IN THE NAME OF GOD, MOST GRACIOUS, MOST MERCIFUL
The Good, the Bad and the Ignorant
Today I decided to write about a subject
that when I initially heard, I thought it was nothing more than a joke,
but looking at my worthy friends' straight face, I realized that he was
not trying to be funny. There is news of a small group call themselves
‘Flat Earthers’, modern ones, he said.
Hearing what he said made me think
that we have a real issue on our hands. Are there some people in the
21st century that really think that the Earth is a flat disc and not a
sphere? Indeed, our subject today is about flat earth theory, and I
guess that reality-based people would think, this theory is exactly what
it sounds like.
It would be forgiven to wonder if
it’s an elaborate hoax, an attempt to poke a hornet’s nest, while
conveniently picked up by a financially backed group having a carefully
calculated plan to occupy people’s minds with senseless stuff and
baseless claims, introducing a kind of virtual world to common people to
affect their ability to distinguish the fact from scam, while easing
the way to reach whatever their devious aim would be.
The theory identifies with a time
when people did not have the means to investigate our planet’s actual
shape, basically philosophy and a lot of made up, unbelievable stories
was the basis for their ideas. But setting aside as why more and more of
these unbelievably unreal stuffs are publishing in Internet and some
other medias, it is imperatively important to stand up firmly against
these unmerited ideas and to point out the flaws in their reasoning with
acceptable manner and scientifically detailed facts.
The most important part of our
society are the children and young people who are meant to be building
our country in future, as vulnerable they are to be targeted by some
baseless and brain washing ideas which has been used to deliberately
sabotage societies and humanity for that matter.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing a
kind of pessimistic culture in some western countries and it is growing
out of proportion day by day as time goes by, and the sad thing is the
huge influence it is having on the rest of the world.
In our world today, we see some
people who always have doubts about facts of life and have some
difficulties to accept them as what they really are, as that is taking
them to make up an apparently compelling story which even believe
themselves and even conveying that belief (the different version) to
others, as a way of having some sort of support for their ideas.
I think from psychological point of
view the main reason for the people who follow these sort of ideas is
the lack of awareness of past improvements. Also lack of information is
the key to understand why some people are largely biased to think
negatively about governments and their society and how things are
changing. Another thing usually stems from a human tendency to perceive
unseen forces at work.
In a study published on March 2014
in the American Journal of Political Science, two political scientists
by the names of Eric Olivier and Tom Wood at the University of Chicago,
found that roughly half of Americans believe and endorse at least one
conspiracy theory.
Interestingly up to this day about
90% of UFO sightings in our world have been reported coming from United
States. Aliens tend to be abducting Americans and prefer doing their
experiments on them. Strangely these acts of abduction are claimed by
all kinds of different people who are going on television and coming up
with all kind of stories. Most of them remembering that they’ve even
been conscious and aware of what was going around the time of their
captivities, but they were unable to move or speak or do anything.
Another interesting point is they
have all have a same comment which is read; “government should not
really be covering up the aliens’ existence. The motive for government's
concealment of the truth is probably financially motivated. It’s all
the conspiracy by the government”.
Now then we had a bit of
introductions and analysis of the conspiracy theories, so I would like
to go back to where started in the beginning and introduce you with the
ultimate conspiracy theory, the mother of all conspiracy theories.
The “Round Earth conspiracy”
Inheriting and gathering a lot of knowledge
which has been passed on from our ancestors and living in a time of all
new technological advances, tools we have in our own hands to
investigate the world’s actual shape, believe it or not there are still
some people in our world today who are claiming that the Earth is flat.
Through a flat-earther’s eyes
- It is flat as a disc. The Land we know are surrounded by infinite
Wilderness of ice and snow, beyond the Antarctic ocean, boarded by an
immense circular ice-cliff which is exactly 50 metres tall with the
Arctic Circle in the Centre... There are guards to protect it and stop
people from climbing and falling off the disc.
- Earth is 24900 miles (40072.666 km) in diameter, Mr. James McIntyre a flat Earth theorist says.
- Earth is 9000 kilometres deep (5592.34073miles).
- The continents float on an infinite ocean which somehow has a layer of fire underneath it.
- The Sun and the Moon are spheres measuring 51 kilometres (32 miles),
that move in circles 4.828 kilometres (3000miles) above the plane of
the Earth.
- Stars move in a plane about 5000 kilometres (3100 miles) up.
- There is an invisible antimoon that obscures the Moon during lunar eclipses.
- The Sun and the Moon illuminate different portions of the Earth in 24 hours cycle, so they are large spotlights.
Could somebody be bothered to ask them;
What is the Sun orbiting around once a day and how does it work like a
spotlight, not actually a “point source”. And if the Moon is
self-luminous, what for the truth sake creates its phases?
- Earth’s gravity is an illusion. Things do not accelerate downward. But it is a disc Earth accelerated upward at 9.8 m/s2 . This is driven up by a force called dark energy.
I am forced to interfere and put the leg in
and ask; Does Einstein's theory of relativity allows the Earth to
accelerate upwards indefinitely without eventually exceed the speed of
light?
Well apparently, this is a question that
supporters of flat Earth theory have small dispute among each other and
is not yet decided to as what sort of special answer they can come up
with to at least satisfy themselves.
So, in this version of reality Einstein law is it still talked about, argued about and hanging on.
Back to their version of reality again;
- Airplane pilots must use GPS, so all the GPS devices are rigged to
make them think they are flying in straight lines around sphere, when
they are flying in circles above a disc.
- All photographs of the globe have been tampered with and Photoshopped.
- The science of Astronomy and Astrophysics is all fake and lie which
have been made up, Zetetic cosmology is an alternative to scientific
cosmology and is the way to explain everything.
- Zetetic method is faith-based idea, flat Earth society vice-president Michael Wilmore Moore claims.
- So, with that sort of talk and reasoning it has never been adequately explained to what that really means.
- As it was mentioned before the motive for world governments
concealment of the true shape of the Earth is not quite certain but most
probably is financially related case. There are some people who are in
conspiracy, profiting from funding NASA and all other agencies receive
from the government.
- It is quite simple common sense would tell you that it would cost much less to fake a space program than to have one.
- Darwinian evolution theory is acceptable and is science.
Analysis through the Eyes of Psychologists
Perhaps it is appropriate now to bring a quotation from an expert about this kind of ideas.
Karen Douglas, psychologist at the
University of Kent in the United Kingdom, who studies psychology of
conspiracy theories says all conspiracy theories share a basic thrust,
they present an alternative theory about an important issue or event and
construct a vague explanation for why someone is covering up that true
version of the event.
One of the major points of appeal
is that they explain a big event but offer without going into details. A
lot of power lies in the fact that they are vague. After all flat
earthier are more adamant that the Earth is flat than most people
knowing the reality. Probably because the rest of us feel we have
nothing to prove.
If you are forced by Minority
viewpoint that is put forth in an intelligent seemingly well-informed
way, and when the proponents don’t deviate from these strong opinions
they have, they can be very influential. We call that minority
influence, she says.
Reference & Proof
These so called flat earthers are new kind
and so called modern ones are following Zetetic cosmology which
conveniently has never been explained.
Also claiming they have a “proof”,
and their proof is an “unscientific experiment” which was done in the
19th centuries, and is the basis for their belief, and the proof and
their pride.
If you ever try to speak to them
and give them some reasonable explanations about existence of common
sense in us as human beings to make them aware that they can use it, you
would be referred to “Bedford level experiment”.
Bedford level experiment
In the summer of 1838 Rowbotham carried out
his experiment along 6 miles (9.7km) length of the Old Bedford Canal on
the Bedford Level, Norfolk, England, to prove that the earth is flat:
Holding a telescope 20 cm (8 inch) above
the surface of water, he had a boat with a flag on its mast 91
centimetres (3feet) above the water row slowly away from him. He claimed
the boat remained constantly in his view for the full six miles
(9.7km). Whereas, had the water surface been curved with the accepted
circumference of a spherical Earth, the top of the mast should have been
3.4 m (11 feet) below his line of sight.
Just before I start demolishing the
technique which has been used by that gentleman who did not even have a
clue what he was looking at and subsequently put his actions as
non-scientific and false, I would like to demonstrate to you as to what
sort of people we are dealing with. The same day friend of mine who
pointed out the existence of this group to me, he also gave me a piece
of paper, printed out from their sight. There were a lot of points and
facts, science, figures written on it! And most important of all was a
following tongue in cheek claim:
“Samuel Birley Rowbotham and his close supporters like William Carpenter with
the aid of their scientific skills had many scientific arguments with
the scientists of their time and they’ve had drawn everybody's
attention. In the present of Alfred Russel Wallace, the Bedford Level
Experiment brought forward as one of these scientific arguments”.
Well, let’s check the history
around that time and gather some facts, maybe we’ll find out the story
to back up this amusing claim. Riding the history taking us all to the
morning of March 5,1870, near the end of the old Bedford Canal, 80 miles
north of London. Alfred Russel Wallace is removing the instruments from
rosewood cases to start setting them up for an experiment.
Two judges by the names of John
Henry Walsh editor of the weekly country gentleman's paper, The Field
who was appointed by Wallace (he was temporarily replaced by Dr.
Coulcher a local surgeon), and our man the one and only William Carpenter,
printer and author who has had been written some flat-earth pamphlets
(friend and supporter of Rowbotham). And there were members of the
public as witnesses. And John Hampton who was one of the close and
radical supporters of guess who? Our man Mr. Rowbotham. Today it would
be clear that the Earth is flat as a disk, Mr. Hampton shouts. Days
before he challenged anyone who can prove that the Earth is sphere by
placing a bet for sum of £500. Mr. Wallace, who saw the opportunity to
earn a chunk of easy money, accepted the challenge to prove that the
Earth is a rounded shape. So, as you might have guessed, the
responsibility of conducting the experiment was upon him. He did the
experiment as Mr. Rowbotham had done before but in a right and
scientific way this time. The results showed the proof scientifically
that our planet is sphere. But Mr. William Carpenter
refused to even have a look through the telescope, did not accept the
result. He denied sketches of what Dr. Coulcher made in the surveyor’s
level. After repeating the experiment and returning John Henry Walsh,
the initial second judge who clearly saw the result, the sum of £500 was
awarded to the winner of the betting, Alfred Russel Wallace. Not long
gone, Hampton was getting more and more angry by losing the bet and
wanted to get revenge by making a hell of the life of Wallace. Wallace
received many threatening letters, enough to make his life misery. In
June John Hampden send a following letter to Mrs. Wallace:
“Madam, if your infernal thief of a husband
is brought home some day on hurdle, with every bone in his head smashed
to a pulp, you will know the reason. Do you tell him from me he is a
lying infernal thief, and as sure as his name is Wallace he never dies
in his bed. You must be a miserable wretch to be obliged to live with a
convicted felon. Do not think or let him think I have done with him.”
It must be mentioned that Hampton
had to go to court few times for his actions. First time he got off by
apologizing to Wallace in several newspapers. The second time he was
sentenced to two months in Newgate prison. On the third occasion the
disgusted judge sent him up for a year.
An open statement on Flat Earth Theory
Today it is the time to give a little
notice to this little group and say, to convince public of what you have
to say, you cannot take them for a ride with your pack of lies. You
should never ever try to insult individuals’ intelligence. You should
not underestimate common people as they come right back at you. The way
you go about presenting yourselves is utterly unacceptable. Rest assure
that no country allows having that sort of low standards for its people
and most definitely would not tolerate that kind of behaviour. A large
tower built having even one single lose brick in its foundation, will
crumble soon or later, it is just a matter of time.
The problem with the Rowbotham experiment
Now his little unscientific experiment
explained in a simple language, let’s once and for all in a same simple
language prove that what he did was not even worthy of a something
called experiment nor anything a bit important to mention again to the
real people of our Globe, and those kinds of people who for whatever
reason following something that think is fancy and makes them different
and intellectuals!
That experiment involved placing markers at
a set height at either end of a canal about six miles long. If the
Earth is round, then one marker should appear lower than the other when
viewed at the same time through a telescope because the furthest marker
would have fallen away with the curvature of the Earth. But it was
claimed that the markers are the same height, suggesting the Earth is
flat. Modern day Flat Earth theorists still quote this experiment.
He did not consider the optical
effect of the air over the intervening water, which bends or "refracts"
the light as it travels from the marker to the telescope and makes it
look like they are the same height. One solution is to use multiple
markers along the length of the canal which, when observed, all appear
to be at different heights.
Atmospheric Refraction
There is a phenomenon called atmospheric
refraction: all light rays traveling almost horizontally bend downloads
due to decreasing the density of air in the atmosphere with height above
the Earth surface. If the measurement is close enough to the surface,
light rays would curve downward at a rate equal to the mean curvature of
the Earth surface, so the effect of refraction and curvature would
cancel each other out and as a result the Earth will appear flat in
Optical experiments.
Lapse rate of 0.11 degrees Celsius
per metre, (an increase in air temperature of altitude) would create an
illusion of a flat Earth, like the phenomenon of the superior image
Mirage (by a temperature inversion in the atmosphere with temperature
increasing with altitude above the canal). This phenomenon is called
“Superior” which means is seen above the actual position of the object.
We also have “Inferior” which means
is seen below the actual position of the object. However, if we have a
situation where temperature increasing with height at a greater rate
(lapse rate was higher), optical observations would be consistent with a
sphere-shaped Earth, (concave surface). In many observations these
atmospheric conditions repeat themselves and it is very important to
know that is natural. We can see clearly what conditions produce this
effect in warm days over still water. So, an observer should consider
that. It is about lack of knowledge and most importantly knowing how to,
for Mr. Rowbotham, but for others being deceived by his actions, is
really nothing but a shame.
A kind of proof to put a red cross
over this “tool” which has been used to deliberately sabotage societies
and humanity for that matter: today a camera could be send up in a
high-altitude balloon. The footage will show that from a high-enough
vantage point you can see the curvature of our globe.
How Wallace proved Rowbothams’ act to be a joke
Wallace avoided errors of the proceedings by two rather simple steps:
He set a telescope (sight line), 13 feet 4
inches (4,064 metres) above the water, thereby reduce the effect of
atmospheric refraction and focused it on the distance bridge. Add a pole
in the middle that could be used to see the bump caused by the
curvature of the Earth between the two end points.
In 1901 Henry Yule Oldham geography reader
at King’s College, Cambridge, repeated his experiment and reproduced his
result. Using three poles fixed at equal Heights above water level, one
in point A and one in Middle and one at the point B (far end). When
viewed through theodolite (an instrument for measuring angles) the
middle pole was found to be almost 0.91 m (3 feet), higher than the
poles at each end. This version was taught in schools until the Earth
photographs from space became available. It is the time to bring in
tooth breaking and undisputed scientific facts, to say why our argument
“is not flat”, the shape of our planet Earth is “spherical”, we live on a
globe.
How we know the Earth is a sphere
- COMPARING THE SHADOWS OF TWO STICKS IN DIFFERENT LOCATIONS:
POINT A & POINT B >>>>> (1000 KM APART)
When the Sun is directly overhead in one
place (point A), the stick casts a shadow. At the same time in (point
B), the stick would cast shadow.
If the Earth is flat, then both
sticks should show no shadow or same shadow, because the shadow would be
positioned at the same angle towards the sun, so you would find the
shadows are to be at different angles.
The only reason for that and definitive answer is curvature of the Earth.
- THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NIGHT SKIES IN THE SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN HEMISPHERE:
The view is completely different because
the Earth is pointing in a different direction. If the Earth were flat,
the view should be the same.
This can be made even easier by simply comparing when it is night and day in each country.
By observing the planets we can see they
all rotate and watching over the course of a few days gives a clear
picture they are spherical rather than flat.
So, all the planets are spherical, but the Earth is not?
If your answer is yes, then we must live on another planet.
During a lunar eclipse the Earth is between
the Sun and the Moon blocking the Sunlight and cast a rather round and
soft shadow over the lunar surface. If you try to look at the
photographs which have been taken before from the past lunar eclipses,
you will notice that round soft shadow has a bit of curve to it, and
that curve is there showing the curvature of the Earth. If the Earth
were flat, then shadows wouldn’t be having any curves If the Earth were
flat, there would be some people that occasionally see a straight line
like the edge of a disk projected on the Moon. That hasn’t happened
since humans looked up.
- DISAPPEARANCE OF A SHIP BEFORE ITS MAST:
Standing on a beach watching the boat going
to the sea away from you, first you see the boat is sinking, well
before the mast is sank and disappear in front of your eyes in some
point.
- CONSTELLATIONS VISIBILITY:
Some constellations are easy to view
further close to equator and further away we go from the Equator it
would be more difficult to observe them.
Eventually we get to a point that would be
impossible to see the constellation that once was overhead, it is
because of the angle which only curved surface wood creates.
- PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN FROM SPACE:
Showing the actual shape of the Earth.
Following the International Space Station live as it orbits the globe every 90 minutes with our own handy mobile device.
- GRAVITATIONAL FORCE IN SPHERICAL SHAPES:
Gravity uniformly pulls everyone on the
surface of Earth toward our planet’s centre of mass. That’s why every
one of us will weigh the same in Australia as we will in London.
If the Earth was flat, gravity would no longer pull everyone the same way.
If the flat Earth would be something like a
disk, everything at the edge of the disk would be pulled relatively
sideways, while everything at the centre of the plate would be pulled
straight down.
There are plenty more reasons to write,
but I guess it would be better to leave that to you to dig them out for
yourselves if you wish.
· Closing Statement
I would say there have always been and
would be some people publishing and propaganda these baseless packs of
lies hoping to somehow disturb and occupy people’s mind for two obvious
reasons which can be classified as one, which is somehow involving
people with problems while they themselves gain advantages over them.
And there are some who follow them as their army knowingly or not.
Having said all of that they should
be people who are willing to stand up and come up with a clear answer
to their games. To ensure maintaining our great values in our culture is
the least we can do. To build an environment in which our children
could have a chance and being able to do some sort of their own
scientific experiments on seemingly scientific but dangerously brain
washing matters.
For now, making them aware of what
could be hidden in apparently scientific facts would be to say,
sufficient. Maybe they could come up against anything that unfortunately
some mean people through at them.
I think it is time to ask ourselves: who is good, who is bad and who is ignorant.