MyMatesBrainwashed
Active Member
IF the density of the atmosphere decreases with height (surely not that difficult to prove) and IF light refracts through those different densities (harder to prove, I think) then doesn't that mean that, on a flat earth, light would not refract for anything on your (sorry, a, assuming the earth's flat) horizontal. The density of the atmosphere across a horizontal is the same and therefore would not refract.
The point being you should be able to sight anything on a horizontal at any distance and whatever it is you've sighted should be EXACTLY the same height (above mean sea level) as you were when you sighted it. Every single time.
I can't quite get my head around how things should look with that kind of refraction either. I initially think things would look weird(er than they do) but I doubt that's actually the case.
There's also the interesting part of how do you determine your height above sea level? Like, where I am now, I have no idea how high above sea level I am. I have no way of telling. I've no idea how I'd go about it other than looking it up and trusting that someone else (or elses) knew how to do it and did it well. It's all well and good standing on the beach knowing you're at sea level, but if you sighted a building however far away and then measured from the ground to where you sighted to, how would you know how high the building is above sea level to add on to your measurement without resorting to a source you have to trust?
I also can't get my head around whether, assuming a globe, there might be conditions where this would be possible? Or if you were to do this on a globe you would likely get different results every single time and never get the two heights to be the same?
Lastly... if my assumptions here are correct and a someone believing the earth to be flat were to perform this on a globe, how might they explain the results they didn't like away or try to fudge the test in their favour?
The point being you should be able to sight anything on a horizontal at any distance and whatever it is you've sighted should be EXACTLY the same height (above mean sea level) as you were when you sighted it. Every single time.
I can't quite get my head around how things should look with that kind of refraction either. I initially think things would look weird(er than they do) but I doubt that's actually the case.
There's also the interesting part of how do you determine your height above sea level? Like, where I am now, I have no idea how high above sea level I am. I have no way of telling. I've no idea how I'd go about it other than looking it up and trusting that someone else (or elses) knew how to do it and did it well. It's all well and good standing on the beach knowing you're at sea level, but if you sighted a building however far away and then measured from the ground to where you sighted to, how would you know how high the building is above sea level to add on to your measurement without resorting to a source you have to trust?
I also can't get my head around whether, assuming a globe, there might be conditions where this would be possible? Or if you were to do this on a globe you would likely get different results every single time and never get the two heights to be the same?
Lastly... if my assumptions here are correct and a someone believing the earth to be flat were to perform this on a globe, how might they explain the results they didn't like away or try to fudge the test in their favour?