A dumb questions guys

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kevin ashby

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Hello guys and galls, my 1st post here as I have had a "ahem" discussion with someone who believes the Earth if FLAT, I kid you not, after listening to him rabbit on about it I said the answer is simple, go to San Francisco USA and get a high powered telescope and point it toward the Japanese coast, if the Earth is flat then he should be able to view and take a photograph with ease. After all it is only appox 11500km away. Any suggestions for a telescope that can do the trick. BTW, I know all he will see is the horizon and water. But he is willing to spend the money.
 
kevin ashby said:
Hello guys and galls, my 1st post here as I have had a "ahem" discussion with someone who believes the Earth if FLAT, I kid you not, after listening to him rabbit on about it I said the answer is simple, go to San Francisco USA and get a high powered telescope and point it toward the Japanese coast, if the Earth is flat then he should be able to view and take a photograph with ease. After all it is only appox 11500km away. Any suggestions for a telescope that can do the trick. BTW, I know all he will see is the horizon and water. But he is willing to spend the money.
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A pair of binoculars will bring up the horizon very nicely.....
 
:eek: The earth isn't flat? OMG!
 
i thought the earth was a cube thus the reason for life being like a giant game of dice :D
 
Must be troll of the day...but...it would surely depend on belief, I mean the camera never lies...does it?...
 
just get a "normal" telescope, and paste a "cel" from one of the Godzilla Movies on the inside of the Front Element.

That way when he Looks down the eyepiece at Tokyo...
 
Just watch a boat going away towards the horizon. Ask him where it goes when it disappears.


Steve.
 
Surely light can be bent by gravity; therefore, just as if you fire a cannonball parallel to the surface of the earth it will gradually lose height and fall, so light from Tokyo will fall towards the earth and land somewhere in the Pacific (if going east) and not be visible. A ship, if it goes far enough away, will also drop out of sight for the same reason. *

* Please don't point out any scientific inaccuracies you may find in this post as I'm already aware of them :D**

** And please take note of the smiley and consider why it's there...
 
I wouldn't venture beyond 12 miles from the coast... "there be dragons..."
 
If you check the shadow of the sun at 2 separated locations at the same time of day, you can measure the radius of the earth, just as Eratosthenes did quite accurately in about 190 BC.

However the biggest problem some people have is getting over their prejudices and indoctrination. An insurmountable barrier in many cases.
 
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I find it amazing that people can hold such beliefs in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. A bloke I work with is of a similar mindset. He spouts ridiculous conspiracy theories on a regular basis and raised the flat earth theory with me as we were about to fly to Germany on business. I pointed out to him that he'd be able to see the curvature of the Earth if we reached a decent altitude. Another colleague had had enough by this point and shut him down, so I didn't get to find out why he held such bizarre beliefs. I've wondered whether he voices these opinions for sport, to see people's reactions, but others have spoken to his wife (who is perfectly normal) as she works in a different part of the organisation. She says he spends hours at home reading up on various subjects, and she leaves him to get on with it. He's an intelligent guy with a good professional qualification in one of the most grounded, logic-based careers you could imagine.
 
ianp5a said:
If you check the shadow of the sun at 2 separated locations at the same time of day, you can measure the radius of the earth, just as Eratosthenes did quite accurately in about 190 BC.

However the biggest problem some people have is getting over their prejudices and indoctrination. An insurmountable barrier in many cases.
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The biggest problem I have with that is actually having some sunshine to see shadows obviously Eratosthenes didn't live in north wales ,unless its the geezer that runs the polski shop down town :wave:
 
ianp5a said:
If you check the shadow of the sun at 2 separated locations at the same time of day, you can measure the radius of the earth, just as Eratosthenes did quite accurately in about 190 BC.
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Not so.

Here is Eratosthenes' observation as it is usually presented:
Erat1B-756507.jpg


But here is an alternative interpretation:
Erat2B-710880.jpg


Eratosthenes didn't prove anything.

(Images from the Science Musings blog.)
 
If you can get up high enough, the curvature of the earth becomes fairly easy to spot, as this photo of Brighton taken from the fifth floor shows.

DSC00298.JPG

To get enough of the scene in to show the curvature I had to use a fisheye lens though....
 
Well, Japan is about 8337km from San Francisco, and at its thinnest is about 50km wide, maximum 230km, so viewed from San Francisco would subtend an angle of at least 1/3 of a degree, at most about 1.5 degrees. A 500mm lens on an APS-C sensor camera has an angle of view of about 3 degrees, so Japan at its narrowest would fill 1/10th of image width, at its widest half the image width. So a 500mm lens on a crop sensor camera would be more than adequate to see Japan from San Francisco, if the Earth was flat, and if the clarity of the air over a sea level distance of 8337km at those latitudes permitted seeing anything at all. In other words, nothing as expensive or complicated as a telescope would be required, just a perfectly ordinary long lens of the kind that most wildlife photographers already have. But of course if the earth was flat you wouldn't see anything at that distance through sea level atmosphere with any lens or telescope, because the clarity of the atmosphere, what astronomers call the "seeing", isn't up to it.

Isn't it surprising how those prepared to argue about the flatness of the planet are incapable of simple school arithmetic? On reflection, it's not surprising :)

[There's a prize for the first person to spot the arithmetic mistake in the above] :)
 
Those flat earth orbiting satellites use the technology from the space invaders game flying saucer to go back and forth.
 
Surely the width of Japan is irrelevant - it would be the height that mattered? Width would only come into the equation if you were viewing from a height.
 
Steve Smith said:
Just watch a boat going away towards the horizon. Ask him where it goes when it disappears.


Steve.
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Easy ... it falls off the end of the world, then a big hand comes along, catches it and put it back on at the other end ... ;)
 
chris malcolm said:
Well, Japan is about 8337km from San Francisco, and at its thinnest is about 50km wide, maximum 230km, so ...
[There's a prize for the first person to spot the arithmetic mistake in the above] :)
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StephenM said:
Surely the width of Japan is irrelevant - it would be the height that mattered? Width would only come into the equation if you were viewing from a height.
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We have a winner. Although it's more of a fundamental logic mistake than an arithmetic mistake...
 
chris malcolm said:
Well, Japan is about 8337km from San Francisco ... But of course if the earth was flat you wouldn't see anything at that distance through sea level atmosphere with any lens or telescope, because the clarity of the atmosphere, what astronomers call the "seeing", isn't up to it.
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So ... if the earth is curved, you can't see Japan from San Fran because of the curvature. And if the earth is flat, you can't see Japan from San Fran because of the atmosphere. I have to admit I'm struggling to see your so-called "point".
 
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