Circumference
I am pleased to have discovered this forum and expect to learn much from its members. At the risk of making a fool of myself on my maiden voyage, I want to ask a question that has been vexing me. Recently I encountered a genuine flat-Earther on a Facebook forum. I attempted to apply a jolt to his short-circuited brain on the hopelessly optimistic assumption that it might restore his sanity. Needless to say, I failed miserably and predictably. I proposed that he imagine himself starting out in New York City, fly roughly east to London, continue east to Tokyo, from there east to Honolulu, and finally east back to New York. How is this possible on a disk? He went berserk and vanished.
For the sheer hell of it, I looked up distances between those stops and got the following results: NYC to London, 3471 miles; London to Tokyo, 5956 miles; Tokyo to Honolulu, 3856 miles; Honolulu to NYC, 4957 miles.
Summing those distances, we obtain a total of 18,240 miles. If the circumference of the Earth is roughly 24,900 miles, it appears as though more than 6,500 miles is unaccounted for. Undoubtedly I am making a mistake that is both simple and stupid. Can someone enlighten me?
Last edited by pomeroo; 01-27-2016 at 09:01 AM.
You need to plot your trip on a globe to see that. New York and London are at latitudes of 40 and 50 degrees North, Tokyo is 35 and Hawaii is 21 degrees North. So your journey travelled around the globe at approximately the 40 degree North line of latitude, not the equator. The official circumference of the Earth is measured at the equator, which is longer than the 40 degree line of latitude.
People actually believe that in 2016??Originally Posted by pomeroo
*gobsmacked*
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"
I understand that the trip in my proposed thought experiment does not circumnavigate the globe at the equator. There is, however, a difference of roughly 6,700 miles between the sum of the distances and the circumference of the Earth.
Ah, I get it! Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction. The circumference for a given latitude is the circumference at the equator multiplied by the cosine of the latitude.
And do those numbers work out now to give you approx what you measured? And if you want to check your understanding, what latitude is the average latitude of your circumglobal journey?
Had to look that up - They have 200 members, so it not that surprising that there are 200 "free-thinkers" as they call themselves in the world , heck more people are supporting Donald Trump than that.People actually believe that in 2016??
*gobsmacked*, sorry probably shouldn't get political.
So, images from space mean nothing to these folks? The fact that we can fly satellites around the planet and all that doesn't tell them anything?
I guess it's fun to think about the world being flat and you being able to sail off the edge but wow.
A perfect example that somewhere someplace a village is missing one of their members (if you know what I mean).
“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden
* Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt
Your "objective truth" may differ radically from someone else's "Truth" (or, in extreme cases, "TRUTH!!!!!!"). If someone is important enough that there is a vast conspiracy dedicated to attacking a single individual, you shouldn't expect to be able to diminish that person's importance with mere words or pictures or logic.
As an example, my father knew for a fact that nuclear-powered aircraft were flying out through the hole in the ozone layer and going to other stars. He knew this because he saw an aircraft with a nuclear reactor back in the '50s when he was stationed at Walker AFB (yes, Roswell). He also knew about holes in the ozone layer from "scientists." Because he was smart and understood how things worked, that meant that these things were all coming together and it was just as he said, but the shadow-government conspiracy was hiding it from everyone. No amount of logic or physics would change his mind because he didn't want to change his mind.
That must've made family dinners interesting....
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
