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Message Subject A friend of mine believes that the Earth is flat. I challenged him to prove it by walking off the edge...
Poster Handle Anonymous Coward
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"Go to the harbor

Credit: Jim Schubert/Shutterstock
When a ship sails off toward the horizon, it doesn't just get smaller and smaller until it's not visible anymore. Instead, the hull seems to sink below the horizon first, then the mast. When ships return from sea, the sequence is reversed: First the mast, then the hull, seem to rise over the horizon.

The ship-and-horizon observation is so self-evident that 1881's "Zetetic Astronomy," the first modern flat-Earth text, devotes a chapter to "debunking" it. The explanation relies on assuming that the sequential disappearance is simply an illusion brought on by perspective. This debunking does not make much sense, however, as there's nothing about perspective (which just says that things are smaller over longer distances) that should make the bottom of an object disappear before the top. If you'd like to prove to yourself that perspective isn't the reason for boats disappearing hull-first and returning mast-first, bring a telescope or binoculars on your trip to the harbor. Even with vision enhancement, the ship will still dip below the curve of the Earth.


Compare shadows

Credit: Zurijeta/Shutterstock
The first person to estimate the circumference of the Earth was a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes, who was born in 276 B.C. He did so by comparing shadows case on the day of the summer solstice in what is today Aswan, Egypt, with the more northerly city of Alexandria. At noon, when the sun was directly overhead in Aswan, there were no shadows. In Alexandria, a stick set in the ground cast a shadow. Eratosthenes realized that if he knew the angle of the shadow and the distance between the cities, he could calculate the circumference of the globe.

On a flat Earth, there wouldn't have been any difference between the length of the shadows at all. The sun's position would be the same, relative to the ground. Only a globe-shaped planet explains why the sun's position should be different in two cities a few hundred miles apart

Go climb a tree

Credit: Dmitry Galaganov/Shutterstock
This is another one of those self-evident things: You can see farther if you go higher. If the Earth was flat, you'd be able to see the same distance no matter your elevation. Think about it: Your eye can detect a bright object, like the Andromeda galaxy, from 2.6 million light-years away. Seeing the lights of, say, Miami from New York City (a distance of a mere 1,094 miles or 1,760 kilometers) on a clear evening should be child's play.

But it's not. That's because the curvature of the Earth limits our sight to about 3.1 miles (5 kilometers) … unless you climb up a tall tree, building or mountain and get yourself a perspective from higher up"

[link to www.google.com (secure)]


"In the clip, a flat-Earther named Jeran from a group known as Globebusters set up a simple experiment to prove that the Earth is flat. He used two boards, both with a hole at a height of 5.18 meters (17 feet) above water level, a camera, and another person by the name of Henrique holding a torch at the same height and aligned with the holes.


If the Earth was flat, no matter how far Henrique was, the light would come through the holes. But on a spherical Earth, there’s the curvature to consider. Given Henrique’s distance from the holes, he would have to position the light above his head (7 meters/23 feet above the water level) for it to be seen."



[link to www.google.com (secure)]


"1. Ships and the horizon
The horizon is the line at which the Earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet. When ships sailing away disappear into the horizon, they do so bottom-first. The top vanishes later, which creates the illusion that the ship is sinking. Similarly, when ships appear from the horizon, the top appears first, and then the rest of the ship.

2. We cannot see very far away
Let’s say that you are standing on the West coast of North America on a clear day. While you are able to see the sun and moon in the sky, which are quite far away, you cannot see Japan if you look to the west. The reason you cannot see that far away on Earth is that light travels in a straight line and hence cannot follow Earth’s curve.

3. Visibility and elevated areas
Many sailors are aware of the fact that elevated areas of land are visible at greater distances than those less elevated. Moreover, if one is standing on an elevated area, they are able to see farther away into the distance compared to if they were standing at a lower altitude. The curvature of the Earth is responsible for these observations.

4. Other planets are spherical
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can all be seen with the naked eye. In 1781, William Hershel used his telescope to observe Uranus’ motion and discovered that it was a planet, not a star as was previously thought. Based on small perturbations in Uranus’ orbit, it was then predicted that a more distant planet also existed. In 1846, Neptune was discovered to be that planet (it was also previously thought to be a star). If the other planets in our solar system can be observed to be spherical, why should ours be any different?

5. Most things are spherical
Not only are planets spherical, but so are stars and moons. In fact, the forces of nature are such that objects tend to form into spheres, whether they are celestial bodies or mere soap bubbles. In the case of soap bubbles, surface tension, which wants to make the bubble smaller in all directions, causes the spherical shape. In the case of cosmic objects, it is gravity that tries to collapse matter in all directions since all the atoms are pulled toward a common center of gravity.
If a spherical object is rotating, the rotation flattens out the middle, making the sphere wider across the equator and narrower across the poles. This is because, in the case of rapid spinning, the centripetal force overcomes the gravitational attraction trying to create a spherical shape. Earth is an example of this, hence the oblate spheroid shape. Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system and therefore is more flattened than Earth. The sun rotates slowly, but there are other stars that spin rapidly and also have flattened shapes. Rapid spinning is also the reason black hole accretion disks, solar systems, and galaxies exhibit flattened disk shapes.

6. Temperature variation from equator to poles
The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees relative to the sun. The northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun for 6 months, while the southern hemisphere is tilted away, and vice versa. Consequently, while equatorial areas receive direct sunlight all year round, polar areas spend half of the year pointed away from the sun. This difference in sunlight exposure results in higher temperatures closer to the equator.
The Earth’s tilt also explains the extreme length of day and night at polar locations. While the length of the day at the equator is almost exactly always 12 hours due to the equator always receiving direct sunlight, the length of day and night at the poles is influenced by the Earth’s position relative to the sun.
The Earth’s tilt is also the reason that there are four seasons, and that as we approach the equator, the intensity of the seasons decreases until they are completely nonexistent right at the equator."



[link to medium.com (secure)]
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 59127893


Most of those are complete lies. 1. Your camera is a POS get a new one.2. Sun and moon are only 3k miles away so easy to see in the sky. Also mountains.3. No seas level which is impossible on a ball is the reason.4. Ridiculous that a medium article writer thinks he has been to other planets. However FYI spheres look like circles from a distance so impossible to tell.5. Most things are not fucking spherical. This is also someone we can’t know seeing as the article it self is discussing the shape of earth.6. Just a bunch of non since. But this is my personal opinion.
 
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