Proof the Earth is round

[VonBonfire]

If it were a flat circle, in order to not be steering you'd have to travel around its edge - on the side. In addition to this, you'd have to have gravity pulling you towards the centre in order to keep you from shooting off in a straight line into space... with a tiny bit of angular momentum thrown in to spin you very-slowly.

I can't see how steering or spinning affects a basic compass reading of 90 degrees. That's due east of magnetic north in either of these scenarios. Sphere/disc would have zero impact on that. What's steering got to do with it? What's gravity have to do with magnetic north-south?

In order to have gravity it'd have to have volume. In order to have sides it'd have to have volume. Therefore in order to be a circumnavigate circle, it'd have to have sides.

That's why the flat earth types suggest an ice wall.

Dude, I anticipated this ridiculous argument, which is why I addressed it as the last section of my post.

In what world is an arced course around 8" per mile squared curvature a "straight line" tho? How is it "ridiculous" for me to claim it's not straight? Straight lines are flat and true, not curved. *shrugs

 

[Floyd Eye]

I tried on Bad Brain/Acceptance and the functionality has disappeared.

Yep. Click on the name and it takes you to a box. Press on the enlarged name and it says " User limits who can see their profile".

 

[Thumbpicker]

Yep. Click on the name and it takes you to a box. Press on the enlarged name and it says " User limits who can see their profile".

Ah yep same... now I know what it is happening. I bet Monkey Man can see it after he has limited his profile because he's a mod.

 

[VonBonfire]

Arc is straight in the XY axis just not the Z axis.

Right, so it's not straight.

... and the argument is superfluous to the "travel in any direction in a straight line and end up where you started" experiment.

Which also can be done on a disc using a 270 degree west or 90 degree east heading provided magnetic north is a the center, kind of like it is when looking down on ball earth.

 

[Monkey Man]

I can't see how steering or spinning affects a basic compass reading of 90 degrees. That's due east of magnetic north in either of these scenarios. Sphere/disc would have zero impact on that. What's steering got to do with it? What's gravity have to do with magnetic north-south?

The compass has nothing to do with it. LOL

Straight line means straight line on the surface. In all but 1 case the compass is gonna continually change. That 1 case is on the equator where heading east or west will get you back to where you started. Start anywhere else on the globe and you still end up where you started. I'm tippin' you'd have to ignore the compass in all those cases except where you've an automated system that plots the straight line based on the ever-changing compass reading as-you-travel.

In what world is an arced course around 8" per mile squared curvature a "straight line" tho? How is it "ridiculous" for me to claim it's not straight? Straight lines are flat and true, not curved. *shrugs

You're just not getting it. That's why I reiterated / reminded in a previous post that we're talking about a practical experiment that peeps could have carried out for many centuries.

100%-done with this now. So-far beyond-ridiculous I don't know what to say. Oh I know... nothing!

No offence bro'. I'm just giving up 'cause I've run out of ways to explain it and patience in dealing with non-sequiturs.

 

[Monkey Man]

Ah yep same... now I know what it is happening. I bet Monkey Man can see it after he has limited his profile because he's a mod.

I know nothing about this bro'.

I'm on a desktop so I just hover the mouse over the user name. There's a clock-timer symbol atop the pop-up window which I then hover over and the previous names pop up.

 

[Monkey Man]

That's why the flat earth types suggest an ice wall.

Pics or it doesn't exist.

 

[Dan Gleesak]

Well dude, guys way fucking smarter than everyone here except Dan have done plenty of thinking about it. Einstein, Hawking. Pretty sure those guys were mostly right. Earth is a sphere, so are planets, moons, stars, pretty much everything in space with mass.

Well since you asked, planets and moons and such are round because of their rotation.
But an erratic or extreme rotation could also deform a planet.
There is definitely evidence of like football shaped planets out there. considering the tiny amount of exoplanets that astronomers have been fortunate enough to see make transits, the fact that they were able to see one odd shaped planet, probably means there are millions more out there.
And there is no reason not to assume that any number of those millions, are even less spherical than what has been seen.

And that is just exoplanets. There are tons of potato shaped moons out there that aren’t big enough to be round.

 

[Bad Brain]

Of course, but that's not the point here. In the globe-earth case there'd be no steering angle whatsoever. In the flat-circle model there would, albeit a minuscule one.

My point was that in practice an easterly or westerly circumnavigation wouldn't rule out a flat earth. In theory however, you are correct.

Well yeah. At least in our and the greater human experience, every solid and liquid thing has boundaries. In the case of gases its a stretch 'cause you'd have to define the outer limit at which a single molecule of a given flavour of gas occurs. You release a gas and it travels outwards with no theoretical limit.

Fair enough. I was just wondering if there was some law of physics or such that would preclude it. It would be hard to conceive of an earth with no boundaries, but it is difficult for me to conceive of space with no boundaries as well.

 

[VonBonfire]

The compass has nothing to do with it. LOL

So tell me how you are calculating making an easterly or westerly circumnavigation without a compass? That makes no sense.

Straight line means straight line on the surface. In all but 1 case the compass is gonna continually change. That 1 case is on the equator where heading east or west will get you back to where you started. Start anywhere else on the globe and you still end up where you started. I'm tippin' you'd have to ignore the compass in all those cases except where you've an automated system that plots the straight line based on the ever-changing compass reading as-you-travel.

You can start anywhere on a disc and sail on a 90 degree heading and still wind up in the same spot you started. I'm not sure how you're missing that. Eastward is eastward=90 degree heading. I THINK what you are suggesting is that I'll have to constantly steer my boat to the left to maintain an eastward course on a disc for a circumnavigation but the reality is all I have to do is maintain a 90 degree heading at all times (just like on a globe earth) and I would arrive back where I started all the same. East-west are still the same heading on either model as long as we have a magnetic N-S

 

[Bad Brain]

You can't travel in a straight line on sphere earth either because it's curved. I'm having a hard time visualizing you not visualizing this stuff.

That's true. He means straight with respect to whatever great circle you travel.

 

[Floyd Eye]

Well since you asked, planets and moons and such are round because of their rotation.
But an erratic or extreme rotation could also deform a planet.
There is definitely evidence of like football shaped planets out there. considering the tiny amount of exoplanets that astronomers have been fortunate enough to see make transits, the fact that they were able to see one odd shaped planet, probably means there are millions more out there.
And there is no reason not to assume that any number of those millions, are even less spherical than what has been seen.

And that is just exoplanets. There are tons of potato shaped moons out there that aren’t big enough to be round.

I’ll take your word for it.

 

[VonBonfire]

That's true. He means straight with respect to whatever radius you travel.

Yeah I got that. In the globe model the ship is sailing at the equator at 90 degrees due east and is also actually tilted 90 degrees away from magnetic north, in essence sailing sideways in relation to the magnetic pole, but upright relative to the curved water. That sounds like some asinine stuff the more I think about it.

 

[Bad Brain]

Yeah I got that. In the globe model the ship is sailing at the equator at 90 degrees due east and is also actually tilted 90 degree away from magnetic north, in essence sailing sideways in relation to the magnetic pole, but upright relative to the curved water. That sounds like some asinine stuff the more I think about it.

I think you guys are confusing practice and theory. Assume a boat that only travels in perfect straight lines. In order to maintain 90' you would have to make corrections (on a flat earth). But in practice when you're sailing it would just feel like you're keeping the boat according to the heading and only correcting for wind and water conditions.

 

[Monkey Man]

So tell me how you are calculating making an easterly or westerly circumnavigation without a compass? That makes no sense.

Travelling in a straight line on the surface of a ball, you always end up where you started.

Doesn't matter where you start or in which direction; direction is meaningless, hence my claim that the compass is irrelevant... and a non-sequitur... and a troll-like distraction to the basic thought experiment.

Last attempt from me, dumbed down to the essentials, which is all we need here:
You're on a surface.
I say to you, "Hey man, just head that way (pointing) and you'll eventually end up back here".
I could only be correct in my prediction if we're standing on a globe-shaped object.
No other shape will work in all directions!

That's it. A piece of string and a tennis or soccer ball is all you need to prove it. A 3-year-old could prove it this way.

Please stop baiting me bro'; I'm totally-done.

 

[Bad Brain]

Please stop baiting me bro'; I'm totally-done.

See my above, I don't think he's baiting, just that you guys are missing what I pointed out -- IE theory vs practice. Von is thinking in terms of actually sailing/boating.

 

[Monkey Man]

Could be.

 

[VonBonfire]

I think you guys are confusing practice and theory. Assume a boat that only travels in perfect straight lines. In order to maintain 90' you would have to make corrections. When you're sailing it would just feel like you're keeping the boat according to the heading and only correcting for wind and water conditions.

100 percent. I like his theoretical argument. He's suggesting he won't have to make a course correction in his sphere model, while I will constantly be correcting left in my disc model to maintain 90 degrees. I suppose he could be right about that, but as you say in reality, both boats would be forced to make corrections to maintain a 90 degree heading so you couldn't actually perform that experiment in the real world.

My argument is that 90 degrees is still 90 degrees in either system. The point being is that people are denying that circumnavigation isn't possible on a disc when it's plain to see it functions in nearly the same manner in either model.

 

[Monkey Man]

Fair enough. I was just wondering if there was some law of physics or such that would preclude it. It would be hard to conceive of an earth with no boundaries, but it is difficult for me to conceive of space with no boundaries as well.

I guess the "law of physics" would be that solids and liquids' inter-molecular attractions are sufficient to ensure that they have boundaries.

... in a 3-dimensional universe, of course.

 

[Thumbpicker]

Well since you asked, planets and moons and such are round because of their rotation.
But an erratic or extreme rotation could also deform a planet.
There is definitely evidence of like football shaped planets out there. considering the tiny amount of exoplanets that astronomers have been fortunate enough to see make transits, the fact that they were able to see one odd shaped planet, probably means there are millions more out there.
And there is no reason not to assume that any number of those millions, are even less spherical than what has been seen.

And that is just exoplanets. There are tons of potato shaped moons out there that aren’t big enough to be round.

They are round just due to gravity. The larger the mass the more likely it is to be closer to a sphere - that's why smaller rocky dwarf planets aren't often very spherical. Their mass isn't quite enough to conform them to a sphere.

Yes extreme rotation can make them oblate - especially gas giants.

Here is the definition of a dwarf planet... Note the comment on mass and roundness.

According to the International Astronomical Union, which sets definitions for planetary science, a dwarf planet is a celestial body that -orbits the sun, has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape, has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit and is not a moon