Ave María purísima:

I am undecided on the FE vs. GE question. I would like FE to be true but there are many facts that cannot be simply swept under the rug.

However, I checked the memes from another thread and a couple called my attention a little bit. I have some objections to them but I am open to refutations.



This is a good one but it ignores the fact that the radius that a point on the surface of the Earth describes is much larger than the radius one kid would describe when riding the merry-go-round.

The centrifugal acceleration is v^2/R, where v is the velocity and R is the radius of the circle. Assuming R = 1m = 0.001km for the merry-go-round we get:

6^2/0.001=36,000km/hr^2 = 2.78m/s^2.

Now plugging the Earth's data in the formula (R = 6400km) we get:

1600^2/6400 = 400km/hr^2 = 0.03m/s^2

which is significantly smaller than the acceleration of the merry-go-round.

This does not necessarily neutralize the argument, the question is: how noticeable should be the effects of a 0.03m/s^2 centrifugal acceleration? Probably not much, considering that that's 300x smaller than the acceleration of gravity g = 9.8m/s^2 which is relatively low.



More than an objection to this one is only a question: How does the man disappearing behind the ground can be explained by perspective? Maybe I'm missing something...

I would expect that by perspective the level at which the feet of the man appear raises in photo 2 with respect to photo 1 and in 3 with respect to 2. Like this:



The level of the feet of the second kid looks like it is above the level of the feet of the kid in the gray sweater.

I think that the man disappearing behind the grass can only be explained by a crease in the terrain or the observer being below the ground level, both causes are tantamount to curvature in the case of the ship. Am I missing something?

More than an objection to this one is only a question: How does the man disappearing behind the ground can be explained by perspective? Maybe I'm missing something...

I would expect that by perspective the level at which the feet of the man appear raises in photo 2 with respect to photo 1 and in 3 with respect to 2. Like this:



The level of the feet of the second kid looks like it is above the level of the feet of the kid in the gray sweater.

I think that the man disappearing behind the grass can only be explained by a crease in the terrain or the observer being below the ground level, both causes are tantamount to curvature in the case of the ship. Am I missing something?

You don't give us enough credit. We HAVE thought about them, weighed the evidence, etc. and absorbed only that which was true.

For example, I can definitely vouch for this one:

I have wondered that since I was a kid. If we have a "moon" or spherical ball orbiting our earth, why isn't it a cool 3-d sphere looking thing? It's always 2-D illuminating some part of itself. But the sun can't be illuminating a sphere moon, or it would still look like a sphere. When you place a ruler on a sphere, how much of the ruler ACTUALLY TOUCHES the sphere? Only a mere point of it. The same with light. The brightest light would only hit ONE point, and it would diffuse out from there, being darker at the edges. The whole thing would look 3-D like a big sphere in the sky. But it doesn't.

And "standard science" says the moon is lit by the sun. But think about a Full Moon at night: it's 100% uniform lighting from the center all the way to the edges of the moon. There is ZERO 3-D element to it. Unless the earth were the Sun itself, super bright AND close, how could this even be possible? At NIGHT seeing a FULL MOON illuminated by the SUN -- shining on the back (day) side of the Earth? The earth should be casting a *shadow* on the Full Moon, never allowing any light onto it.

The same goes for many other Flat Earth proofs/memes. I can tell you that some of these are simply a case of "Wow -- I never thought about that! But you're absolutely right! Dang it, the earth IS flat! Ugh, I'm a Flat Earther now, which is about as good for you as waking up one morning as Adolf Hitler, but what can I do? deny reality and common sense?"

You don't give us enough credit. We HAVE thought about them, weighed the evidence, etc. and absorbed only that which was true.

For example, I can definitely vouch for this one:

I have wondered that since I was a kid. If we have a "moon" or spherical ball orbiting our earth, why isn't it a cool 3-d sphere looking thing? It's always 2-D illuminating some part of itself. But the sun can't be illuminating a sphere moon, or it would still look like a sphere. When you place a ruler on a sphere, how much of the ruler ACTUALLY TOUCHES the sphere? Only a mere point of it. The same with light. The brightest light would only hit ONE point, and it would diffuse out from there, being darker at the edges. The whole thing would look 3-D like a big sphere in the sky. But it doesn't.

And "standard science" says the moon is lit by the sun. But think about a Full Moon at night: it's 100% uniform lighting from the center all the way to the edges of the moon. There is ZERO 3-D element to it. Unless the earth were the Sun itself, super bright AND close, how could this even be possible? At NIGHT seeing a FULL MOON illuminated by the SUN -- shining on the back (day) side of the Earth? The earth should be casting a *shadow* on the Full Moon, never allowing any light onto it.

The same goes for many other Flat Earth proofs/memes. I can tell you that some of these are simply a case of "Wow -- I never thought about that! But you're absolutely right! Dang it, the earth IS flat! Ugh, I'm a Flat Earther now, which is about as good for you as waking up one morning as Adolf Hitler, but what can I do? deny reality and common sense?"

Just to be clear, those of you who think that I’m totally opposed to the FE theory are wrong. I have no problem accepting it, it’s just not *yet* demonstrable. Supposed “evidence” from YouTube videos are of little value as video’s are easily manipulated and are almost completely untrustworthy.