Flat Earth theory simple debunking by the moon's appearance

[Roger Mexico]

The point was that if the moon was a sphere (which we can prove by it always appearing circular), you would see different parts of it from different parts of the flat earth. But you don't. That's pretty empirical.

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Is this why on our spherical earth we do not see an inversion on an E/W axis? I still haven't fully formed this idea in my mind where I can satisfactorily explain it to a flat earther.

 

[Mick West]

Is this why on our spherical earth we do not see an inversion on an E/W axis? I still haven't fully formed this idea in my mind where I can satisfactorily explain it to a flat earther.

"an inversion on an E/W axis? " I'm not really sure what you mean.

 

[Roger Mexico]

"an inversion on an E/W axis? " I'm not really sure what you mean.

When you compare the view of the moon in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, it appears inverted top to bottom. On flat earth this inversion should be right to left and vice versa if you had two people looking at it on an east/west axis, say one person in NYC and one person in Japan. Instead you see different parts of the moon, not an inversion like you do in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

 

[Mick West]

When you compare the view of the moon in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, it appears inverted top to bottom. On flat earth this inversion should be right to left and vice versa if you had two people looking at it on an east/west axis, say one person in NYC and one person in Japan. Instead you see different parts of the moon, not an inversion like you do in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

The moon is never visually inverted. An inverted image would be mirrored (flipped). It's just visually rotated.

 

[Roger Mexico]

The moon is never visually inverted. An inverted image would be mirrored (flipped). It's just visually rotated.

Sorry, I'm not being very clear. If you were on a flat earth wouldn't this visual rotation happen on an E/W axis as it does on a N/S axis? Actually I think I just realized what I wasn't understanding. On a N/S axis the image of the moon visually rotates so that the moon appears "upside down"", and on an E/W axis the image visually rotates left/right or right/left depending on where you are.

 

[Mick West]

Sorry, I'm not being very clear. If you were on a flat earth wouldn't this visual rotation happen on an E/W axis as it does on a N/S axis? Actually I think I just realized what I wasn't understanding. On a N/S axis the image of the moon visually rotates so that the moon appears "upside down"", and on an E/W axis the image visually rotates left/right or right/left depending on where you are.

On a flat earth you'd be seeing either different parts of a sphere, of a squashed disk.

Place a sphere (like a football, or ideally a globe) in the middle of a room. Walk around it and look at it from different directions. It's like that, but the other way up. (on a flat earth).

On the actual (globe) Earth the moon is far away, so looks similar (in terms of what you can see) for everywhere on the global. The only majorly noticeable difference is rotation,

 

[Roger Mexico]

On a flat earth you'd be seeing either different parts of a sphere, of a squashed disk.

Thank you, this helps.

 

[edby]

On a similar subject, I found a Flat earth forum discussion about why the moon's surface looks pretty much the same at different locations (phases and orientation excepted). https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6673.msg121826#msg121826

How is it that peope in both hemispheres see the same face of the moon and in fact everyone including people in a position that the moon is travelling to see the same face as the moon as people that observe the moon as it has past over head.

Answer:

This is because the higher a receding body is, the less it turns to its side to perspective. In the Moon's case it is such a great hight that it barely turns at all (it does turn a little, however; look up the moon's daily liberation [sic]).

He is right in one way. Diurnal libration is a form of parallax effect whereby we see a little more of one side of the moon (and a little less of the other) owing to to rotation of the earth in RET (or the movement of the moon in FET), between moon rise and moon set.


One explanation of why diurnal libration is so small (about 1 degree) is that the moon is about 385,000km away, and when an object is that far away, parallax effects are small. However, FET has to explain how this can be when the moon is only about 5,000km away.


The explanation given in the thread is that perspective works differently at long distances.

All observations of very distant objects show that they do not rotate as significantly as theorized. The fact that the moon does not turn (significantly), that Saturn does not tilt, and that the stars do not build up and change configuration at the horizon line, is evidence that those assumptions for how perspective should work at large scales is incorrect.

As a object increases its height it will turn slower. We do not know how slow, however. Infinitely slow? Does the slowness become imperceptible or perhaps stop turning altogether at some point? Could it be that an object turns so slow that it reaches the vanishing point before rotating to any significant degree? There is a lack of data because the maximums of perspective theory were never studied.

.. we have no idea how perspective works at larger scales. One could easily claim that perspective scales repressively and slows down to an increasingly infinitesimal pace with increased distance, and that theory would be just as accurate as the theories of the Ancient Greeks who have neglected to provide evidence for the maximums of perspective theory.

This is close to what philosophy of science calls ad hockery. Any exception to the theory is explained away by some arbitrary assumption or phenomenon. Remember that's how Ptolemy's system survived for a 1,000 years (epicycles).

However it's hard to see how perspective explains this. Perspective is just angular distance. Assuming light travels in nearly straight lines, why would that rule change over long distances?

 

[Majd Saedy]

Sorry MineBen but you haven't given this much thought.

If you and I are standing face to face (you are looking north and I am looking south) on a level surface in a room and look above at an assymetrical object centered directly between us, what you see as the top pointing south, I will see as the bottom pointing south and vice versa.

Try it. Do some experiments.

Science is based upon the scientific method; if you can't produce a working model of your theory, it has to be discarded.

Ironically, it's you who haven't given this much thought! you forgot that on a flat earth:

1- a flat moon (a disk) will look oval unless it is directly overhead.
2- a spherical moon will show a different side depending on viewer location, not the same side rotated.
3- a spherical moon will show a different phase depending on viewer location.

None of that has ever been observed...the moon alone is a killer to the whole FE model, time to discard it.