Lake Balaton Laser experiment to determine the curvature of the Earth, if any.

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If in Google Earth you make a path across the surface of the lake, then zoom in on it, you see the curve of the surface of the lake (green line).

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Now it's very hard to see, but it almost looks like the reflection of the laser is starting to take this curve:
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It is not like the laser: the laser was bending upwards in a high angle at a certain point and not continuosly.

and there is a straight laser beam going on too. Refraction is evident so it can't be both the same
 
Here is my explanation on the last laser experiment at daylight on the 16th

leveling position:





The laser beam is surely not bending down, but the beam center rather a bit up from the marked line.

This was a definite direct laser beam hit into the camera at 7:04



upper picture with the Samsung

down picture with the Nikon P900




the distance calculated by the Samsung GPS coordinates:







that is supposed to be 2.44 meters DROP + 1.25 meter laser height = 3.7 meter laser beam height at the measurement point.

Is that correct?
 
this shot is over 1.5 miles

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As has already been pointed out, you have no idea if the camera was at the CENTER of the laser beam. How wide was the beam at that point?

As I said: "that is supposed to be 2.44 meters DROP + 1.25 meter laser height = 3.7 meter laser beam height at the measurement point."

This means that the laser line was supposed to be about 2 meters overhead.

This way it is not possible that we had a laser beam with 2 meters diameter, so it should have not been seen with the camera after 1.5 miles distance to the shore. I will get back with the exact calculation on the beam diameter at thease distances, but I think around max 2 inches.
 
that is supposed to be 2.44 meters DROP + 1.25 meter laser height = 3.7 meter laser beam height at the measurement point.

Is that correct?

Yes, but only if it's actually level, and there's no refraction.

Individual measurements are pointless, you need two at the very least, and preferably enough to plot a curve.
 
If Sandor's statement about the measurement is true, it would be absolute proof

No, it would be one tiny piece of evidence, and not a very good one because you haven't accounted for two absolutely critical factors - the degree to which the laser is level and the amount of refraction. Therefore it would be inconclusive.

Do you understand and acknowledge these issues?

No single measurement is going to be absolute proof of anything - that's absurd and this is why you guys believe silly things.

I can point to gigabytes of measurements done by thousands of people over hundreds of years that ALL show the curvature of the earth, millions of photos and tens of thousands of hours of video from space, and you ignore and reject all that data as lies & fakes but think your ONE measurement at some unknown angle & under questionable conditions (where we told you REPEATEDLY not to put the laser down close to the water) is proof. It's laughable.

I've measured the curvature over many thousands of miles where it is unmistakable & undeniable, all you have to do is measure the angle of the sun at different distances - it's IMPOSSIBLE to reconcile the angles with a flat earth. By the time you go 1/4 of the way around the globe from the subsolar point your flat earth has the Sun at about 22 degrees but it's all the way down on the horizon in reality. How do you explain that?

You didn't even do the experiment you PROMISED to do - you seemingly kept making things up until you got some results you liked. They shortened the distance by a HUGE amount, and so forth. You've also not produced any of the data that you said you would (repeated measurements showing height on the board at different distances).


But I have little doubt in my mind that you will ignore all this and just declare victory. It's historically what you guys do.

If someone told you they had proved the globe I'm sure you would take it as fact before having seen the data as well.

We rejected the Hawking laser test in this very thread so I don't see how you can say that with a straight face.

can we please move on from this pointless side debate now? It's quite petty and irrelevant.

The point I'm making here is very relevant because it seems you don't understand the actual problems you face.

These aren't new either - we covered them in great detail before you started.
 
I've been away a few weeks. A bit off topic, but I thought I might throw in my own "experiment" (that I posted twice already). I photographed windmills at sea from a distance of around 40 km. Both from a standpoint close to the beach (app. 3m high) and from a high dune (app. 24 m high). They show exactly what the old greek philosophers already brought up as evidence for a globe earth: further away you see more and more disappear behind the horizon, and from a higher standpoint you can look further away. I won't do the math again, unless you want me to, but the amount of "hidden windmill" fairly matches the calculations.
So Ian and Sandor, what do you think of this:
upload_2016-8-22_10-30-46.png
upload_2016-8-22_10-31-17.png
 
I've been away a few weeks. A bit off topic, but I thought I might throw in my own "experiment" (that I posted twice already). I photographed windmills at sea from a distance of around 40 km. Both from a standpoint close to the beach (app. 3m high) and from a high dune (app. 24 m high). They show exactly what the old greek philosophers already brought up as evidence for a globe earth: further away you see more and more disappear behind the horizon, and from a higher standpoint you can look further away. I won't do the math again, unless you want me to, but the amount of "hidden windmill" fairly matches the calculations.
So Ian and Sandor, what do you think of this:
upload_2016-8-22_10-30-46.png
upload_2016-8-22_10-31-17.png
I must say I like the way they make use of GPS ..
 
No, it would be one tiny piece of evidence, and not a very good one because you haven't accounted for two absolutely critical factors - the degree to which the laser is level and the amount of refraction. Therefore it would be inconclusive.

Do you understand and acknowledge these issues?

No single measurement is going to be absolute proof of anything - that's absurd and this is why you guys believe silly things.

I can point to gigabytes of measurements done by thousands of people over hundreds of years that ALL show the curvature of the earth, millions of photos and tens of thousands of hours of video from space, and you ignore and reject all that data as lies & fakes but think your ONE measurement at some unknown angle & under questionable conditions (where we told you REPEATEDLY not to put the laser down close to the water) is proof. It's laughable.

I've measured the curvature over many thousands of miles where it is unmistakable & undeniable, all you have to do is measure the angle of the sun at different distances - it's IMPOSSIBLE to reconcile the angles with a flat earth. By the time you go 1/4 of the way around the globe from the subsolar point your flat earth has the Sun at about 22 degrees but it's all the way down on the horizon in reality. How do you explain that?

You didn't even do the experiment you PROMISED to do - you seemingly kept making things up until you got some results you liked. They shortened the distance by a HUGE amount, and so forth. You've also not produced any of the data that you said you would (repeated measurements showing height on the board at different distances).


But I have little doubt in my mind that you will ignore all this and just declare victory. It's historically what you guys do.



We rejected the Hawking laser test in this very thread so I don't see how you can say that with a straight face.



The point I'm making here is very relevant because it seems you don't understand the actual problems you face.

These aren't new either - we covered them in great detail before you started.

"You didn't even do the experiment you PROMISED to do" - I didn't do any experiment, I'm just some guy on Facebook having a debate about what Sandor has done.


"We rejected the Hawking laser test in this very thread so I don't see how you can say that with a straight face." - you were forced to reject it by flat earthers, ordinarily you would accept it as Gospel because it's on TV. I really wish you could see the irony, you accept that absolute proof of the globe is being pushed on people through mainstream media by highly influential people through shoddy "scientific experiments" carried out by actors on a glossy TV show that the masses will believe without question. Yet one guy posts the results of a real scientific experiment in a Facebook group with 2000 members and you lose your shit! I'm not an influential person, I'm just a guy. If I'm posting rubbish, who cares? People are smart, they can make up their own minds, and they will. Also if you can't see the possibility for deception despite the obvious fact that Stephen Hawking's experiment is clearly just fabricated nonsense then there's nothing I can say. I mean for God's sake, Stephen Hawking says "luckily we know everything!" is that not THE most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? How can we know everything about space when it's almost based entirely on theoretical physics? Theory is not fact and nothing about space follows the scientific method whatsoever.

"No single measurement is going to be absolute proof of anything - that's absurd and this is why you guys believe silly things" - if this measurement is repeatable, verifiable, observable and falsifiable it presents a pretty serious problem for the globe. Who was who said in this forum: "you won't need to go past 5 miles because the laser will be too high to measure"?

"this is why you guys believe silly things" - I didn't join this forum to be stereotyped, ridiculed and discriminated against. I joined for a sensible debate about the results of this experiment.

Further posts relating to myself and my Facebook group will be ignored and I would appreciate it if @Mick West could separate any posts of this nature to a separate forum, I hope you will agree that it's not relevant or constructive.
 
Yes, but only if it's actually level, and there's no refraction.

Individual measurements are pointless, you need two at the very least, and preferably enough to plot a curve.

"Yes, but only if it's actually level,"

I showed the leveling of the laser at 7:42 on the distance of 712 meters. IT IS level, laser beam may be pointing a bit UPWARDS.

"and there's no refraction"

The refraction at this time was bending the laser UPWARDS that means if there was any refraction on the laser beam it was bending it UPWARDS.

SO BOTH cases are lifting the laser beam on top of the supposed curvature drop!

"Individual measurements are pointless, you need two at the very least, and preferably enough to plot a curve."

Ammm... I don't think I understand this... all measurements were on ONE WAY without touching the laser.
These are individual measurements along the line of the measurement route! I just gave an example of 6 measurement points after the calibration - I think that is more than two at the very least.

SO Mick, please put them on one measurement line as you had in the example up above and conclude the 6+1 measurement points as a VALID RESULT.
:)
 
Further posts relating to myself and my Facebook group will be ignored and I would appreciate it if @Mick West could separate any posts of this nature to a separate forum, I hope you will agree that it's not relevant or constructive.
Concur. I don't think it's fair to quote your posts from facebook in this thread, and I'd like to see the conversation move on from that, and focus on the data.

Apologies for quoting your externally written words - I think they were your words - in a post above.
I mean, for God's sake, Stephen Hawking says, "luckily we know everything!" Is that not THE most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? How can we know everything about space when it's based almost entirely on theoretical physics? Theory is not fact and nothing about space follows the scientific method whatsoever.
Did Stephen Hawking really say, "luckily we know everything!"? If so, can you point me to where please?
 
He says right at the beginning of his video, around the 40 second mark https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=27BN7Qua0gc
Thanks for that. I guess it is a bit of a clunky sentence - though less so when put into context, as the answer to the question, "where is the Earth in the universe, and what shape is it?"
"'Where are we?' That's a pretty profound question. If we didn't know where we are we'd be like monkeys in a forest, totally unaware of our position in the cosmos. Fortunately, we humans know everything, from the shape of the Earth, to its place in the universe."
Content from External Source
I guess he was saying it in a more specific sense than in the general, and having read some of Hawkings' books I think it's clear he doesn't think "humans know everything!"

But I'll agree, even in this sense it's not quite the right thing to say, given we have no idea how big the universe actually is; whether it's finite or infinite; or its shape. Clearly, without knowing those things we don't know exactly where we are.

Split the difference? ;)
 
"Yes, but only if it's actually level,"

I showed the leveling of the laser at 7:42 on the distance of 712 meters. IT IS level, laser beam may be pointing a bit UPWARDS.

"and there's no refraction"

The refraction at this time was bending the laser UPWARDS that means if there was any refraction on the laser beam it was bending it UPWARDS.

SO BOTH cases are lifting the laser beam on top of the supposed curvature drop!

"Individual measurements are pointless, you need two at the very least, and preferably enough to plot a curve."

Ammm... I don't think I understand this... all measurements were on ONE WAY without touching the laser.
These are individual measurements along the line of the measurement route! I just gave an example of 6 measurement points after the calibration - I think that is more than two at the very least.

SO Mick, please put them on one measurement line as you had in the example up above and conclude the 6+1 measurement points as a VALID RESULT.
:)
You would need to take exceptional measures to ensure a laser keeps pointing in the same direction to sub-milliradian accuracy out in the open air. 1mrad is 1metre/kilometer
 
As I said: "that is supposed to be 2.44 meters DROP + 1.25 meter laser height = 3.7 meter laser beam height at the measurement point

You keep doing this. You can't take the drop height calculated at 0m and add the laser height above water to find the hidden height. Your laser diverges, and all you show us is pictures showing at least some light from the laser gets to the camera.

Without pictures of the laser striking a target, and better evidence of leveling or more data points, hidden height is all you can prove. At 5.588km and 1.25m height, that's .2m, not taking refraction into account.
image.png
 
I have a better idea for your lake: Set up a line series of buoys with poles and leds on the top, whose height follows the predicted drop, and photograph them all at once. Saves bandwidth!
 
I have a better idea for your lake: Set up a line series of buoys with poles and leds on the top, whose height follows the predicted drop, and photograph them all at once. Saves bandwidth!

Why alter the heights? You could just have them all the same height and count them from the shore(s). Nice idea though, although refraction would still be an issue.
 
Why alter the heights? You could just have them all the same height and count them from the shore(s). Nice idea though, although refraction would still be an issue.
That would be ok too, but it would be nice to see them in a straight line. You could make the poles quite long in calm weather. ...or use small tethered helium balloons.

ps. Lasers just get on my tits, sometimes..
 
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I think Mick's suggested way would be the most fool proof and easiest to analyze. Boat with colored marker board easily seen by camera and with laser leveled as good as possible. Then just film boat going away. Someone on the boat can hold up a white board telling the km distance along the way and then the camera footage contains most of what you need. You can even forget about refraction because all you are looking for is either a straight line or a curved line in the plot. Anomalies caused be refraction would also show up as irregular changes in the line or curve. Do it early morning, again, midday and again evening repeating the test exactly. The board on the boat would have to be wide so that it wouldn't be too difficult to stay in the line of the laser.
 
I showed the leveling of the laser at 7:42 on the distance of 712 meters.

No, you did not, there are multiple problems with what you show:

eveling position:





The laser beam is surely not bending down, but the beam center rather a bit up from the marked line.

Now I'm presuming the marked line is the same height as the laser on the shore. However:
A) There's no indication of how accurate this line is.
B) at 717m, there's a 4 cm drop, so "level" it tilted down.
C) The boat appears to be under power at this point, this might also tilt the back of the boat down, making the laser seem higher.
D) each 1cm of error at 717m is about 8cm of error at 5.6km
E) Your subsequent photos are not measurements of the laser height, they just show the laser in the camera. The photo above ALSO shows the laser in the camera, even though the camera is ABOVE the beam by at least 30 cm
F) at large distances the laser is several feet wide/high.
G) The last photo with the laser visible is at 3.8km, I have not seen the video of the 5.6km "direct hit"

There are no accurate measurements, and there is no series of measurements. For this experiment to work we need a series of measured heights of the center of the laser.
 
I think Mick's suggested way would be the most fool proof and easiest to analyze. Boat with colored marker board easily seen by camera and with laser leveled as good as possible. Then just film boat going away. Someone on the boat can hold up a white board telling the km distance along the way and then the camera footage contains most of what you need. You can even forget about refraction because all you are looking for is either a straight line or a curved line in the plot. Anomalies caused be refraction would also show up as irregular changes in the line or curve. Do it early morning, again, midday and again evening repeating the test exactly. The board on the boat would have to be wide so that it wouldn't be too difficult to stay in the line of the laser.
There is still the issue of non-contemporaneous measurements due to a drifting laser, and unknown refraction effects, possibly affected/caused by the boat itself.
 
There is still the issue of non-contemporaneous measurements of a drifting laser, and unknown refraction effects, possibly affected/caused by the boat itself.

But with enough measurements plotted, none of that becomes an issue. The curve or the line will be seen through the noise, especially if 3 individual tests are done at different times of the day. The more data the better. Forget trying to figure out the noise. Just turn up the music :)
 
But with enough measurements plotted, none of that becomes an issue. The curve or the line will be seen through the noise, especially if 3 individual tests are done at different times of the day. The more data the better. Forget trying to figure out the noise. Just turn up the music :)
Unless the errors are systematic.. and nobody is going to spend a lot of time on this.

For instance, it generally gets colder at night, which means the laser drift is going to go the same way, every time.

Do you really think they are going to make the effort to spend the same time coming and going?
 
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Yes some tests may need to be invalidated after analyzing them due to refraction etc but with enough tests, over varying conditions and with enough data points plotted, you will either see a curve out of that data or a flat line.
 
NOPE!

Hawkings setup:

laser at 3 feet? maybe
distance to the boat 3.1 miles (5kms)

there should be NO target hidden height!

curvature measured ON water surface is 6.4 feet!

they just mixed up the different values!
upload_2016-8-22_15-36-52.png
I think you are confusing the green line (which indeed should be 6 ft higher (5.9 to be precise) with the red line
 
My non-laser experiment again:


A = The camera, with a 500mm lens, focused on infinty.
B = A tripod that simply remains in the frame through the entire shot to prove the camera does not move
C = The boat with a 10 foot high board firmly fixed in a vertical position, with different colored rectangles at 1 foot intervals.

Sandor's laser experiment is in some ways the equivalent of this, but with the laser starting at the TOP of a very short target, and then some random observations of being able to see the laser after that.

Of course boats going below level, and over the horizon (which is also below level) have been observed, and even measured, since ancient times. So why the need for this current experiment? It's a fun science experiment, but also Flat Earth believers think science is a hoax, so they have to check things for themselves.

Here's a time and money saving suggestions for @Sandor Szekely, just use one of the the larger ferries as your visual target.
 
Jeranism talks about target hidden height 1 feet

You are taking about drop + laser height : 6 feet + 2 feet 7 inches = 8 feet 7 inches

The guy is saying (not measuring) 6 feet
forgot to add the laser height
No he didn't. Hawking's comment: "Just 3 miles away the laser seems to have RISEN 6 feet". Spot on.
 
Yes some tests may need to be invalidated after analyzing them due to refraction etc but with enough tests, over varying conditions and with enough data points plotted, you will either see a curve out of that data or a flat line.
I don't think they are going to do it a hundred times to get 10X the accuracy... and you have not really addressed systematic errors.

I don't think you can assume refractionn effects average out. One way the lapse rate is stable and the other way is unstable.
 
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I don't think they are going to do it a hundred times to get 10X the accuracy... and you have not really addressed systematic errors.

Well a first step would be to do it once with a sufficiently large number of data points to plot a graph. Then you can pretty much tell from the shape of the graph what the next step would be.

This experiment failed to measure the height of the laser, and instead just gave some very rough indication of the laser getting higher.

The refraction observations are interesting though, so it's not a total loss. I'm not aware of any similar illustration of total internal reflection of a laser over such a large distance. It's nothing new to science obviously, but a very nice visualization.
 
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