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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.
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Flat Earth Truthers and the Solar Eclipse
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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @05:31AM (3 children)
They claim that the sun is a lot closer and smaller and rotates around the north pole, moving in towards the north pole in the summer, and out towards the antarctic ring in the winter. [youtube.com]
Imagine a light bulb in a large dark room. Why is the entire floor not lit? Because the dot product of your look vector, the light and the surface normal at your feet decreases towards zero with distance. This is how your GPU works. If you're standing directly under the light the floor at your feet is brightly lit, but stand far away and the floor is not as brightly lit under you because the angle to the light is not nearly as orthogonal.
Atmospheric haze also limits visibility of the sun as in travels away from you. Perspective makes things seem smaller as they vanish into the distance (becomes smaller than the visible arc resolution of your eye). The sun would also, in their model, decrease in size. According to some FE researchers using Cinema4D, Atmospheric lensing on a flat earth would also make the sun rise and set [youtube.com] and the flat model matches observed sunrise and set more closely than the globe model does when simulating atmospheric lensing.
Additionally, seasons make less sense on a globe earth model: [youtube.com] You would expect the weather in Antarctica to be the same as the arctic circle, but the antarctic is much colder, which is a point in the flat earth's favor.
I'm not a Flat Earther, but they are not idiots, despite what media propaganda would have you believe. There are some groups like the Flat Earth Society which most flat Earthers claim is a disinfo group spreading easily debunked theories that few actually believe.
Most people who laugh at and dismiss the Flat Earth movement ask questions like yours assuming they have no answer on a Flat Earth. The truth is that Flat Earthers have a lot of hard observable evidence on their side of the argument, and if you actually do a search many of such questions have been answered. I'm not convinced the Earth is Flat, but these researchers have raised many valid problems with the current globe model of the earth. Such as: Why can I see this car as it drives across the salt flats beyond the predicted curvature of the earth? [youtube.com] Or why did the MSM news call Chicago a Mirage, when multiple people have clearly seen it without atmospheric inversion from across lake Michigan? [youtube.com] (in defiance of the Globe earth's predicted curvature) Explain such observations however you like, but it's not like they don't exist. Flat earth isn't ONLY espoused by unscientific idiots, there are legit people doing actual science and raising valid questions.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday August 14 2017, @09:08AM (2 children)
Do they have a reply for why water drains clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on which hemisphere you are in?
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Monday August 14 2017, @05:39PM
Ooh this is fun, let me try!
American water is driven through the pipes by pumps spinning in the proper direction. This imparts angular momentum to the water which is retained at the atomic level throughout its lifecycle until it finally evaporates.
People who live in the poor, ignorant, backwards countries naturally spin their pumps backwards, causing the water to drain backwards.
I mean it should be obvious if you just open your mind a crack.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VortexCortex on Monday August 14 2017, @09:22PM
Apparently you've been misinformed about this. The truth is that even modern science agrees that the Coriolis Effect does not make drains spin in different directions.
Have a snopes link:
http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp [snopes.com]
If what you believed about drains was bogus, then how much of everything else you believe and repeat is bullshit? Question Everything.
I'm not a Flat Earther, but at least they question what they hear.