No censorship discussion of 'Flat Earth theory'

No, not really. You continue to ignore the point I originally made. I will repeat it for you, because you may be too confused or tired to scroll up and find it.

It has to do with the different location of longitude lines when a globe is flattened; or, if you prefer, when a disk is turned into a globe.

I challenged you and any other flat-earther to perform a simple experiment involving an orange. Have you done so?

Let's make it easier. Take either hand, and hold it like a claw, with your fingertips all close together. This mimicks the longitude lines of earth, which originate from the north pole, and -- if the earth is a globe, will converge, again, at the south pole. Your fingertips -- not touching -- represent points on earth, along those longitude lines.

Now flatten out your hand. You just turned a globe into a disk. Importantly, pay attention to what happens to your fingertips: they spread apart. The disparity is far greater in reality than you can see with your own fingers.

Take a look at your own map, above. The longitude lines -- on your own map, I remind you -- are easily four times as far apart down near Australia, than they are up in the northern part of North America. If that four-times disparity is accurate, that means point-to-point travel in the region of latitude of Australia is going to be four times as far as it would the same travel, from the same longitudinal points, in Canada or the northern U.S. Four times.

Seattle, Washington is 122.3. Marquette, Michigan is 87.4 west longitude. That puts the two cities 35.7 degrees apart.

Now, let's find two locations way, way down south. How about Sydney and Perth Australia? Sydney is at 151.2 longitude east; Perth is 115.9. That's 35.3 degrees apart. Pretty close.

Now let's compare the driving distances (I'd use flight times, but I can't get them for these destinations), according to Bing Maps:

Seattle-Marquette: 33 hours, 43 minutes.
Perth-Sydney: 42 hours, 18 minutes.

Huh, that's not the disparity that we ought to find if the earth is FLAT. Instead, at a ratio of four times, the Perth-Sydney drive ought to be almost 135 hours.

But the disparity does seem consistent with a globe. Seattle and Marquette are both almost 50% farther from the north pole, than Perth and Sydney are from the south pole:

Seattle: 47.6 north; Marquette: 46.5 north.
Perth: 32; Sydney 33.9

And guess what? The disparity in time is pretty close to the same!

Looks like the earth is round, after all.

 

Not to mention:

- You can buy a ticket on an airplane trip that proceeds almost due south from Australia, over the pole. If the flat-earthers are right, this is impossible.

- Ordinary people arrange for expeditions in Antarctica. It takes money and expertise and so forth, but it's not as if you must be in the military or anything.

Either of these -- particularly the expedition on foot -- would be a golden opportunity for flat-earthers to prove their theory, by photographing "the edge."

 

1. This thread isn't about you. It is to have a discussion which was disallowed elsewhere.

2. What would you like to contribute to the discussion? I'd love to hear you explain the comparison I offered in drive times, above.

 

It's actually far more complex than that. All these travel times -- by car, by bus, by train, by truck, by air and by sea -- are all interlocking. So, for example, a barge delivering products from China arrives in San Diego or Los Angeles harbor. Right away, it's offloaded; and then the containers are either put into trains or trucks, and they rush off to their various destinations. Similarly, airlines have lots and lots of connections to make. Think of how this affects, not only passengers, but air crews. They get off one flight, and then have to report for another.

All this interconnectedness is only possible if the time tables are accurate. They can't be off by a factor of four or five! You can't make up for this by driving a little faster. The train would have to go three or four times faster; the same with the trucks. This cannot be concealed.

So it wouldn't just be a small number who are "in on" the conspiracy. WE ALL HAVE TO BE PART OF IT! Everyone who drives, everyone who flies, everyone who works the ground crews, everyone who rides a train, every truck driver, every dispatcher...pretty much EVERYONE.