The earth is flat!

[Blueshoes]

I think the best example of earth curvature is looking at the Humber Bridge when standing at Spurn Point in Humberside. From memory, you can see only the top half of the two support towers, whilst the bridge deck is below the horizon line. The water in the Humber Estuary is flat, and hence the only explanation that you can't see the bridge deck is that the earth is round.

Ah, but the bridge was built as an optical illusion as part of this massive government conspiracy to reaffirm people's belief the earth is round when it is in fact flat. There is a very good reason for this conspiracy but it escapes me at the moment...

[SteveK]

Ah, but the bridge was built as an optical illusion as part of this massive government conspiracy to reaffirm people's belief the earth is round when it is in fact flat. There is a very good reason for this conspiracy but it escapes me at the moment...

It's not built as an optical illusion - I've walked across it

The bridge towers weren't built parallel, but (according to the Humber Bridge Board website) are "36mm (1.4 inches) further apart at the top than the bottom to take account of the curvature of the earth".

(The Humber Bridge Board - Explore the Bridge - Interesting Facts if you are really bored at work)

[Ghost]

Go to the Bonneville salt flats
Look to a point in the distance
The earth should be curved between where you are and there (excluding hills etc)
Go to that point in the distance
Look at another point in the distance
The earth should be curved between where you are and there (excluding hills etc)
Go to that point in the distance
Repeat till bored / convinced.

Cool. Fits my requirements. Course I'd still have to actually do it first...

you'll simply tell me that I didn't take them therefore how do I know they're true etc etc.

Yup - though the level of pedanticness is simply because of the use of "true" in this case.

So no point in arguing anything with a scientific base to you, because if you don't want to believe it's true then you won't.

Actually no. It's a serious question and I would be very interested if there is an answer. I believe NZ Monkey is correct that science can only prove a negative, but science is very big - there might be something absolutely provable I'm not aware of.

I mean, if you have to prove absolutely everything to yourself before believing that an assertion is true then you'd probably lead a rather strange life - how far do you take it?

Actually it's pretty straight-forward. Just consider things to be "useful models" instead of "facts" (which is actually the case anyway). It doesn't stop me using them, quite the contrary.

Well...two possibilities, I guess. Either it's geometry that elucidates Ghosts mad theories, or it's a typo for Euclidean geometry - which is the geometry of planes, whereas non-Euclidean geometry is the geometry of distorted space and shapes.

I'd go with typo if I were you...

Also: stop having a go a Ghost, everyone, he does Tango so therefore is infinitely superior to you bunch of plebs

[Barry Shnikov]

Difraction of light is also a problem closer to "home", for example in surveying long tunnels. I'm a civil engineer and not a surveyor, but understand that diffraction becomes a significant issue for survey accuracies when you are constructing things like the Channel Tunnel. Some form of calculations are required to compensate for diffraction of the laser beams used for surveying. If anyone is particularly bothered, I'm sure I can probably find some references for this, but my university surveying notes are currently in an attic in Inverness.

What - due to gravity?!

I think the best example of earth curvature is looking at the Humber Bridge when standing at Spurn Point in Humberside. From memory, you can see only the top half of the two support towers, whilst the bridge deck is below the horizon line. The water in the Humber Estuary is flat, and hence the only explanation that you can't see the bridge deck is that the earth is round.

Nice!

[Barry Shnikov]

Actually no. It's a serious question and I would be very interested if there is an answer. I believe NZ Monkey is correct that science can only prove a negative, but science is very big - there might be something absolutely provable I'm not aware of.

See my earlier post about the problem of 'evidence' and 'proof' and the definition of proof. If courts had to judge cases to the level of proof you are demanding then no cases would ever be judged.

Did Harold Shipman really kill people? Well it could have been an alien, cunningly disguised as Harold Shipman, sent down to give people apparently fatal doses of drugs unknown to man so that the victims could be abducted from the funeral home and replaced with fake bodies, so that the aliens could experiment on the old people of northern england...

...but nobody would expect a jury to give such a defence consideration for more than the Planck time. But similarly improbable explanations are offered in favour of, for example, some of the wackier alternative health theories...

There has to be a point where any reasonable person can say 'your demand for additional evidence in order to consider the matter proven is bizarre, and therefore go ye away and wrap thy head in bacofoil.'

(Of course, Shipman is in the alien ship as well, now, having been abducted from prison underneath the noses of Group 4...)

[Dreadful Scathe]

It's not built as an optical illusion - I've walked across it

no! really?

[David Franklin]

What - due to gravity?!

Refraction doesn't involve gravity, no.

[bigdjiver]

... The water in the Humber Estuary is flat, and hence the only explanation that you can't see the bridge deck is that the earth is round.

I have not been too lokk, but I suspect that the water there is bumpy too. If the earth is roundish the the water on top of it must be roundish too.

My "light is light" posting shows an element of the scientific method. If you have an explanation, look for another. Then try and prove both explanations wrong.

God is based upon belief, Science is based upon doubt.

Those that seek to exploit religious belief do not care how many do not believe their daft theories, the are looking for the gullible that believe them. If they can find someone that believes them, they can exploit them, and, too often, they do.

[Ghost]

If courts had to judge cases to the level of proof you are demanding then no cases would ever be judged.

Sure, but am I right that you can't actually be found "innocent", only "not guilty" which is rather different.

There has to be a point where any reasonable person can say 'your demand for additional evidence in order to consider the matter proven is bizarre, and therefore go ye away and wrap thy head in bacofoil.'

But if you think about it, scientists continue to question established theories and sometimes disprove them, sometimes coming up with new ones because of it. Science is a work in progress. I'm happy with

'your demand for additional evidence in order to consider the matter a useful working model is bizarre, and therefore go ye away and wrap thy head in bacofoil.' - which I think is what you mean by "proven".

See my earlier post about the problem of 'evidence' and 'proof' and the definition of proof.

My problem is that I don't believe most non-scientists consider "proven" when used by scientists to have the meaning you're using. (I was going to do a poll, but I'm worried about Crazy Shark marrying me to it )

[Barry Shnikov]

Refraction doesn't involve gravity, no.

Well, quite. I don't understand the relevance of what he was posting, then...

[stewart38]

Well, tell us what worm holes you are thinking of, and maybe there is an answer. The only mathematical construct I know of that makes wormholes possible are inside black holes. By definition the laws of the universe don't apply inside black holes, so the speed could be faster, slower or the same...

Worm holes black holes the same ?different ?? who knows

See here

Could black holes be portals to other universes? - space - 27 April 2007 - New Scientist Space

Im off to find a wom hole that will take me to a Flat Earth

One thing re that article I thought if you cross the 'Event arisen' you wouldnt notice it , you couldn't go back of course (Black Holes here) . Maybe thats old knowledge

[Barry Shnikov]

My problem is that I don't believe most non-scientists consider "proven" when used by scientists to have the meaning you're using. (I was going to do a poll, but I'm worried about Crazy Shark marrying me to it )

Wow, kudos. I thought my sentences were convoluted!

I suspect you are right, in which case we are making not-unrelated points.

[Ghost]

Wow, kudos. I thought my sentences were convoluted!

I suspect you are right, in which case we are making not-unrelated points.

Yup

[Crazy Shark]

Nice to know im being mentioned

Yeah i'll marry you Ghost...............to the poll

[SteveK]

Refraction doesn't involve gravity, no.

Well, quite. I don't understand the relevance of what he was posting, then...

The reason for posting was comments people made earlier about light travelling in straight lines. I'm an engineer and not a physicist, so I don't know why the light gets bent. I learnt about this being a cause of surveying errors when I was at uni over 10 years ago, and can't quite remember how it happens. The important thing for me is to know that it occurs; but why it occurs is of lesser importance to me.

When doing long distance visual surveying (such as involved for construction and monitoring of long tunnels), an allowance has to be made for how light becomes curved by the earth.

Hence light doesn't always travel in perfectly straight lines in our environment, and just because something looks like it is in a straight line from you, it may not be.

[David Franklin]

The reason for posting was comments people made earlier about light travelling in straight lines. I'm an engineer and not a physicist, so I don't know why the light gets bent. I learnt about this being a cause of surveying errors when I was at uni over 10 years ago, and can't quite remember how it happens. The important thing for me is to know that it occurs; but why it occurs is of lesser importance to me.

There's some discussion about the mechanism at Earth Curvature and Atmospheric Refraction across Monterey Bay, although it sounds like you probably won't be that interested.

[Barry Shnikov]

The reason for posting was comments people made earlier about light travelling in straight lines. I'm an engineer and not a physicist, so I don't know why the light gets bent. I learnt about this being a cause of surveying errors when I was at uni over 10 years ago, and can't quite remember how it happens. The important thing for me is to know that it occurs; but why it occurs is of lesser importance to me.

When doing long distance visual surveying (such as involved for construction and monitoring of long tunnels), an allowance has to be made for how light becomes curved by the earth.

Hence light doesn't always travel in perfectly straight lines in our environment, and just because something looks like it is in a straight line from you, it may not be.

OK, I think I see the point you're making, but doesn't come under Sybil Fawlty's Mastermind specialist subject? You only have to look at a glass of liquid with a straw in it to know that light can be bent.

[stewart38]

OK, I think I see the point you're making, but doesn't come under Sybil Fawlty's Mastermind specialist subject? You only have to look at a glass of liquid with a straw in it to know that light can be bent.

See you haven't lost your touch

Do you get pleasure out of deriding peoples posts ?

[David Franklin]

Do you get pleasure out of deriding peoples posts ?

I see we're asking questions on Sybil Fawlty's specialist subject again...

[timbp]

Hey.. not only is the world flat.. it's borne on the back of 4 great elephants Berilia, Tubul, T'Phon and Jerakeen. They themselves stand on the back of Great A'tuin, The Star Turtle as it swims across the universe to the spawning ground.

And anyone who says otherwise is a blasphemer and shall be taken to the edge of the world and cast off into the void.

You're in the wrong universe, mate. This is Roundworld.