Here's a puzzle for you...

[ddraver]

Thought it was only fair to warn you pete - this appears to be a hobby of his...

Jochta - yes he's serious.

[jochta]

Thought it was only fair to warn you pete - this appears to be a hobby of his...

Jochta - yes he's serious.

I'm not entirely sure having read the posts what it is he is not believing. That the Earth is real or whether it's flat or not. If he wants pictures of Earth from space why doesn't he take his own? It's pretty straightforward and there are many examples of amateurs doing this, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-be ... s-26948120

[Manc33]

You can't take your own, I am talking about the whole Earth in the frame, proving there's a craft far out enough to photograph it that way. Same with videos, I don't want close ups - I want the full Earth in the frame, turning, filmed for at least 6 hours, then speeded up so we can see the changing cloud formations.

A bit like the one silly slideshow thing they show us where no clouds change shape over several hours - except a proper video with changing cloud formations. I suppose this is nearly impossible to fake without it being picked apart afterwards by people that know what they are looking at.

NASA takes in billions a year, we have 1080p cameras the size of a thumbnail, come on where is this stuff?

Can't tell if you're being serious or not.

You wouldn't notice the Earth's bulge, the difference is a tiny fraction.

Some NASA images show a bulge, some don't. Neil Degrasse Tyson says the Earth is pear shaped. There's mock up images of a circular Earth, mock up images of an Earth with a bulge at the equator (visible in the image, perhaps exaggerated) and no images of it as a pear shape, just a claim.

The human eye couldn't discern it.

So the ones they have of it clearly bulging are an exaggeration?

Either way it isn't a real image. I know what a real photographic image looks like and these aren't photographic.

Jupiter is obviously oblate to the naked-eye as the difference between it's polar and equatorial circumferences is much larger.

You can see the ISS and other satellites from the ground pretty much any night of the year. It's a fairly simple task to photograph the ISS to prove it's real and a simple task to photograph it from two or more locations to triangulate it's altitude and position.

How would you triangulate the position of something like that if you don't know its size?

They could be floating a model around up there, telling you it is 300 feet wide (not 30 feet wide) and making you think it is ten times further away. Same with the sun, they say we can triangulate it and work out how far away the sun is - how when no one knows how big it is?

It does start to get silly then yes because it would be hard to fake something like the ISS. It would be hard to fake because the flat Earth claim is that there isn't any gravity - meaning any "fake ISS" up there (like a small lightweight "shell" of a thing for viewing purposes only) is still going to need to use fuel constantly, to stay up there.

I don't rule out that it might be fake though, or possibly can be. If there is a "firmament" up there, they could just use the sky "wall" as a big projection screen but, its speculation.

The only reason I can't answer about the ISS is because I haven't looked into that enough yet, there's probably a viable explanation to show how it would be faked.

Radio show hosts are even losing their audiences because they had a flat Earth guy on and the host then keeps on looking into it himself for weeks afterwards, with the audience asking him why he is harping on with it, come on this stuff is nutty and so on - because they have not looked into it themselves - a recurring pattern I might add.

The audience thinks "Come on, he never dwelled on a conspiracy theory before, why this one" well, because there's obviously a bit more to the claims than to just say "Nope, you'd fall off the edge".

Rather than laugh about it though, I would rather get to the bottom of why we are all encouraged to automatically laugh at this stuff and dismiss it out of hand, before knowing if there's anything to it. That's the real study.

[jochta]

How would you triangulate the position of something like that if you don't know its size?

What's the size of the object got to do with it?

You calculate the position of the object from different locations with reference to a fixed background object (like a star), parallax will mean it will appear in a different place in the sky from each location. It's then a simple calculation to work out the distance to the object.

But I guess you think the stars are fake or painted onto a black ceiling or something equally ridiculous so there's not much point arguing with you. Or maybe maths is all made up

[jochta]

You can't take your own, I am talking about the whole Earth in the frame, proving there's a craft far out enough to photograph it that way. Same with videos, I don't want close ups - I want the full Earth in the frame, turning, filmed for at least 6 hours, then speeded up so we can see the changing cloud formations.

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=1373

[jochta]

They could be floating a model around up there, telling you it is 300 feet wide (not 30 feet wide) and making you think it is ten times further away. Same with the sun, they say we can triangulate it and work out how far away the sun is - how when no one knows how big it is?

http://www.astronomyforbeginners.com/as ... owknow.php

Size of the Sun is irrelevant to calculating how far away it is. It's simple maths and was solved in 1672.

[Manc33]

What's the size of the object got to do with it?

If an object is gigantic and hundreds of thousands of miles out in space, then there's another object thats far smaller and a lot closer, no triangulation you can do can show you how far away those objects are, or their size.

You calculate the position of the object from different locations with reference to a fixed background object (like a star), parallax will mean it will appear in a different place in the sky from each location. It's then a simple calculation to work out the distance to the object.

In the flat Earth theory they have the stars spinning above the Earth though and they are always moving.

But I guess you think the stars are fake or painted onto a black ceiling or something equally ridiculous so there's not much point arguing with you. Or maybe maths is all made up

There's no reason for the stars to be fake, they could just not be what we get told they are.

You might be able to catch out the flat Earthers by asking: If there's no gravity, why doesn't the sun and moon (they say is only 3,000 miles up) just fall to the Earth?

But then they would just say it is the magnetic north pole keeping it "pushed" up there, with it being a low enough density for that to happen, everything swirls around above - the sun (a star), the moon (a dim star!), stars and planets (dim stars or "wandering" stars).

This means we have absolutely no clue what is physically possible when it comes to "power to weight" because the sun has been burning for a long time and in the flat Earth theory needs to weigh a "negative" weight (like helium).

[661-Pete]

Thought it was only fair to warn you pete - this appears to be a hobby of his...

Jochta - yes he's serious.

No problems! Last month at our local astro soc. meeting, we had a guest speaker who could well have been blood-brother to Mr/Ms Manc33. He came to speak about crop circles, which at first sight sounds a weird topic to inflame the passions of a bunch of amateur astros like us lot ... until you realise that many folks believe crop circles are the work of visiting aliens from outer space. Anyway - all good fun!

I couldn't quite figure out where exactly our guest speaker - name of Andy Thomas - stands on all this, but he was certainly entertaining!

P.S. The fact that I've included a link to his website, in no way implies any endorsement of the opinions expressed therein!

P.P.S. Maybe Manc33 is Andy Thomas?!

[Manc33]

With crop circles most people are happy to accept it was two drunken farmers.

"Oh, those two farmers admitted to it"

ADMITTED?

Like I said on BikeRadar - I created the Bugatti Veyron, I "admit" it, it was little old me.

Let's just ignore that when those drunken farmers were asked to recreate a crop circle they could only muster up something that was very crude looking compared to the grandiosity of some of the circles, let's just focus only on the crude ones, shhhhh!

What a crock. Of course humans cannot create some of the designs, prove it, like I always consistently say with anything - prove it. No one has ever once recreated an elaborate looking crop circle.

"It was those two farmers, they admitted it" is to me absolutely diabolical. Yeah, because they are just that talented. You must be stupid to think they were doing it.

What really happened is the farmers said to each other "Let's pretend we're doing them". Case closed, they weren't. The ones they came up with were a complete joke but as long as the news says it was them and they "admit it" (lmao) then it has to be true?

The other thing is - it could be humans (with one hell of a lot of talent) and something paranormal. Why does it always have to be one or the other? Obviously if it was a paranormal thing or UFO's, humans are going to then have to cover that up and make crop circles themselves, then people say "Ha look, footage of humans sneaking around at night making them, its ALL humans". Nope, not necessarily.

No I am not Andy Thomas, never heard of him but I commend him for trying to get to the bottom of things that routinely go unanswered, or have "fob off" type answers aka non-answers. Like showing me all those fake images telling me they are real.

This guy debunks "Ten reasons the Earth is round" pretty easily...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdjOlJRRJo

[jochta]

This guy debunks "Ten reasons the Earth is round" pretty easily...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdjOlJRRJo

Really? He fails almost immediately with the Moon is a disc. Explain libration and foreshortening. My telescope doesn't have a convex lens and it clearly demonstrates that the Moon and planets are spherical.

Lunar eclipses appear orange or red due to the Earth's atmosphere. If you were stood on the Moon during an eclipse you would see all of the Earth's sunsets and sunrises simultaneously as a red ring around the edge of the planet. That light is what falls on the Moon due to refraction.

Boat sinking below the horizon looks the same through a telescope as it does without. No idea what he's on about there.

Can't believe I'm trying to defend the Earth is round.

[beardy]

I wonder what the pattern of the magnetic flux lines are on a flat earth.
All the ones that I have observed fit those of a spherical object, I dont know how on earth they could be made to fit a flat earth, especially one where you can follow a Westerly and end up where you started.

[661-Pete]

I think the whole point is, no matter how scientifically pedantic you are, you just have to unwind and have a laugh now and again. Manc is the catalyst, it seems, good luck to him! It might, perhaps, be added that no less a figure than Patrick Moore joined the Flat Earth society once - 'for a joke' according to him.

[Shootist]

Interesting thread for an number of reasons.

Is the OP asking daft questions to either

A: Proving that he must be more intelligent that everyone else because hey cannot be answered?

B: A variation on the conspiracy theory compulsion where anything that cannot be explained to the satisfaction of the OP is proof that a conspiracy exists?

Conspiracy theories are, like religion a matter of blind faith. Trying to defeat them by logic and common sense is about as much use as discussing religion with a suicide bomber who has his finger on the button.

P.S.

Stephen Fry debunked the crop circle nonsense on QI by getting couple of blokes to make one. They also described how and why they were doing it. But then they were under the influence of telepathic rays sent from the mothership.

[beardy]

Conspiracy theories are, like religion a matter of blind faith. Trying to defeat them by logic and common sense is about as much use as discussing religion with a suicide bomber who has his finger on the button.

It kind of depends on the conspiracy theory doesnt it?

A lot of people in the old USSR had plenty of conspiracy theories which are now generally accepted as true but were not at the time. Just giving something the title "conspiracy theory" doesnt make it untrue but does undermine it in the public's eye.

Quite a few recent, wild conspiracy theories have been found to be true over here.

Like WMDs, rendition and other things exposed by Snowden.

Considering the case of Kelly's suicide, far too convenient to accept on face value. I doubt I will ever be convinced about what happened and remain in ignorance.
To me a conspiracy theory needs a reason, I can see why they made up the WMD but I see no reason for faking a spherical earth, moon landings and the like. I can see a reason for letting the theories be spread though as it undermines anybody who asks awkward questions or claims things that dont fit the accepted story.

[661-Pete]

I'm still trying to convince people that I was the guy standing on the Grassy Knoll...