question the obvious - round earth or not?

[AmberRune]

Miq's right, we had a similar program at my first college.

 

http://polysat.calpoly.edu/launched-missions/

http://polysat.calpoly.edu/launched-missions/cp8-ipex/

http://polysat.calpoly.edu/2014/02/11/ipexs-continued-success/

http://polysat.calpoly.edu/2015/03/01/ipexs-mission-has-ended/

[Jubaris]

Not really a backyard test, you gotta take a 'walk', but from various points on Earth you get to see stars that you can't see on various other points. Aristotle pondered upon that and concluded the Earth is round. If it was flat, navigation via night-sky would be easier, I guess :)

 

The farther you go from the equator, the farther the ‘known’ constellations go towards the horizon, and are replaced by different stars. This would not have happened if the world was flat:

Edited January 4, 2016 by Jubaris

[DARK DEMON]

 

@Dark Demon: orbiting things can be explained on the flat earth model as well, you just go outside the reach of gravity and you're 'floating'

The sunlight, the way you describe it, makes no sense, as you would see different tempreture levels from a radial heat source just the same on a flat surface as on a spherical one, I challanged the earth shape, never said the sun becomes "flat" too. Check out minute 1:18 of this movie so you understand what i mean about sunlight explained on a flat model https://youtu.be/GDaiw-G1VGE?list=LLPazc0hA-FeE0eRigtzDoEQ

 

If the Earth was flat, how would you explain long periods (months) of darkness on very northern areas for example? I looked at the video and according to that diagram on 1:18, day and night MUST occur and no region is hidden from the sun for extended periods of time.

 

Another thing: You see much farther from a higher spot than from the ground (consider that there are no obstacles and terrain is even). This suggests a curvature because you can see space/matter/objects along this curvature which you can't from a horizontal view.

 

 

Edited January 4, 2016 by DARK DEMON

[Nimrodel]

Giving a wishpoint is allowed for something like that then hey.. I'll start distributing some soon ^_^

 

You noting this Chewett? Mur? Dont blame me later on. ^_^

Edited January 4, 2016 by Nimrodel

[No one]

pff, everybody knows the Earth is flat.

 

Do you want to know a proof ?

You all know that there were attempts to reach the other side by going down ... by digging.

You all know that is said tat China is on the other side of the world (for Europe). Well .. considering that Earth is just a plate ... what they made public is that they "found" was to be called "oil" or "petroleum".

You don't believe me ? Just go near an "oil rig" and then near a toilet. They reached the bottom of their toilets.

 

It is the proof that they reached the other side.

They just don't want to make the travel cheap so they're not releasing it to public.

Edited January 4, 2016 by No one

[Fang Archbane]

pff, everybody knows the Earth is flat.

 

Do you want to know a proof ?

You all know that there were attempts to reach the other side by going down ... by digging.

You all know that is said tat China is on the other side of the world (for Europe). Well .. considering that Earth is just a plate ... what they made public is that they "found" was to be called "oil" or "petroleum".

You don't believe me ? Just go near an "oil rig" and then near a toilet. They reached the bottom of their toilets.

 

It is the proof that they reached the other side.

They just don't want to make the travel cheap so they're not releasing it to public.

Im not even going into how the churning molten core of the earth makes everything you just said impossible...

But i feel im either missing great amounts of sarcasm, a witty answer im not catching on to, or something else entirely.

Either way... no ( o.O)

[Ivorak]

Mur, can't find your response to Nimrodel's post on the first page of replies. Was there none? 

 

I was thinking the same thing; that a flat earth implies edges. Am I misunderstanding the notion of a "flat earth" or do you need proof that no such images of an edge exist? Would even that be enough?

 

---

 

It's probably too much work for me to actually read it anytime soon, but you've got me thinking about Bruno Latour's ( We Have Never Been Modern.  

[powle]

how about you have two large boats connected with a rope that floats on the surface of the water so it bends (if the earth really is curved) and at the same time "connect" the boats with a laserbeam that goes straight from one boat to the other. if the surface of the sea is curved then the laser Will go underwater (kinda like a tunnel). you can then use smaller boats and submarines to check the distance between the rope and the laserbeam on different points and see exactly what kind of a curve it is. unless of course you're sugesting that laserbeams aren't straight lines but are instead curved themselves. in that case all you need to do is measure how long the rope is and how long the laserbeam is and the one that is longer has to be the curved one. or at least that one is curved more than the other one. might be a bit costly to try it though :D
also on a flat earth with the center in north pole - how would you explain the fact that when you pass a certain point (around equator) the sun sudenly moves from right to left instead of from left to right? that was something early explorers noticed when they were sailing south along the african shore and for a long time noone believed them.

[Muratus del Mur]

@Miq & Amber:

thats very very nice info.. but i am sorry it doesn't fit really with the purpose of the contest, to be able to prove yourself that the earth is round

 

@Nim & Ivorak & No one:

i am ignoring comments made like a joke, mockery or random or poorly thought replies

the fact that you don't see the relevance of such a contest, or you feel outraged by the question itself, means nothing to me.  The contest is to make people think, to QUESTION the obvious, and avoid assumptions

 

@@DD & Fang:

i am not considering your last answers part of the contest, just observations and comments, so no answer to that

 

@Jubaris:

the point about the visible sky is valid, constelations change depending from where you are looking at it, i am considering this a valid answer but will have to pick a single winner for the last wp

 

@powle:

thats a brave attempt to make your own method of checking it ..did you find the experiment anywhere or just imagined it yourself? i am considering this a valid answer but will have to pick a single winner for the last wp

about the sun movement, it doesn't make any sense to me why it would move in the opposite direction while in the south hemisphere.... plus its further away from a 'do-able' test

 

so ..for now...unless i see , more answers to compete for the last wp, i will pick between jubaris and powle

[powle]

the sun moves the same for all people - it's all about perspective. if you are on the equator (on one of the equinoxes) the sun goes directly over your head at noon. if you go north you see that at highest point the sun points south (that's something you should be well aware of - it's basic orientation) so during the day you see the sun going from east (which is on your left if you're facing south) upwards and to the right until at noon it points to south (in front of you) and then it goes back down while still moving right until it sets in the west (on your right). if you're on the south hemisphere the sun still rises in the east and sets on the west but at noon it points to north instead of south. so if you were on south hemisphere facing south (the same direction as before) the sun would still move from left to right - but it would go "behind your back". if you want to see it at noon you have to turn north and this turn (change of perspective) makes you see the sun moving in the "wrong" direction. you could make a model (a globe and a disc) and a lightbulb on a Wheel around it. then stick needles in it track their shadows (if shadow moves from right to left it means that a man standing in that spot would see the sun going from left to right). try out both models then move to diferent locations around earth to check if sun and shadows movement matches what your models suggests. to make it cheaper you could have people you trust report those findings so you don't have to visit too many locations yourself. the model that fits reallyty better wins :D you can also try out many other different models just for fun.
as for the other idea it is something i came up with on the spot while reading about spherical triangles (learned a few thing about those in college which helped spark the idea).

p.s. sorry for the wall of text, i got i little carried away when i noticed there was a wp involved :P

[Junior]

Okay Mur I found a few keys points which intrigued me not to answer but elaborate in a sense your question. While you ask if the earth is flat or round I have come up with the answer that is is neither "technically neither." Rather the earth is known as an Oblate Spheroid which by definition is "A body that is shaped like a sphere but is not perfectly round, especially an ellipsoid that is generated by revolving an ellipse around one of its axes." So what I am trying to say is give you yet an alternative to what you view as the only 2 possible forms flat or round. 

 

the following is the Cartesian equation which is used to calculate an Oblate spheroid's dimensions.

 

For a spheroid with z-axis as the symmetry axis, the Cartesian equation is

(1)

The ellipticity of an oblate spheroid is defined by

(2)

The surface area of an oblate spheroid can be computed as a surface of revolution about the z-axis,

(3)

with radius as a function of  given by

(4)

Therefore

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

where the last step makes use of the logarithm identity

(9)

valid for . Re-expressing in terms of the ellipticity then gives

(10)

yielding the particular simple form

(11)

(Beyer 1987, p. 131). Another equivalent form is given by

(12)

The surface area can also be computed directly from the coefficients of the first fundamental form as

(13)

(14)

Note that this is the conventional form in which the surface area of an oblate spheroid is written, although it is formally equivalent to the conventional form for the prolate spheroid via the identity

(15)

where  is defined by

(16)

 

 

I'll have more ideas tomorrow

Edited January 5, 2016 by Juni0r

[Hedge Munos]

https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly

[Muratus del Mur]

I made up my mind... powle gets the last wp.

 

Jubaris answer was valid one but so similar to the one where observing distant objects can prove that,

miq and amber also pointed to a decent evidence, according to the contest rules (civilian satelites)

 

I could have picked any of these but i made a personal decision picking powle's answer because even if not fully do-able in reality (underwater laser would not probably go straight line over very long distance, just in theory).. i admire personal attempts to find a solution more than a googled one.

 

so..current contest status:

 

Ary Endleg 1wp

- for pointing out that in the way i presented the contest there are too many limitations to give a valid answer. Well this is not entirely true, because as you can see there where more than decent answers, but i appreciate the fact that someone actually analized the contest premises

 

powle 1wp

- for daring to come with an original solution to check this..that can actually work (you need a pointer and a rope between two floating objects to see if the water level goes above the laser line or not)

 

 

Jubaris Miq, The warrior and Aeoshattr all made valid entries previously, here they are

 

Aeoshattr:

- objects at horizon beyond a certain distance are not observable

- lunar eclipse shows a round shadow of the earth regardless of position (instead of oval or variable size like it should do on a flat model)

 

jubaris:

- stars look different from south and north, they should look the same in a flat model. Its difficult to test in one person but easy to test through communication, a feature we can fully enjoy nowdays

 

Miq:

- civilian sattelite made pcitures. Impossible to check yourself but quite plausible. Amber brought some more similar proof

 

The warrior

- applying geometry to check this, the angles of a triangle on a sphere should be different than for the same triangle on a plane. It is also a valid and smart method, but very difficult to put in practice to actually check because you would need to do a very large triangle and measure it very accurately. Tracing lines at such distance could be done only by laser, but laser would follow straight lines.

 

 

I am sorry if i missed to comment on any replies, i tried to but maybe i missed some..idk.

 

It is hard to pick just a few winning answers when multiple are correct... but i can't reward more than what i said on this contest.

 

I will pick Aeoshattr for this last wp because his entry is easier to do in practice than the other ones.

 

 

Aeoshattr 1wp

- objects at horizon and lunar eclipse

 

...the contest ends here, but feel free to reply more if you wish , i will read all.

 

Thank you for participating and thank you for keeping an open mind even to most outrageos things :)

[Lazarus]

Junior, I don't think someone is interested about your equational mindblasting post, we talk English here not numbers, we're not as smart as you. Anyways you can't find out if the Earth is flat or not unless you find it out yourself, these "solid" proof uses common sense, if it makes sense then it must be true, if not then it must be a conspiracy built for the shadow government Area 51 and Kim Jong Un is secretly a monitor lizard. Anyone seen the Vsauce explanation for this? #TrustMichael

This made me open my mind if anything else in the galaxy is flat, because why not? We don't have solid evidence that they aren't. So here's another theory:
[attachment=4753:FB_IMG_1451952963127.jpg]

[powle]

yea i was thinking about the problem with laser not reaching long distances through water, but if you just used a rope that doesnt float instead of it than the fact that is sinks proves nothing so it hadf me thinking for Quite a while until i finnaly found a better solution (still more theoretical than practical but i've always been a man of theory). you use a "rope" that has the exact same density as sea water :D that way it neither floats nor sinks, it just kinda hangs around in the middle of the water. of course as you go deeper water gets a bit more dense so the rope would eventually bend over a deeper layer of water but that doesn't really matter. as long as one rope stays on the surface and the other starts to slowly "cut" into the water, sinking deeper and deeper you have proven that the surface is curved (though not necessarly spherical it could be an oblate (or whatever Junior called it)).

[Muratus del Mur]

@lazarus, area 51-lizard-whatever is harder to prove than a flat 'universe'

 

@powle: you start to ruin your own theory lol

[No one]

@... No one:

i am ignoring comments made like a joke, mockery or random or poorly thought replies

the fact that you don't see the relevance of such a contest, or you feel outraged by the question itself, means nothing to me.  The contest is to make people think, to QUESTION the obvious, and avoid assumptions

Not that I'm interested in WPs as I'm not.

But ... did you tried reading it ?

 

While Eratosthenes just shows that the "sun is rotating around the Earth" :P or that "Earth is rotating", I propose you to use the Earth's gravity to check that the Earth is round.

So, using Eratosthenes proof that "sun is rotating around the Earth", considering that light travels almost linear, build a weight attached to a rod (like ... a fish pole fishing a balloon with water) to "seek" / "point to" center of the Earth. Take at least 2 measurements of shadow & angles to where the weight is pointing.

Best thing is to coordinate with other ppl and make the measurements at the same time at great distances.

After some math ... you'll get some angles which would prove that the Earth is round.

Also, if yo want to get further proofs, you'll need to travel from one hemisphere to the other and check the reading on the measurements that I've mentioned above.

 

-------------------------------------------

If you still don't believe it ... then don't even try to prove it. It is a hoax. The Earth is flat.

 

 

 

the fact that you don't see the relevance of such a contest, or you feel outraged by the question itself, means nothing to me.  The contest is to make people think, to QUESTION the obvious, and avoid assumptions

 

"The contest is to make people think"

To ask questions means that you make the other think

To read the questions means that you have to think

 

"to QUESTION the obvious, and avoid assumptions"

Really ? To what level do you want "to QUESTION the obvious" ? Does being asleep and dreaming count ?

Avoid assumptions ... you already assume one thing (which contradicts itself and it creates an error from the start) : that you understand that you know what that means.

Now, lets get back to other assumptions :

 - light (beam) is straight --- which is wrong

 - watching distant object means that they are right ahead of you (direct & unobstructed line) --- which is wrong, see Fata Morgana(link) mirage

Aeoshattr's assumptions ...

 - "Every single other celestial body (which yes, is visible with a telescope from your very own home!)" --- yea sure, you can certainly see that a 2-3 millimeter object is round.

 - you disregarded the horizon from ground level but you agree with the one seen from the plane

... and many others

 

So, you agree with all those assumptions but you consider assumption mathematics ?

You take as correct all those assumptions that are not close to you nor that you can prove but you disregard near by/close by observable and measurable phenomenons ? Now, who's answer should be considers "mockery or poorly thought replies" ?

Edited January 5, 2016 by No one

[Nimrodel]

@Mur: My reply wasn't mocking. I just read that you thought so. It was a short and simple to the point explanation. In the early times people used to believe that there was an edge of the world, and there were many beliefs that crossing the edge of the world would take you to God/ another dimension, etc. Loads of Greek myths.

My simple solution was if one kept walking on a flat earth, he would arrive to the edge. And since jumping off the edge might be something like jumping off the planet, you could call it the Bermuda triangle where stuff mysteriously disappeared. All this crap, I summed it up in one line.

It's your choice to discuss whatever you consider relevant, irrelevant. Hey... It's your game. And if you want to give away wishpoints for people who stimulate your thought process sure. I'll take it for granted that such themes are allowed in MD for conducting quests and rewarding wishpoints(which I used to believe wasn't encouraged before) and implement it.

I am the knight of the feather mur. But I am also a Quest experimentalist. :)

[Menhir]

@Mur ... WOW I´m impressed ...

 

HOW do you know that --> "whats inside mirrors what is outside, and vice versa. "As above so below"...?

 

If you have experience of your OWN made inside of you, I wonder why you came up with the question you started the topic with.

[Muratus del Mur]

@Nim ok, good we clarified that. Yes i am and always be a fan of non-md themed quests...i can't see how this is new to you all, i think all my quests are like this, nobody noticed??!? lol

 

About the 'edge' of a flat earth, 'flat-earthers' found a trick explenation to this, namely that the edge is ice, ..and if you look at it, flying to antarctica is kind of out of limits. I saw there is a company that does fly over antarctica, but its not crossing it.... so for now that territory is indeed off limits. so any path you take to go south on a round earth you reach antarctica, and any path you would take to go south on a flat earth will take you to antarctica also, not to an edge... its a very entertaining mind teasing story. The round earth theory is quite new, very new actually compared to the thousands of years before when the world was seen like placed into a dome.

I am pretty sure that nobody here actually asked themselves if the earth is round or not, they just took the answer by default, so it is an interesting thought process to make people find their own explenations.

The contest was never about confirming or infirming my own beliefs, was about 'questioning the obvious'...i hjad to be impartial to both theories.

 

 

@menhir: my own experiences and discoveries yes (thats actually a much longer story), but also you can find this in alchemy, christianity, buddhism, and probably in other. in fact this idea i put in just a few words is so deep and full of mind opening surprises. Understanding the world around you helps one to understand himself, and understanding yourself will help you understand the world around you. Its not about "up" and "down", but its about "small" and "big", "inner" and "outer", and so on... the universe mirrors itself into us

[Muratus del Mur]

Speaking of that, having a round earth makes more sense than a flat one...from a concept point of view, not a physical one... spherical is superior and more complete to circular. In flat earth theory the earth was circular/disk while the universe was spherical. Nowdays we just shifted the complexity one level up. The earth became spherical and the universe..well idk the name, but one complexity level up (hypersphere? multidimentional universe thing)

 

The NEED to see it flat comes from an inside fear, and a much much deeper need for having something above us (from all points of view). Imagining a flat earth gives a fast and clear explenation to what is above, and where the earth ends, surrounded by fear, mystery, gods, and so on. Flat earth theory comes from the hunger of people to have an explenation for everything, one that will fit with what they see imediately, and that will also encapsulate all other beliefs they have.

Back long ago there where other reasons than now, for a flat earth explenation, ...today its mostly the need to find a place for extraterestrials using our world as a lab.

 

it is very interesting to observe that the flat earth theories are not that flat at all, and they are at the edge of concept and fact. Look how this flat earth was presented in alchemy for example.... but remember it is also described in the bible as such...making it very interesting to understand WHY.

 

I personally believe that the flat earth representation, even if totally wrong from a geographic point of view, holds much more beauty and symbolises the interior of our mind and..soul actually..much better than the round version.

 

[attachment=4754:firmament-alchemy.jpg]

[attachment=4755:firmament-alchemy.jpg]

 

It is funny that at some point it was the hollow earth current, so similar to the flat earth one but it was admitting its round.

 

Now ...to throw a nuclear bomb here.....do you realise that if you make the earth like a dome, partial sphere, most of your explenations to prove its round will be useless? :))

Most but not all...its round alright:)) but people get so excited, angry and sometimes violent, if you question their obvious beliefs, thats what this contest was about!

Edited January 5, 2016 by Muratus del Mur

[Blackshade Rider]

this topic has fried my brain thinking of all these different possibilities 

[Muratus del Mur]

Oh wow you must see this :))) so, winners of this contest... apparently you finished the contest in the wrong place, a couple of years earlier you could have won 5000$ (at that time was A LOT)

 

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/5000-for-proving-the-earth-is-a-globe/

[Aeoshattr]

Mur, do we need to contact you individually for the WP, or should we just wait?

[Menhir]

@Mur I was not asking because I didn`t know where the phrase came from, I´m totally aware of it and all the theories behind it. These are theories for everyone as long as you turn them into real knowledge. With the definition of knowledge I gave in my first post I wanted to show that everything we are trying to talk about here in this topic is not knowledge, not our own at least. And everything we take from others, their (real) knowledge, means we have to believe them. So we are believers and followers of their knowledge. I always thought of you as an non-believer and a true seeker ... that´s why I was "impressed" realising that I might be wrong.