clair002

Flat Earth Claim The vacuum of space would suck the atmosphere off the Earth! Figure 1 - Flat Earth Meme Facts The vacuum of space (or any other vacuum) does not 'suck' things into it. It has no energy or force with which to do so. What we need to be concerned about are the forces contained in the mass that is adjacent to the vacuum to see if they are sufficient to hold the matter together against their own thermodynamic energy. First let's work through a simpler example of a marble adrift in space. There are intermolecular forces within the glass of the marble that are holding the atoms bound together, these forces are sufficient to prevent the silicon dioxide (SiO₂) molecules in the glass from flying off the marble and into space due to their thermodynamic forces under normal circumstances (hopefully we can agree on that). However, if we heat that marble up eventually some of those silicon dioxide molecules will have enough energy to break those bonds and separate int

How Polaris Can Be Used To Confirm A Spherical Earth This is a variation on the Simple proof of Earth curvature, but using Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris) as our fixed point.  You'll recall we've also done this with a mountain  peak. But it all works for the same simple geometric fact - angles to some fixed point behave differently with distance on a curved surface versus angles on a flat surface. First of all when we look at Polaris what are some of the things we can (hopefully) all agree upon? Observations Polaris doesn't move much in the sky (it has a 40' offset from dead center) If you looked straight up from the North Pole (give or take), Polaris would be overhead At 45° North latitude Polaris is at ~45° Altitude (varies slightly from 45°±40') At the Equator, Polaris is on the horizon (varies from 0°±40') I've seen Flat Earthers CLAIM that Polaris can be seen far to the South of the Equator, they are wrong.  When you check into their claim they are wro

I often see Flat Earthers appealing to ' perspective ' and ' vanishing point ' to explain why so many of our observations appear as if the Earth is a globe. However, they seem to be unable to explain anything in detail about these phenomena and rather just use these two terms as excuses. So I wanted to take a detailed look at what these two terms really mean. First of all 'vanishing point' is an imaginary point at which parallel lines would appear to converge if extended to infinity - imaginary and appear being key words here.  There is zero evidence this is an actual point or distance away at which anything magically 'vanishes'.  So that's just inane. Perspective can be summed up as the following relationship: Figure 1 This simply says that the apparent size of an object is equal to the height divided by the distance. That is the essence of perspective.  We will revisit this in more detail below after we review a few of the problems that any Flat Ea