VERY STRONG EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE AFFIRMING THE SPHERICITY OF THE EARTH
A fairly common story from flat earth advocates is that they started out thinking that the earth being flat was a ridiculous idea, so they started trying to prove that the earth was a sphere, and since they were not able to do that as easily as they thought they should, at some point they gave up and concluded that the earth must therefore be flat. I know there is more to their overall spiel, but this is a significant part of what a lot of them say.
Well, I have gotten to the point where I feel that I have proved that the earth is a sphere, at least to my own personal and professional satisfaction. That does not mean that I have refuted every single flat earth argument, nor have I done experiments in all possible areas that might bear upon the issue. But I have done enough experiments and analysis that I do feel at peace knowing with confidence of the fact that the earth is a sphere. And I want to share with people all over the world how they can do simple experiments right where they live to verify for themselves that the earth is a sphere.
I welcome anyone to comment on this presentation as well as any of my other blog posts. Flat earth advocates, I challenge you to show me where I have made any errors in math, science, or logic.
SURFACE OF A SPHERICAL EARTH VS THAT OF A FLAT CIRCULAR DISK EARTH - CONCLUSIONS FROM INDISPUTABLE DIFFERENCES IN GEOMETRICAL PROPERTIES
The basic idea is that the geometrical properties of the surface of a sphere are very different than the geometrical properties of the surface of a flat circular disk. The spherical earth is laid out in terms of a defined grid of latitude and longitude. Any point on the surface of the earth can be uniquely specified by its coordinates of latitude and longitude. The azimuthal equidistant map is in reality just a projection of the spherical earth onto a circular disk. So the defined grid on this map of latitude and longitude is equivalent to that of the spherical earth map, with one exception. The nature of the projection causes the south pole, a point on the spherical surface of the earth, to project into a circle, the outer boundary of the azimuthal equidistant map. Flat earth advocates often present the azimuthal equidistant map as a flat earth map with the north pole at the center of the circular disk and the south “pole” not as a pole or single point, but as an outer boundary of the commonly known earth. But when people point out the obvious problems with this map in terms of giving unrealistic distances between points on the map, flat earth advocates often say that they know there are problems, and they are still working on getting an accurate flat earth map.
The azimuthal equidistant map is an accurate map of the spherical earth, where the map happens to be flat. But it must be interpreted properly to be useful. For example, any straight line distances between points that run exactly north south will scale properly. But any straight line distances between points that deviate at all from running north south will not scale properly. This is why when one tries to interpret the azimuthal equidistant map as a map of an actual flat earth, in which case the distances should scale properly in any and all directions, a distance between Perth Australia and Sydney Australia of around 5000 miles is determined when in reality we know the distance between these cities to be around 2000 miles.
Since the earth is really a sphere, there is no way that flat earth advocates will ever be able to tell you where anything is on the flat earth map in a way that all the distances will scale properly with reality. It seems clear that they maintain that the north pole is at the center of the circular disk and that the south “pole” is at the outer ring or boundary, and the equator is a circle half way between the north pole and the southern ring, but once they put that stuff on the map, why can’t they put the rest of the stuff on the map? The more that they try to put on the flat earth map, the more it exposes the flaws in this flat earth theory.
Even locating the equator exposes a fatal contradiction in their flat earth model. For the real distance around the equator on the real spherical earth is around 25,000 miles whereas the distance around the flat earth map’s equator is around 39,000 miles.
This and other implications of Flat Earth Science poses many contradictions with our world’s sophisticated system of weights and measures, geography, navigation, science, and commerce, that has taken civilization hundreds if not thousands of years to perfect to the very high level of precision and accuracy that has provided many benefits to humanity, but unfortunately has also been used in destructive and evil endeavors.
Countless examples could be found, but here I offer just one. In 1986 the aircraft Voyager set a record of flying around the world non-stop without having to re-fuel. They stayed pretty close to the equator for most of the trip except for when they took off from Edwards AFB in California and headed towards Hawaii, and upon return came up through Mexico back to their starting point in California. So the actual distance traveled by this plane was around 25,000 miles, but if the same route was done on a flat earth map the distance would have been over 34,000 miles. So their average speed reported as around 115 mph should have been over 156 mph. But wouldn’t the pilots have noticed this on their airplane’s airspeed indicator? So according to flat earth science this record needs to be revised, for it is a much more impressive accomplishment on the flat earth than on the spherical earth. Just think of the many other world records that will now need to be revised due to the proper application of flat earth science.
DO YOUR OWN TESTS AND YOU TOO CAN BECOME A HANDS-ON SPHERICAL EARTH AFFIRMER
But anyone can do their own simple experiments right where they live to verify that the readings conform to reality on the spherical earth model, but not on the flat earth model. I have done this for where I live in San Jose, California.
Basically what you do is drive your car a few miles between defined coordinate points on a road that runs west east and measure the distance with your car’s odometer. And then you do the same for a road that runs south north. From this data you can calculate the gradients, the west east gradient and the south north gradient, in terms of miles traveled per degree of longitude and miles traveled per degree of latitude, respectively.
Here’s the applicable equations that tell you what these gradients should be wherever you are on the spherical earth or the flat earth.
Spherical
Distance traveled/degree of longitude = (2 x PI x Re x COS(latitude x (PI/180)))/360
Distance traveled/degree of latitude = (2 x PI x Re)/360
Flat
Distance traveled/degree of longitude = ((90-latitude)/(90 x 360)) x PI^2 x Re
Distance traveled/degree of latitude = (2 x PI x Re)/360
Where Re is the average radius of the spherical earth = 3958.755 miles, PI = 3.14159, and latitude is in degrees as usual.
However you got your coordinates of latitude and longitude for the points you traveled between, if you don’t trust these values and want to do some more checking on this, you can do the following. Go to any of several online sun calculators that will give you the time of solar noon where you are and also at some other place east or west of you and then verify that you get a difference in time of 4 minutes per degree of longitude. This is data that flat earth scientists should find very hard to dispute, because anyone can measure the difference in time for solar noon between two places. The data will be the same for all, no matter what their views on the shape of the earth are. So this should allow you to see if your longitude values you used for the points to determine your west east gradient make sense for where you live. For a check on latitude values you can check the sun angle for where you are at solar noon with the sun angle at a place either north or south of you and see if this makes sense. I am not going to go into the details of this here, as there is less potential for dispute here, because this is a case where the flat earth model and the spherical earth model happen to agree with each other. That is, on the south north gradient of miles traveled per degree of latitude, the value is a constant of 69.0933 miles per degree of latitude no matter where you are on either the spherical earth map or the flat earth map.
So basically what I did for where I live in San Jose is that back on the equinox of September 23, 2017 I verified the sun’s angle at solar noon and determined that it was indeed consistent with my latitude here. I took odometer readings with my car between defined points on both a west east road and a south north road, and calculated the gradients and found them to be consistent with what the spherical earth model would predict.
So based on the results I got I would have to be around 500 miles further north on a flat earth map in order for the results to be consistent with the flat earth model, somewhere around Sisters, Oregon on the spherical earth map.
If where you are, it is difficult to find roads that run close to south north or west east, just find the closest to that ideal and then correct the odometer reading from your car by multiplying by the cosine of the angle of deviation from the ideal path to the actual path to get the correct distance to use for calculating the gradients.
DETAILS OF THE DATA AND CALCULATIONS THAT I DID
Traveling from west to east was from 37.322909, -122.010161 to 37.323274, -121.937518. The odometer in my car said I had gone 4.1 miles. Notice that the latitudes of the two points are within 3 significant figures to the right of the decimal point to each other which is sufficient to establish that for practical purposes the points are east-west of each other. So calculating miles traveled per degree longitude = 4.1/(122.010161-121.937518) = 56.4 miles/degree longitude. Notice that since the odometer reading of 4.1 has only 2 significant figures, the result is only good to 2 significant figures, so it could be reported as 56 +/- 1 miles/degree longitude. Based on the spherical earth model the calculation is (2 x PI x Rearth x COS(latitude x (PI/180)))/360 = 54.95 miles/degree longitude. So the experimentally determined value of 56 +/-1 is consistent with the spherical earth theoretical value of 54.95 within experimental uncertainty.
Traveling from south to north was from 37.321039, -122.014123 to 37.362467, -122.014167. The odometer in my car said I had gone 2.9 miles. Notice that the longitudes of the two points are within 3 significant figures to the right of the decimal point to each other which is sufficient to establish that for practical purposes the points are north-south of each other. So calculating miles traveled per degree latitude = 2.9/(37.362467-37.321039) = 70.0 miles/degree latitude. Notice that since the odometer reading of 2.9 has only 2 significant figures, the result is only good to 2 significant figures, so it could be reported as 70 +/- 1 miles/degree latitude. Based on the spherical earth model the calculation is (2 x PI x Rearth)/360 = 69.1 miles/degree latitude. So the experimentally determined value of 70 +/-1 is consistent with both the spherical and flat earth theoretical values, which are the same, of 69.1 within experimental uncertainty
It is worth noting that in both cases above the experimentally determined number was a little greater than the theoretically calculated number. This could be due to the deviation of the actual path driven from a perfectly straight line.
According the flat earth geometry, you would need to be at about latitude 44.5 degrees to get a west east gradient of 54.9 miles per degree of longitude. The calculation is grad = ((90-latitude)/(90 x 360)) x PI^2 x Re = ((90-44.5)/(90 x 360)) x 3.14159^2 x 3958.755 = 54.9 miles per degree of longitude. So you would need to be at 44.5 degrees latitude on the flat earth map, where at this latitude on the spherical earth map you would be up right around Sisters, Oregon, if I keep the longitude the same as San Jose.
A CALL TO ACTION
Others all over the world could do similar measurements and calculations as I have done and determine if the results they get are consistent with the spherical earth map.
Remarkably, on the spherical earth the maximum west east gradient occurs at the equator with a value of 69.0933. But on the flat earth map you have to go up to 32.7 degrees latitude to get this same gradient, which would be right around the latitude of Yuma, Arizona on the spherical earth map. On the flat earth map, the gradient is 108.5 at the equator, and once you get down to the southern ring, the gradient is 217. In contrast, at the south pole of the spherical map the gradient is zero.
Ask any flat earth advocate to name one city on the earth where the west east gradient is greater than 100 miles per degree of longitude. There should be many according to flat earth theory, but they cannot even name one.
So much more can be said and further experiments done on this.
Flat earth advocates claim that GPS is not valid and it is not based on satellites, which they claim do not exist. Well, if you start doing experiments with GPS you will find that it is extremely accurate and also its results, when combined and compared with independent and complementary data, are consistent with the reality of a spherical earth.
Flat earth advocates will say something like, GPS is based on spherical earth geometry so that is why it works. But there is a problem with their logic. They are essentially saying that the spherical earth map is a projection of the real flat earth onto a sphere. Well, if that is the case, why can’t they provide a flat earth map that works giving us where things are on that map? They can’t. It is impossible. GPS can easily be shown to be consistent with a real spherical earth and its map when GPS experiments are done where trips are tracked with GPS combined with independent distance measurement methods, such as with a car’s odometer.
I am already working on these things and will report on the results in future posts.
I encourage others all over this Grand Spherical Earth that we share and live on to do their own similar experiments and report on their results also.