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

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one thing i'd like to point out as a layman. i thought 'divergence' means the entire cone of light.
But then it was pointed out to me that 'divergence' is really just the whitish bright spot in the middle and the outer green light is 'atmospheric refraction'.
i don't personally want to call it refraction because the area above the water is also 'refraction' so i think it makes the terms confusing.. so i'm going to call it 'spread'.

So i think one bit of conversation with Sandor (in my case) might have been that i was saying divergence to mean the whole cone and maybe he was thinking i was just talking about the bright spot in the middle?

so i'm wondering if your sentence there should be changed to "divergence and spread" ??
If that's right, as another layman (person :) ) I've been under the same misconception - I thought divergence was any "spread" of the beam.

Having said that, in one of my questions to Sandor I asked him to explain the splodges of green light across the white board. Still didn't get an answer.

Ray Von
 
But then it was pointed out to me that 'divergence' is really just the whitish bright spot in the middle and the outer green light is 'atmospheric refraction'.

Refraction spread quickly become the most important factor in the actual experiment.

20160816_064208.jpg

20160913-100934-z6bmm.jpg
There's no evidence of a center dot here (C4, 720m), or in ANY of the later photos.
 
There's no evidence of a center dot here (C4, 720m), or in ANY of the later photos.
and even in c5.. the shot from the shore, i thought it was richocheting off the radio thing, but can what seems like a kinda bright spot in the middle just be that its bouncing off the bar that is holding up the board.. could a dark bar act as a refractor patch? it's so hard to tell with these horrible pics. They really need a boat following the boat to take pics. or like you said get a boat you can put a board in front.
c5.JPG




edit add: ah. its not a black bar
upload_2016-9-13_13-51-36.png
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B2gyF12ygRBjZktQcmgwZE5CUFk
 
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Okay, dumb question (I've stayed mostly on the sidelines for this one, largely because I have difficulty
taking the FE concept very seriously)
but if the "experiment" were to be done again, better,
would it make sense to use a target that was the opposite:
black, non-reflective...something that would minimize bounced light in the "hit" area?
 
Okay, dumb question (I've stayed mostly on the sidelines for this one, largely because I have difficulty
taking the FE concept very seriously)
but if the "experiment" were to be done again, better,
would it make sense to use a target that was the opposite:
black, non-reflective...something that would minimize bounced light in the "hit" area?

No, white is best. You want to maximize reflected light at longer distances. A bright reflection will not change the shape. You could use bracketed exposures if you want to measure the shape and avoid glare.
 
No, white is best. You want to maximize reflected light at longer distances. A bright reflection will not change the shape. You could use bracketed exposures if you want to measure the shape and avoid glare.
Okay...sounds reasonable...
 
I have a question for Mick since he seems to be the leader here. If another test is done (and it will be) and all the complaints about the first test are addressed, will you ignore the evidence if it supports the lake being truly planar? Do you already have an explanation prepared for that outcome or is it simply an impossibility in your mind? Will you claim it's refraction causing the beam to wrap around the curved lake or surface tension as claimed in the other forum? You are even welcome to participate and film and monitor it yourself. I'm sure Sandor would extend the invitation to anyone here.

To me as an observer of this thread and others, it is concerning that there is always "removal" of the person that is a solution to debate. If you claim to be "scientific" then settle for science. Do not remove people because there is errors in data. Just come to a conclusion and stick by it. I for one would like to see a real demonstration of a "curved lake" - with detailed data for how calibration etc took place. I saw no such data in the "Hawking" demo, that to me looked very rigged. Just look at the laser angle.

There is also a "1 against many" issue with this type of topics - where one person has to answer to 100 questions, making any small inconsistency being repeated as "misbehaviour".
This usually ends up in frustration, and even though there may be valid points to some data, the OP gets banned because someone has the power to "end discussion".

I do not agree that banning proves science.
 
I for one would like to see a real demonstration of a "curved lake" - with detailed data for how calibration etc took place.

Sandor linked to a study that did exactly that:

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_228814.pdf
Confirmed by the athor via email:
As first author of the publication "Observation of a local gravity potential isosurface by airborne LIDAR of Lake Balaton, Hungary", published in Solid Earth 5 355-369, 2014, I clarify the following:

with the statement "As far as the resolution of the geoid model allowed, the close correlation of the two data systems confirmed that standing water has a truly level surface" we do NOT state that the water surface would be planar or "flat". This means that it is "level" in terms of following a gravity potential isosurface at a constant orthometric height above the geoid. The geoid is a curved surface, resembling an ellipsoid but with considerable deviations from rotational symmetry ("geoid undulation"). Only over a very small surface can this be approximated as flat. The surface of the lake in our survey was confirmed to be close to hydrological equilibrium, that is, to closely follow the localcurve of the geoid. Fig. 2 a of this paper shows how the water surface height deviates from the WGS 84 ellipsoid, it is by no means planar.
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So you can read that paper that contains extensive detail of the measurements and calibrations.
 
To me as an observer of this thread and others, it is concerning that there is always "removal" of the person that is a solution to debate. If you claim to be "scientific" then settle for science. Do not remove people because there is errors in data. Just come to a conclusion and stick by it. I for one would like to see a real demonstration of a "curved lake" - with detailed data for how calibration etc took place. I saw no such data in the "Hawking" demo, that to me looked very rigged. Just look at the laser angle.

There is also a "1 against many" issue with this type of topics - where one person has to answer to 100 questions, making any small inconsistency being repeated as "misbehaviour".
This usually ends up in frustration, and even though there may be valid points to some data, the OP gets banned because someone has the power to "end discussion".

I do not agree that banning proves science.
I feel that your post is very misleading.

You complain of people being removed as if only because of "errors in data." Folks here are generally
quick to point out errors in data in order to help...I'm not aware of innocent errors in data alone leading to anyone's removal.

The "1 against many" issue is more real. It can be legitimately awkward when only one or two persons are advocating a
position in a room of skeptics. There's no magic solution though...most people here are naturally skeptical...
I'm not sure what can be asked of each, beyond that they be polite and fair.

Also, when you write "I do not agree that banning proves science" you strongly imply that that is actually someone's
--anyone's--position in here. Really? Is there a specific poster that you would assert actually holds such a bizarre position? To be polite, it seems to me to be a brazen straw man characterization. And a pretty unfair one.
Which would seem to go against the fairness that you seem to be asking for (?)
 
making any small inconsistency being repeated as "misbehaviour".

"Small inconsistency"? Sandor was repeatedly asked about certain specific problems with his experiment - at least a dozen times. He intentionally skipped over those questions, again and again. Although that wasn't the reason he was banned, I personally thought that was enough reason.
 
and even in c5.. the shot from the shore, i thought it was richocheting off the radio thing, but can what seems like a kinda bright spot in the middle just be that its bouncing off the bar that is holding up the board.. could a dark bar act as a refractor patch? it's so hard to tell with these horrible pics. They really need a boat following the boat to take pics. or like you said get a boat you can put a board in front.


Now isn't that interesting. That's the EXACT SAME SPOT as in C11

Copy of C11.png

And in their spreadsheet they marked C5 at 1.34m and C11 at 1.48m

Whoops
 
It would indeed be an illogical reason to ban someone. We love having (and debunking) the firsthand input of the actual person making the claim.

How can that be done when that person willfully avoids offering input on pertinent aspects of the experiment? Example: "How did you measure laser beam spread?" No response.... or responses along the lines of "ARE YOU SERIOUS?? LOL" ... repeatedly....
 
How can that be done when that person willfully avoids offering input on pertinent aspects of the experiment? Example: "How did you measure laser beam spread?" No response.... or responses along the lines of "ARE YOU SERIOUS?? LOL" ... repeatedly....
which means "we didn't"
 
Sandor is just flat-out lying on that other forum about what took place here. I guess that was to be expected.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/98386-laser-curvature-test-on-lake-balaton/page-6

WE have no error at the slope correction laser leveling. Mick was wrong and instead of admitting it he banned me from metabunk (for "trolling").
We proved in the autocad video that his 118.5 cms leveling theory will result a 3.19 meters beam height instead of the 3.45 meters (not a significant difference).

Thanks for sharing the meta calculator, but I am banned from meta. (reason: I am trolling... can someone explain me how I can be trolling on my own thread?)
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Sandor is just flat-out lying on that other forum about what took place here. I guess that was to be expected.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/98386-laser-curvature-test-on-lake-balaton/page-6

WE have no error at the slope correction laser leveling. Mick was wrong and instead of admitting it he banned me from metabunk (for "trolling").
We proved in the autocad video that his 118.5 cms leveling theory will result a 3.19 meters beam height instead of the 3.45 meters (not a significant difference).
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Someone else postedthe email exchange Mick had with LIDAR people.
 
@DarkStar Any chance you can call him out on saying the beam isn't diverging and then comparing a hit on the board (c5) and a hit on the retro reflective patch (c16)? (Page 6, just before his response to you)

image.png
 
Over there, they seem to think he used pixel counts in photos from the shore to measure laser height. Afaik, he only used the "direct hit in camera" for measurements above the white board.
 
He's doing a good job of keeping the wool over their eyes. It's interesting to see the difference in approach when you go to a forum that doesn't expect the tactics he's using. I think a good portion still haven't clued into the fact he's not trying to do science in any meaningful way.
 
He's doing a good job of keeping the wool over their eyes. It's interesting to see the difference in approach when you go to a forum that doesn't expect the tactics he's using. I think a good portion still haven't clued into the fact he's not trying to do science in any meaningful way.
I think they are more restrained than we are. Let's see how it plays out.
 
He's doing a good job of keeping the wool over their eyes. It's interesting to see the difference in approach when you go to a forum that doesn't expect the tactics he's using. I think a good portion still haven't clued into the fact he's not trying to do science in any meaningful way.
A couple of them have noticed he isn't answering certain direct questions and is making simple declarations and proclaiming them as "facts".
 
Over there, they seem to think he used pixel counts in photos from the shore to measure laser height. Afaik, he only used the "direct hit in camera" for measurements above the white board.
i think i figured it out! language issues.
ok so he kept talking about "direct hits into the camera" proving his heights, right?

bu in this post he does say
On the photos you can tell the height of the laser by calculating the number of pixels above the board and comparing them with the board size. If you use a high resolution photoshop you can calculate quite precisely.
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now, i thought he was telling us we could check his "camera direct hits measurements" (since he kept using that phrase) by using photoshop. You know i was wondering why his photos all had yellow grids. It might have been in the end of the movie but i stopped watching at commercial #3.

Boxer seemed to pick up on it in post #510, but i wasnt really reading Boxers posts. :(

Plus all the spots in c6, c8,c11 and c12 photos are at the same level on the board.. so how could photoshop be giving different heights?

xx.JPG



which is why when he says Nick bent down to confirm direct hits into the camera... it sounds like thats how they got their measurements right?

In position C37 at a distance over 6kms (3.73 miles) we can see the laser beam direct hit in the camera in the boat.



and look at this picture which is C37 that he is talking about above.

c37.JPG


can any of you see the board or bottom of the boat? i dont see the yellow grid here, so how did they come up with 1.79 for this one?


I dont know, this "experiment" is just a huge and total mess of weirdness.
 
I dont know, this "experiment" is just a huge and total mess of weirdness.

I honestly think the data is fabricated at this point. They went out there for sure, but I think they didn't get the numbers they wanted and just fabricated some instead.
 
I honestly think the data is fabricated at this point. They went out there for sure, but I think they didn't get the numbers they wanted and just fabricated some instead.
maybe. but im leaning towards they just had no idea what they were doing and confirmation bias makes them think they got at least semi accurate numbers. at least until they got completely debunked. but once the video is out "Flat Earth PROOF!" , you cant really admit mistakes at that point.
 
i think i figured it out! language issues.
ok so he kept talking about "direct hits into the camera" proving his heights, right?

bu in this post he does say
On the photos you can tell the height of the laser by calculating the number of pixels above the board and comparing them with the board size. If you use a high resolution photoshop you can calculate quite precisely.
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now, i thought he was telling us we could check his "camera direct hits measurements" (since he kept using that phrase) by using photoshop. You know i was wondering why his photos all had yellow grids. It might have been in the end of the movie but i stopped watching at commercial #3.

Boxer seemed to pick up on it in post #510, but i wasnt really reading Boxers posts. :(

Plus all the spots in c6, c8,c11 and c12 photos are at the same level on the board.. so how could photoshop be giving different heights?

xx.JPG



which is why when he says Nick bent down to confirm direct hits into the camera... it sounds like thats how they got their measurements right?





and look at this picture which is C37 that he is talking about above.

c37.JPG


can any of you see the board or bottom of the boat? i dont see the yellow grid here, so how did they come up with 1.79 for this one?


I dont know, this "experiment" is just a huge and total mess of weirdness.

How can you count "total pixels above the board" if the laser is above/not hitting the board?
 
Boxer seemed to pick up on it in post #510, but i wasnt really reading Boxers posts. :(

I enjoyed reading what Boxer had to say and I dare say Boxer by name and Boxer by nature! I think he could smell blood and was angling for a kill - too bad for him Metabunk isn't a blood forum lol :)
Any chance his ban will be lifted? or did he stray too far over the line?
 
I just re-read what Boxer posted and it was interesting that Sandor didn't once reply to him or take him on with what he was saying about him. Boxer called Sandor and Steve out and I think Boxer was correct in his assumption.
 
I stand semi corrected :) he did make reference to Boxer but he didn't directly respond to his questions or accusations.
Thank you Deirdre for pointing that out.
Sitting back and digesting all that happened above and reflecting on it - no one in here trolled him. I do believe that as English I assume was Sandor's second language that there was "lost in translation" moments - I still don't understand "seeing the laser in the camera" - did he mean being able to photograph the laser beam or being able to see the source of the laser in the camera? or did he mean seeing the laser flush into the lens of the camera?

The patience that is shown in these forums are beyond belief - almost super human and I admire that trait in you all, especially Mike - but I also believe there comes a time to call it for what it is and Boxer did and I agree with him!
 
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@DarkStar Any chance you can call him out on saying the beam isn't diverging and then comparing a hit on the board (c5) and a hit on the retro reflective patch (c16)? (Page 6, just before his response to you)

Check my post #126 I think I addressed the beam spread pretty clearly with this:



I also called him out about C5 and C11 which are hits on the same spot on the boat but they give two different heights - that is pretty busted (which Boxer noted also).

I knew the data was bad but hadn't realized just how completely fraudulent their data was (at least in the sense of it being unjustifiably wrong, not necessarily knowingly and on purpose but with negligent disregard for care in measurement at the very least) How can you measure the height to the same few spots on the boat and not realize you are giving two different values for it?

I'm trying to build a montage of reflection spots showing how they are exactly the same few spots on the boat but they give ever increasing heights for those same spots.

I'm also working on a revised spreadsheet which accounts for beam spread (and maybe refraction if it seems necessary). One challenge I'm facing is that the beam spread is clearly non-linear so a simple 'divergence' measure doesn't work. You can see this very clearly in the above series -- estimate beam size and calculate divergence angle from that and you get different values at every measurement point. So I need to redo that with much more care and capture my measurements so I can model the laser beam spread better. By C2 I estimated about .24mrad but by C5 I was getting 0.7 mrad. I'm using a 100mm starting aperture (~4 inches) if anyone else wants to try.

What I want to show is that the observed beam spread from C2-C11 is sufficient to account for the remainder of the reflective hits on the camera lens/reflector on jacket/chrome support bar.

So basically filling out this Excel and fitting a curve to the divergence data...

WARNING THIS IS WORK IN PROGRESS, NOT FINAL DATA (for example - the measured, beam widths are needed and then fitted to a curve before the final data is meaningful in any way).

upload_2016-9-15_11-48-8.png

The first three rows are useless because they were still moving the laser angle so I've blotted them out as a reminder.

Let me know what you think about this approach (and if someone wants to try to estimate the beam widths that would be awesome, to get a cross-check -- I know that a rough estimate is all we can do).

I'm also working on fine-tuning the beam width calculation.
 

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It depends on the type, power and classification of laser.
hhmm.. now that you reminded me, i dont remember seeing a warning on his video like he promised he would do. the problem is kids (and many adults probably, based on videos of men blowing fingers off with firecrackers etc) dont know the difference between lasers.

:(

anyway...
 
He's doing a good job of keeping the wool over their eyes. It's interesting to see the difference in approach when you go to a forum that doesn't expect the tactics he's using. I think a good portion still haven't clued into the fact he's not trying to do science in any meaningful way.


Were used to those tactics. After years on forums I learned to ignore them and simply try to teach the physics with the off chance they learn.
We already have a reference to this thread. No need for more lol
 
he did make reference to Boxer but he didn't directly respond to his questions or accusations.
as soon as Boxer posted here Sandor informed me that "Boxer" was a troll he had banned from FB. I might have told him to just block him or ignore him, i dont remember really. Sounds like something i would say though.
 
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