shouldn't ignore it in favor of the word of an authority simply because it is what you were told and what the establishment holds.

You cannot prove movement because there is no such thing as absolute movement. Things move relative to each other, but depending on which frame of reference you choose, different things will be considered to be in motion and different things will be considered to be at rest. All special relativity did is acknowledge this fact - that all frames of reference are equal and there is no absolute frame of reference. There is no one fixed stationary point against which you can measure motion. I don't see what that has to do with a flat earth.

I don't really care what Tesla said. In the very next paragraph you said - correctly - that we shouldn't just take the word of a scientist. Isaac Newton was the first to formulate a theory of gravity and yet he also believed in alchemy. Albert Einstein came up with the general theory of relativity and yet he was very sceptical of quantum mechanics. Both turned out to be wrong. Just because they are right about one thing doesn't mean that they are right about everything, so "Tesla said so" doesn't carry any weight and it shouldn't.

Science is not about putting certain scientists on a pedestal and whatever they said is the Ultimate Truth™. That's where it differs from religion. You think that scientists don't try to disprove Einstein's theory of relativity every single day? Do you realize how huge it would be for someone to be able to prove him wrong? You think nobody is trying because he's our great prophet Albert Einstein and his word is truth?

Have you ever watched the show "Mythbusters"? That's how science works. The guys and girls on that show are presented with a claim. They set out to either disprove that claim or confirm it. They design an experiment and predict what they think will happen. Sometimes the experiment works and sometimes it doesn't and they have to rethink what they are doing and come up with a new experiment. At the end, they do the experiment. Sometimes the experiment confirms that they were right and sometimes the result of the experiment surprises them and they learn something new and have to discard what they initially thought.... Things in science are tested. Not just by one scientist but many. Anyone who thinks that science is this giant conspiracy where scientists all accept each other's theories without question have never sat through a seminar in university. I have and trust me - scientists brutally attack each other's claims, assumptions and conclusions. Scientists constantly have to defend their views from other scientists who are sceptical and want to prove them wrong. When a something becomes as widely accepted as the statement that the Earth is a globe, it has gone through decades or in this case centuries of such attacks and attempts to prove it wrong and there is very little left for us to doubt.

If after all that, some random people on YouTube wish to challenge the scientific establishment, then call me closed-minded but I'm not going to give them the time of day. Unlike choosing the president of the United States, the public doesn't get to vote on what is and isn't a scientific fact. I don't care how big the flat Earth movement becomes as long as it's largely a public opinion movement. After all, as of 2014, 42% of the American public believed that humans were created by God in their present form. If that increases to more than 50% should I become a creationist because the public has voted? I hope not.

When enough scientists express doubt about the current model of the universe, then I'll start listening with interest. As far as the public goes, I would guess that there are a lot more people who can name all the football teams in the NFL or all the basketball teams in the NBA than people who could correctly name all the planets in the solar system, so I'm sorry, but public opinion doesn't have much influence on me.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure one day there will be someone who discovers something wrong with Einstein's theory of relativity and it will have to be replaced. At this point some people would say: "See? Science was WRONG! You shouldn't believe science."

Except that's not exactly true. Science builds on previous knowledge. When Einstein showed that Newton's theory of gravity didn't always work, it's not like the everything had to be thrown out and started from the beginning. Newton's theory of gravity is not completely wrong. We just needed new equations that applied to a broader range of scenarios. Newton's equations are still a very good approximation for the way gravity works here on the surface of the Earth - that's why they still teach them in high school.

Science is constantly being fine tuned to better describe how the universe works. It's not like every time there is a new discovery, everything before it has to be completely thrown out. Scientific discovery is like zooming in with a camera - the more you zoom in the more details you see, but what you saw when you were zoomed out is still not "wrong" - it's just less specific.

Science is not a monolith, for every single theory there is always dissent. There is politics in science and groups of pressure trying to silence minorities within scientific community. It is very hard for a group on the fringe to gain any momentum if the establishment opposes it. Eventually though it all comes to light, it may take 2 years, it may take 5 centuries, but things do come to light eventually.

I am going to give you one more video for you to watch. It's about the Earth curvature and things we aren't supposed to be able to see in the distance because they should fall beyond the Earth's curvature. This one is impossible to explain with optical illusions or mirage theories because there is a sunset right behind the mountains. Give it a watch and tell me what you think.

I watched the video and obviously I've never been to these places and I don't know if the geometry is correct or not, so no I can't prove them wrong. But if there was something to their claims, why aren't scientists jumping onboard and publishing these things in scientific journals?

Really, flat-earthers are not claiming that science has one little thing incorrect, but basically that all of modern science is wrong about almost everything - from gravity to Kepler's laws to space exploration to cosmology to plate tectonics to who knows what else. Sure little things in science are controversial, but if the flat-earthers are right then almost all of physics is wrong. All of the explanations that worked until now are a result of a coincidence? All of the things that physics correctly predicted based on the current theories were flukes? And this string of coincidences with theories that are completely wrong correctly predicting things is something that goes back hundreds of years?

I think of myself as open-minded, but this is too much, seriously. In my opinion, it's much more likely that there is something wrong with the reasoning of the flat-earthers. I'll take the word of thousands of scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the universe and doing experiments and testing each other's claims over the word of a few YouTubers. For every person who thinks science is wrong and turns out to be right, there are probably millions who turn out to be wrong, so I think the odds are on my side. (And the people who do turn out to be correct against all odds don't usually prove that almost all of physics is wrong. I can't think of a single instance of that.)

That's not to say you shouldn't investigate things, because it's a lot of fun. I often read about stuff like this out of curiosity, but with a healthy dose of scepticism. As Carl Sagan said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If someone is trying to overthrow most of modern physics with a few claims about geometry and how much of a mountain we should see from a certain distance and almost no real scientists are agreeing with him, then I'm tempted to think it's because there is something wrong with those claims rather than believing that there is a huge conspiracy by all the world's scientists to suppress the truth. To me that just seems logical.

 

[Nikola Tesla]

so "Tesla said so" doesn't carry any weight and it shouldn't.

C'mon Brian. Have a heart.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

Wasn't the world supposed to end at the end of the Mayan calendar on 12/12/2012?
Sometimes I think it's too bad they were wrong.

Now you know the pain of my candidate of choice never winning...

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Except that's not exactly true. Science builds on previous knowledge. When Einstein showed that Newton's theory of gravity didn't always work, it's not like the everything had to be thrown out and started from the beginning. Newton's theory of gravity is not completely wrong. We just needed new equations that applied to a broader range of scenarios. Newton's equations are still a very good approximation for the way gravity works here on the surface of the Earth - that's why they still teach them in high school.

Science is constantly being fine-tuned to better describe how the universe works. It's not like every time there is a new discovery, everything before it has to be completely thrown out. Scientific discovery is like zooming in with a camera - the more you zoom in the more details you see, but what you saw when you were zoomed out is still not "wrong" - it's just less specific.

Thank you so much for writing this; a very eloquent defense of science. It is frustrating because @Mila_ posts these "interesting" theories but then won't engage in discussing them. It is not just her, I went to one of the flat earth forums and some guy made a post debunking their theories and he was promptly banned.

It is also important to put context and generally numbers around a lot of science. Mila mentioned that earth is pear-shaped, which it is, but the context matters First the pear shape is an Asia pear, not the more common Barlett pears. Second, the difference between the earth being a perfect sphere and pear-shaped is tiny.

Here is a picture to scale can you spot which is which?




You are unlikely to own a more perfect sphere than the earth, in your life. A basketball or a soccer ball is also, in theory, a perfect sphere, but they'd need to be made with the precision of a single millimeter . They are also to be subject to the force of gravity and the earth's rotation.

Unfortunately, what happens so often is that all the nuance, caveats and context is lost in the translation, from the careful words in scientific journals to the mainstream media and even worse social media like this forum.

We end up with people saying well if the earth is pear-shapes why couldn't it be flat.

 

[dilligaf0]

Here's the definitive answer to this question.

 

[Fatquack]

I studied astronomy at university, so I am part of the conspiracy. Your names have been noted.

 

[Chojin]

TBH, I haven't read this thread yet, but are flat earthers suggesting that only Earth is flat?

Professor Lawrence Krauss has concluded that the universe is actually flat.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

TBH, I haven't read this thread yet, but are flat earthers suggesting that only Earth is flat?

Professor Lawrence Krauss has concluded that the universe is actually flat.

Exactly. And when you factor in the possibility that there may be more than 3 dimensions, you wind up wondering about what flat even means.

Was a book or something I read a while back, tried to do a visual representation of a multidimensional object. That's when I said, "I'm out".

 

[Chojin]

Hey flat earthers!

Breaking it down to Chinatown, if you dig deep enough, you hit molten lava. You know that gooey stuff underground?

Earth was a big ball of molten goo before the surface cooled and made a crust. Molten goo will form a sphere shape in the vacuum of outer space.

True story

 

[Deleted member 37064]

Earth was a big ball of molten goo before the surface cooled and made a crust. Molten goo will form a sphere shape in the vacuum of outer space.

Dammit! There goes my Cocoa-Puff theory...

 

[dilligaf0]

TBH, I haven't read this thread yet, but are flat earthers suggesting that only Earth is flat?

Professor Lawrence Krauss has concluded that the universe is actually flat.

I prefer the newer theory the everything is a gigantic computer game. I just wish someone would spend a little for an upgrade for my life.

 

[Slapstick]

Wasn't the world supposed to end at the end of the Mayan calendar on 12/12/2012?

No, that is a misconception propagated by Hollywood to sell movies. Dec 21, 2012 was simply the end of the Maya Long Count calendar (5126 solar years). Dec 22, 2012 was simply the start of the next long count. The Mayans did not believe it would be the end of the world no more than we believe the world will end every Dec 31.

However, some comments to the rest of the thread.

If 99 experts say one thing and one expert says something else then presenting both sides as equally valid is not balanced, it is misinformation. Many more scientist say the earth is a sphere, in fact I would go so far as to say that NO scientist says the earth is flat. It is one thing to argue an undecided scientific principle and something completely different giving whacko conspiracy theories equal consideration.

It is also (relatively) easy to prove to yourself that the earth is round. First you will need a boat, a long plank with a scale painted on it, a laser, a level, and a large body of calm water. I did say “relatively” easy . Mount the scale vertically in the boat, make sure the laser is perfectly level and note where it hits the scale on the boat. As the boat moves across the perfectly flat and “level” water surface you will note the laser dot slowly move up the scale. If you are too lazy to do all that yourself these people have done it for you.

The second method is a little trickier… move to the prairies and get a job with a survey crew with the Department of Highways (like I did one summer during university). The prairies are divided into large squares one mile per side called “sections”. However, as you try to plot these one mile squares you will notice that as you go north the sections become smaller and smaller as the northward running lines converge. In Canada there are correction lines every 24 miles to make the sections one mile squares again. These would not be needed if the earth was flat.

There are also many things in one's day to day life that only work if the world is a sphere (like the GPS on your phone). If the earth was flat then there would have to be a massive conspiracy involving millions of people from every nation that launches satellites into space.

 

[Chojin]

I think we need to define the word 'flat' before going any further. Nothing is flat on a molecular level. I would freaking love to have a drink with Professor Krauss and pick his brain as to why he stated the known universe is 'flat'.

They sent New Horizons to Jupiter by calculating the gravitational forces of the spherical planets in our solar system, using them as a sling shot.

Rejecting proven physics will render your mind into idiocy. Its akin to believing in fantasies like religion.

To see clearly, one must accept that we will never know what matter really is in our life times.We can only discover new aspects of it.

We're free to defect and submit to one of the many medieval false gods for colourful, digestible answers. Over 90% of the human population do just that. A frighting statistic.

Fortunately, we have brilliant minds on the forefront. If you stand on the shoulders of giants, you can see light years ahead. The James Webb Telescope is set to be in operation in 2021 iirc.

Sorry if I offended. Saturday and drunk posting.

If just seems like flat earthers and the religious have their heads in the sand. Nauseating at best.

 

[Slapstick]

I think we need to define the word 'flat' before going any further. Nothing is flat on a molecular level.

Well, there is "flat" in layman's terms and "flat" in mathematical terms. I doubt the flat earthers have linear algebra in mind, but mathematically a series of points is "flat" if they all lie on the same hyperplane. In 2-D "flat" means all the points are on the same straight line and it is easy to test if a point not on the line is above or below the line. In 3-D "flat" means all the points are on the same plane, and again it is easy to test if a point is above or below the plane. Although it is difficult (impossible?) for human's to visualize much more than three dimensions the math is all the same for any number of dimensions.

I would freaking love to have a drink with Professor Krauss and pick his brain as to why he stated the known universe is 'flat'.

Me too! Although I don't think he claims the universe is flat per se, just that he has been unable to measure any curvature in the universe. Basically he has been looking for evidence of correction lines lines in the universe and hasn't been able to find any so far.

Rejecting proven physics will render your mind into idiocy.

It is not so much people rejecting proven physics as it is being unwilling or unable to alter their views based on evidence. There are plenty of simple experiments people can perform to show that the earth is not flat. If people choose not to do those experiments and refuse to believe the people that do then there is not much more that can be done; those people are incapable of scientific debate. The scientific community mocked Edwin Hubble when he first claimed the universe was expanding, but then everyone came around and said, "yeah, you were right about that". Just before his death Stephen Hawking basically said, "yeah, never mind. I was wrong" on a theory he had been expounding for the previous 20 years. That is what science looks like.

And to be pedantic, nothing in physics is proven. As my astronomy prof used to hammer into us, no one can "prove" that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. A "proof" is a mathematical concept that does not apply in the real world.

Sorry if I offended. Saturday and drunk posting.

Yeah, me too ;-)

 

[AudriTwo]

Logan Paul is flat earther. He spoke at a conference, lawl.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

If 99 experts say one thing and one expert says something else then presenting both sides as equally valid is not balanced, it is misinformation.

That may be applicable in some utopian fantasy land, but it is full-blown 2+2=5 lunacy to suggest such a notion applies during a time of universal deceit.

 

[dilligaf0]

 

[Slapstick]

That may be applicable in some utopian fantasy land, but it is full-blown 2+2=5 lunacy to suggest such a notion applies during a time of universal deceit.

Universal deceit? Hardly. Even the deceit on Fox News isn't universal. Sure, you can't take your 100 "experts" from Google searches and Wikipedia articles. But one of the points the woman in the video you posted posted was trying to make is that just because there is some fake science/news, doesn't mean all science/news is fake, yet people want to disbelieve everything. You can't call the New York Times fake news just because InfoWars claims Hilary is running a child sex trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza parlor. You need to be able to separate the fakes and the astroturf when selecting your experts. And having a paper in a peer reviewed journal doesn't mean much. What matters is how many other people can recreate the data from the paper.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Sure, you can't take your 100 "experts" from Google searches and Wikipedia articles.

Then where?

But one of the points the woman in the video you posted posted was trying to make is that just because there is some fake science/news, doesn't mean all science/news is fake, yet people want to disbelieve everything.

That is not what I took from it, and I went back and rewatched it a couple of times just to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting her message. But then again, I didn't really have any pressing need to find that point.

You can't call the New York Times fake news just because InfoWars claims Hilary is running a child sex trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza parlor.

Consider this part of the video (transcribed for your convenience, begins at 8:44)

"...I have a few strategies I can tell you about to help you recognize signs of propaganda and astroturf. Once you know what to look for you'll begin to recognize it everywhere.

First, hallmarks of astroturf include use of inflammatory language such as crank, quack, nutty, lies, paranoid, psuedo, and conspiracy...."

I would say you throwing in the bit about Infowars and a pizza parlor basement is certainly the sort of thing she is talking about here. I challenged one line of your post, and you went straight for it.

Please don't think I am accusing you of intentionally astroturfing/propagandizing; I have repeated similar things in the past out of sheer ignorance , all with the utmost sincerity and conviction that I was correct. Such is the power of indoctrination. Let's continue...

"Astroturfers often claim to debunk myths that aren't myths at all. Use of the charged language tests well; people hear something is a myth, maybe they find it on Snopes, and they instantly declare themselves too smart to fall for it. But what if the whole notion of the myth is itself a myth, and you and Snopes fell for that?"

Deep waters here, no? What if children in a pizzeria basement isn't the myth that needs debunking, but instead what really needs debunking is the idea that there was a myth to debunk in the first place? In other words, what if Alex Jones and his pizza is a false flag? That's right, I'm going there... what if the pizzagaters shouting 'pedo!' and the learned elitists yelling 'conspiracy theorist!' are both in the same dumbed-down boat? (I kid, off course; you are clearly too intelligent for that. Only a whacko like myself would have the audacity to believe that is what is going on...).

You tell me I can't call the NYT fake news because of Infowars. Very well, then; am I still allowed to call them both propaganda? Both using truth and lies to weave whatever narrative might benefit thier master?

For the record, I thought you made a compelling case for the earth being round (at least in 3 dimensions), the 99>1 wretchedness notwithstanding.