'Negative Space' as a Concept Explaining Flat Earth Truth & NASA Misdirection..

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
So forget the idea 0.1 degrees for refraction is some kind of maximum, it's not. "typical" does not mean "maximum" and you are using an atypical example, a record-setting photograph at a distance of 443km.

Not to mention they had to have the cold fresh air blowing in from Greenland to make that happen.

originally posted by: DaRAGE

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
So forget the idea 0.1 degrees for refraction is some kind of maximum, it's not. "typical" does not mean "maximum" and you are using an atypical example, a record-setting photograph at a distance of 443km.

Not to mention they had to have the cold fresh air blowing in from Greenland to make that happen.

The temperature gradient can make a difference and there's even a name for being able to see distant coastlines or objects we can't normally see, called the Novaya Zemlya effect. Whether something like that was a factor in the 443km photo, I don't know, but one could find out by comparing multiple photos taken from the same vantage point over the various seasons of the year, to look for variation in the images.

Apart from the image of the Sun, the effect can also elevate the image of other objects above the horizon, such as coastlines which are normally invisible due to their distance. After studying the Saga of Erik the Red, Waldemar Lehn concluded that the effect may have aided the Vikings in their discovery of Iceland and Greenland, which are not visible from the mainland under normal atmospheric conditions.

So there is a lot of science to consider before drawing conclusions from a single photograph.

originally posted by: cooperton
a reply to: WhatItIs

The people at the news station went and tested it themselves and saw the same image. It's not phenomenal refraction, it's just the way it is.

.

Another verifiable lie.

I posted something repeatedly. It’s from the “news station” you just seem to think is credible…

Here is more of the article for the “new station” you find credible.

On a normal sunny day, say in summer you can only see a dozen or so of Chicago’s tallest buildings from southwest Michigan. Yes, you can see Chicago, just not all of it.

“Anything more than that, especially when you get above 10 or 12, something's happening, because that's not usually there," Nowicki said.

That something is a strong temperature inversion, warmer air above colder air, that causes light to bend.

www.abc57.com...

The views along the lake are always changing, along with the weather.
“I do go out and take a lot of photos of Chicago along the lake. I go to different locations on different nights. I like to compare the photos as to what's changed. Are the buildings wider, taller, shorter are there more of them? Less of them? It's always different, it's so unpredictable, I want to catch as many different views of it as I can," Nowicki said.

To those that doubt affects of refraction. The full Chicago skyline should be visible all the time if it weren't the case, barring clouds, rain or fog. However that’s not the case, it is always changing. I encourage anyone to go look for themselves.

www.abc57.com...

Why is it groups like flat earther’s that claim truth based their arguments on misdirection, myth, and blatant lies?

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

...typically only increases the observed elevation angle by less than 0.1°. That doesn't mean you can never ever find exceptions to the 0.1 degrees, in the same way saying people typically take over 5 minutes to run a mile doesn't mean you can't find exceptions to that.

Show mathematically how you could get refraction that alters the path by over 20%. From the math I checked, it just is not physically possible without apocalyptic type weather. Here's the calculator:

emtoolbox.nist.gov...

You'll see that drastic changes to the variables only change the refractive index by about 0.0002, which is not enough to bend an image over a kilometer of curvature. The topography looks flat because it is flat.

The source also says the more atmosphere the light passes through the more refraction can be experienced, and you pick an atypical case, a record setting photograph at a distance of 443 km so the record setting photo itself is not a typical case.

It's not atypical. There are many pictures that defy the curve:

beyondrange.wordpress.com...

So how much more refraction can occor when the light passes through more atmosphere? The same tchester.org site mentions that refraction from the sun can be up to 0.5 degrees because sunlight passes through more atmosphere, and in fact the sun can be seen when its true position is below the horizon for that reason:

Yes I was very interested in this phenomenon. There is something that proves it is not merely refraction though. If it were refraction, the angle of the sun's image around the horizon would cast an image that is larger than the un-refracted image of the sun at noon. Surely enough, the sun is the same exact angular diameter at sunset and at noon on a given day. This proves it is not refraction, and instead is an example of gravitational lensing which I mentioned before.

originally posted by: WhatItIs

'The people at the news station went and tested it themselves and saw the same image. It's not phenomenal refraction, it's just the way it is.'

Another verifiable lie.

I posted something repeatedly. It’s from the “news station” you just seem to think is credible…

Bro you need to take a breather.

www.abc57.com...

"UPDATE: We went back to the dunes in April of 2016 with photographer Joshua Nowicki and saw similar phenomena. "

It's not a mirage, it's just the way it is.

originally posted by: cooperton

[

www.abc57.com...

"UPDATE: We went back to the dunes in April of 2016 with photographer Joshua Nowicki and saw similar phenomena. "

It's not a mirage, it's just the way it is.

The whole article…. In full context..

A picture of the Chicago skyline taken almost 60 miles away, is actually a mirage. Joshua Nowicki (@StartVisiting) snapped the pic Tuesday night from Grand Mere State Park in Stevensville. Under normal conditions, even when extremely clear, this should not be visible, due to the curvature of the earth. The Chicago skyline is physically below the horizon form that vantage point, but the image of the skyline can be seen above it.

This is a form of Superior Mirage, superior in this meaning the mirage or image of the skyline is seen above where it's actually located. The clear skies, and cool weather (aided even more by the cool lake water) creates an inversion. A layer of air near the surface that's cooler than air higher in the atmosphere. This creates a bending or ducting effect where the light (image) instead of going in a normal straight line into space, curves back towards the surface of the earth.

This same phenomena can also be seen on the radar in the form of "ground clutter" the inversion is taking the radar beam (light) and bending back towards the surface of the earth, creating a "ring" effect.

UPDATE: We went back to the dunes in April of 2016 with photographer Joshua Nowicki and saw similar phenomena. We explain the science of atmospheric refraction ( mirage and looming) Watch our Emmy nominated piece Skyline Skepticism here.

www.abc57.com...

Which in no way contradicts..

Skyline Skepticism: The Lake Michigan Mirage

www.abc57.com...

“I do go out and take a lot of photos of Chicago along the lake. I go to different locations on different nights. I like to compare the photos as to what's changed. Are the buildings wider, taller, shorter are there more of them? Less of them? It's always different, it's so unpredictable, I want to catch as many different views of it as I can," Nowicki said.

To those that doubt affects of refraction. The full Chicago skyline should be visible all the time if it weren't the case, barring clouds, rain or fog. However that’s not the case, it is always changing. I encourage anyone to go look for themselves.

The only thing you have proven is you can’t be trusted.

a reply to: cooperton

Only a flat earther can take clear examples of a changing Chicago skyline and Superior Mirages, and boldly claim flat earth out of ignorance.

originally posted by: cooperton
Show mathematically how you could get refraction that alters the path by over 20%.

The source site I posted tchester.org has all kinds of math. He mentions less than 15% of the earth's curvature at the following link, but he is thinking 200 km or less, not 443 km. So you only have to get from his 15% to 20% which is not hard given all the variables over a 443km distance and the fact that 443km is a much longer distance than he is talking about:

tchester.org...

Note that this calculation assumes quite a bit. The real atmosphere can vary markedly horizontally, can have temperature inversions, can change its humidity, and have additional components like dust that change the index of refraction. The observer and observed peak are not always at the same elevation assumed in the derivation of this formula. Hence there are no guarantees that this formula will always give accurate results.

If you wanted to do a perfect calculation, you'd need precise values for the density, temperature, and humidity across the entire line of sight for the entire 443 km distance, something you are never going to have with current technology, but clearly the change from 15% to 20% is not that extreme given all the variables and the 443km distance being over twice as great as the 200km or less he had in mind when he wrote the "less than 15%".

It's not atypical. There are many pictures that defy the curve:

Showing other examples with shorter distances doesn't make the 443 km record breaking distance typical, the fact that it's record-breaking makes it atypical by definition. Even in the other examples, we can see the atmospheric conditions are not static and refraction can vary with conditions so a fixed formula is not going to give the correct amount of refraction all the time.

Further, the folks on metabunk compared the observations on that photo to a globe earth and a flat earth model and they match the globe model, not the flat earth model which cannot explain the observation as seen here:

www.metabunk.org...

I have composed a few images that prove curvature on the original image beyond doubt. (I even used Mick's Google Earth trick in the first of them). The first two show how you are looking "through" the earth to the sea level at the points under the distant peaks, while the third one proves that the earth calculator is correct.

That shows it can't match the flat earth model, only the globe model.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
The source site I posted tchester.org has all kinds of math. He mentions less than 15% of the earth's curvature at the following link, but he is thinking 200 km or less, not 443 km. So you only have to get from his 15% to 20% which is not hard given all the variables over a 443km distance and the fact that 443km is a much longer distance than he is talking about

It still wouldn't be visible at 20%. You'd need significantly more refraction than 20% to exhibit what is observed

That shows it can't match the flat earth model, only the globe model.

This is a good analysis but it made me realize one important thing. The mountains are mis-labeled by the photographer, and I can prove it.

To determine angular height of an object you need the distance to the object and also its height, which we have. When plugging in the values for the 3 left-most mountains you'll realize they can't be labeled correctly. From Left to right plugging their height and distance into the equation we get 0.37, 0.38, and 0.40 degrees in height. This means grand Ferrard should only be 5% taller than l'Aupet from this perspective, and l'Aupet should be 2.5% taller than Lapras.

As you see in the image, this is not the case. Ferrand looks much taller than 5% taller because it is not Ferrand at all. It is actually Gaspard, which should be about 0.53 degrees in height, making Ferrard 25% smaller than Gaspard. This shift matches the photo more accurately.

You can see the errored labeling clearly by Lapras being assigned 5 units compared to Ferrand's 10 units in metabunk's analysis.. despite Ferrand being nowhere near twice as tell as Lapras. Gaspard on the other hand is much closer to being twice as tall as the two left-most mountains.

Therefore the mountain labels should be shifted to the left by one, and the picture becomes accurate.

I can make a diagram next time I'm at my laptop, using just words may be insufficient to make my point

a reply to: cooperton

So…

This is what Chicago buildings look like for flat earth….

"I find it hard to understand that after more than 50 years man has never sent a manned mission to the moon. There may have been secret manned missions, but that would only make it even more puzzling."

i think jim lovell pretty much summed up that decision in his book Lost Moon which anecdotally described an interaction he had with VIP visitors to the saturn rocket assembly site who questioned the need for any more moon missions since we already beat the russians in getting a man on it.

the main reason for cancelling future apollo missions was money. going to the moon was massively expensive and, in the end, the total cost of $20 billion to get there far eclipsed the $7 billion that the JFK administration originally estimated. keep in mind that that was in 1960's dollars.

after the apollo 11 landing in 1969, the goal and deadline president kennedy committed to in 1962 of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade had been met and NASA faced large cuts in funding. technological and research based missions were not considedered to be as important as the lunar landing itself. and while the federal government didn't mind putting a lot of money into winning the space race, it did not view technological development to be a priority. apollo 11 landing on the moon and having the first footsteps on its surface made by an american, the political statement of besting the soviets had been achieved and any necessity for more missions disappeared.

while NASA did return to space with such projects as spacelab, the space shuttle, and the international space station, getting back to the moon isn't nearly as easy as achieving low-earth orbit. the rocket required to take man all the way to the moon, the saturn v rocket, dwarfed all other previous successfully-flown rockets at that time. at 363 feet tall and weighing 6.5 million pounds fully fueled, research and development of the saturn v rocket between 1964 and 1973 cost more than $6.4 billion and the cost of lauching a single saturn v apollo mission from 1969 to 1971 cost between $185 to $189 million which included a production cost of $110 million. this at the same time the US was fighting in vietnam.

the saturn mlv family of modified lauch vehicles were intended for use in a proposed mission to mars by 1980. another saturn v derivative studied by boeing in 1968 included a nuclear thermal rocket engine. however, work on the nuclear engines along with all saturn v launch vehicles ended in 1973. the comet hllv, a massive heavy lift launch vehicle intended for use in the First Lunar Outpost program, was in the design phase from 1992-1993 under the Space Exploration Initiative, the main goal of which was to support the lunar outpost program and future crewed Mars missions. in 2006, NASA unveiled the constellation program with plans to construct two shuttle derived launch vehicles, the ares 1 and ares v (which was later redesigned in 2008), that would have placed the altair lunar landing vehicle into low earth orbit (via the ares v) where an orion crew vehicle (via the ares 1) would have docked with the altair before sending the combined stack to the moon. the constellation program was subsequently cancelled and replaced by the SLS, space launch system, in 2011. the SLS is intended to be the primary launch vehicle of Artemis moon landing program and designed to launch the Orion spacecraft on a trans-lunar trajectory.

and after the original flight date of late 2016 was delayed by more than a six years, the first SLS launch occurred on 16 november 2022 of the unmanned Artemis 1. this project cost over $27 billion to develop, will cost over $2billion for each individual launch, and will cost approximately $2.6 annually to maintain.

now considerthe fact that all that money spent going to the moon would be in addition to the added costs of... the vietnam war ($950 billion), the gulf war ($107 billion), the iraq war ($1.9 trillion), the afghanistan war ($2.3 trillion), the war on drugs ($1.5 trillion), and the war on the southern border ($338.1 billion); the multi-billion dollar devastion of hurricanes andrew ($27.3), ivan ($26.1), michael ($25.6), matthew ($16.5), irene ($14.2), harvey ($125), katrina ($145.5), charley ($17), frances ($10), jeanne ($8), sandy ($70), ian ($113.1), irma ($77.2), maria ($91.6), dorian ($5.1), ida ($75.3) and ike ($38); the $17 billion wall street securities bailout by the federal reserve after the black monday stock market crash of 1987; the wall street bank bailouts of 2008 ($16.8 trillion) and all the associated costs of the covid 19 pandemic ($12.5 trillion)... it really isn't that puzzling as to why we haven't been back to the moon.

although it is rather puzzling that US politicians and industrialists failed to entertain the possibility of a financial windfall that resource extraction could produce on the unchartered and unexplored lunar landscape.

also, i'm actually posting under my mother's ATS profile. a reply to: justdust

"Yes I was very interested in this phenomenon. There is something that proves it is not merely refraction though. If it were refraction, the angle of the sun's image around the horizon would cast an image that is larger than the un-refracted image of the sun at noon. Surely enough, the sun is the same exact angular diameter at sunset and at noon on a given day. This proves it is not refraction, and instead is an example of gravitational lensing which I mentioned before."

justdust's daughter chiming in again... i personally witnessed on multiple occasions throughout the year the sun rising over the atlantic ocean in miami beach, the sun setting over the pacific ocean in venice beach and the moon rising in atlanta GA and NEVER did i observe the exact angular diameter of the sun being the same exact angular diameter at sunset and at noon on any given day. in fact, as the sun set on the horizon, it appeared to be more than double the angular diameter it had appeared to be at noon. however watching the sun rise on the horizon wasn't as dramatically larger when compared to its angular diameter at noon. and depending on the time of year, the moon can either appear much larger or considerably larger on the horizon before incrementally decreasing in diameter as it rises overhead into the night sky. if i witnessed this with my own two eyes would this not prove refraction did indeed occur? now i'm not expecting you to believe me but i don't see why i shouldn't believe me. while you may think i have every reason to lie to you, it seems a bit of a stretch for me to seriously consider that i'm lying to myself. and if the possibility exists for me to lie to myself, it exists for you as well. instead of insisting that others perception is incorret, perhaps you should question yours. and since i actually know people who have circumnavigated the planet and participated in an ISS mission, not only would i have consider myself to be unreliable but also that my very own mother has consistently and persistenly lied to me for decades, santa clause notwithstanding. as she has significant memory impairment due to a stroke, i find it highly unlikely that she'd be able to keep up with so many lies about her time as a naval aviator. just saying...

originally posted by: cooperton
It still wouldn't be visible at 20%. You'd need significantly more refraction than 20% to exhibit what is observed

You're missing the elephant in the room! You're quibbling about 20% versus what? 21 or 22%? But the elephant you ignore is the missing 80% or 79% of the mountains that should be there if the earth was flat! So your complete lack of logic quibbles about 1-2% and ignore the 80% discrepancy which proves the curvature of the earth!

I can make a diagram next time I'm at my laptop, using just words may be insufficient to make my point

The following video explains further with words, images and mathematical calculations why the 443km image you say shows the earth is flat actually proves it's curved!

Flat Earth 'evidence' That SHOWS CURVATURE

The Guinness World Record holding photograph by Mark Bret is often cited by Flat Earthers of proof that the Earth can't be curved, but if you actually break the image down, it proves the existence of curvature

There are rumors floating on the net that the Flat Earth Theory is an experiment to see how fast something spreads and how many will believe it. This may also be a test of gullibility of the technically challenged. As it has been said, it is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

The so called "proofs" are rife with errors. I was a CIC officer and navigator in a past life. When transiting the Atlantic, my surface search radar picked up a 7500 foot peak on one of the Azores at about 120 miles but didn't see a closer, lower lying island until further in the journey. This says that the earth is curved. The response from the moderator was a flurry of bogus Flathead videos, none of which addressed the observation. Flooding the questioner with a large volume of contrived videos and asking questions about them is a standard practice so as to avoid attention to detail.

Phil Godlewski is also pushing flat earth and young earth creationism and I am not sure if he is part of the experiment(s) or easily conned. On the surface, he doesn't have a grasp of physics and has made statements that are easily disproved, i.e., gravity is the result of electromagnetic coils under flat earth.

People will either be disappointed or live their lives in denial when the fraud is exposed.

a reply to: Spacespider
By 1800 the Earth was already known to be a globe for about 2000 years