SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Mic has an article on the upcoming Solar Eclipse across the USA, focusing on one particular group of observers: Flat Earthers, who believe that the sun and moon rotate around each other above the Earth's surface.
...astronomers (both professional and amateur) aren't the only groups excited for this once-in-a-lifetime event. Another, more controversial community believes the upcoming eclipse could provide overwhelming evidence to support their cause. These people are flat Earthers, and they believe the solar eclipse will prove once and for all the Earth is not a sphere.
The article describes some of the proposed arguments from the newly resurgent, and apparently quite serious, flat earth community.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Flat Earth Truthers and the Solar Eclipse
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 48 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being
that a belch is more satisfying.
-- Ingmar Bergman
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @05:36PM
As I understand it, their spotlight sun rotates about the north pole, or the “center” of the world as they think of it. Imagine an azimuthal equidistant map projection, then take a spotlight and move it continuously over the equator in a giant circle. This gives timezones and local apparent sunrise/sunset. Of course, their spotlight sun doesn't actually set but moves far enough into the distance that it appears to drop below the horizon.
This is also their explanation for why distant ships appear to disappear below the horizon. It's an optical illusion of some kind.
The flat-Earth AC had a powerful telescope and claimed to be able to see distant ships after they had apparently dipped below the horizon to any other observer. Or else she was using that to disprove curvature since she could see those ships despite the fact that they should have been below the horizon.