Like a flat, worn-out coin
The planet rested on three whales.
And they burned smart scientists in the fires -
Those who insisted: “It’s not about the whales.”
N.Olev
By going outside and looking around, anyone can be convinced: the Earth is flat. There are, of course, hills and depressions, mountains and ravines. But overall it is clearly visible: flat, sloping at the edges. The ancients figured this out a long time ago. They saw the caravan disappearing over the horizon. Climbing the mountain, observers noticed that the horizon was expanding. This led to the inevitable conclusion: the surface of the Earth is a hemisphere. In Thales, the Earth floats like a piece of wood in an endless ocean.
When did these ideas change? In the 19th century, a false thesis was established, which is still being replicated, that people considered the Earth to be flat before the great geographical discoveries.
Thus, the 2007 manual for teachers “Lessons on the world around us” says: “For a long time, ancient people considered the Earth to be flat, lying on three whales or three elephants and covered by the dome of the sky... Scientists who put forward a hypothesis about the spherical shape of the Earth were laughed at, they persecuted the church. The navigator Christopher Columbus was the first to believe in this hypothesis... The teacher can tell the children that the first person who saw with his own eyes that the Earth is not flat was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.”
In fact, already in the 3rd century BC. the ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276-194 BC) not only firmly knew that the Earth is a sphere, but also managed to measure the radius of the Earth, obtaining a value of 6311 km - with an error of no more than 1 percent!
Around 250 BC, Greek scientist Eratosthenes for the first time measured the globe quite accurately. Eratosthenes lived in Egypt in the city of Alexandria. He guessed to compare the height of the Sun (or its angular distance from a point above his head, zenith, which is called - zenith distance) at the same point in time in two cities - Alexandria (in northern Egypt) and Siena (now Aswan, in southern Egypt). Eratosthenes knew that on the day of the summer solstice (June 22) the Sun was at noon illuminates the bottom of deep wells. Therefore, at this time the Sun is at its zenith. But in Alexandria at this moment the Sun is not at its zenith, but is 7.2° away from it.
Eratosthenes obtained this result by changing the zenith distance of the Sun using his simple goniometric instrument - the scaphis. This is simply a vertical pole - a gnomon, fixed at the bottom of a bowl (hemisphere). The scaphis is installed so that the gnomon takes a strictly vertical position (directed to the zenith). The pole illuminated by the sun casts a shadow on the inner surface of the scaphis, divided into degrees.
So at noon on June 22 in Siena the gnomon does not cast a shadow (the Sun is at its zenith, its zenith distance is 0°), and in Alexandria the shadow from the gnomon, as can be seen on the scaphis scale, marked a division of 7.2°. In the time of Eratosthenes, the distance from Alexandria to Syene was considered to be 5,000 Greek stadia (approximately 800 km). Knowing all this, Eratosthenes compared an arc of 7.2° with the entire circle of 360° degrees, and a distance of 5000 stadia with the entire circumference of the globe (let's denote it by the letter X) in kilometers. Then from the proportion it turned out that X = 250,000 stadia, or approximately 40,000 km (imagine, this is true!).
If you know that the circumference of a circle is 2πR, where R is the radius of the circle (and π ~ 3.14), knowing the circumference of the globe, it is easy to find its radius (R):
It is remarkable that Eratosthenes was able to measure the Earth very accurately (after all, today it is believed that the average radius of the Earth 6371 km!).
And a hundred years before him, Aristotle (384-322 BC) gave three classical proofs of the sphericity of the Earth.
Firstly, during lunar eclipses, the edge of the shadow cast by the Earth on the Moon is always an arc of a circle, and the only body capable of producing such a shadow at any position and direction of the light source is a ball.
Secondly, ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the long distance, but almost instantly “sink,” disappearing beyond the horizon.
And thirdly, some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, but are never visible to other observers.
But Aristotle was not the discoverer of the sphericity of the Earth, but only provided irrefutable evidence of a fact that was known to Pythagoras of Samos (c. 560-480 BC). Pythagoras himself may have relied on the evidence not of a scientist, but of a simple sailor Skilacus of Cariande, who in 515 BC. made a description of his voyages in the Mediterranean.
What about the church?
There was a decision to condemn the heliocentric system, approved in 1616 by Pope Paul V. But the persecution of supporters of the sphericity of the Earth in Christian churches did not have. The fact that “before” the church imagined the Earth standing on whales or elephants was invented in the 19th century.
If someone seriously says to a normal person accustomed to living in the modern news paradigm that space does not exist, planet Earth is flat, and the sun is actually much smaller than we used to think, most likely this citizen will twirl his finger at his temple. Especially if the speaker supplements his conclusions with the opinion that NASA is financed by a secret Masonic organization, and no one has ever landed on the Moon.
The statements seem absolutely crazy, and it is all the more surprising that all these theories have many supporters around the world. These people are convinced of the correctness of the theory flat earth: for them this is an immutable truth, and not the anti-scientific fabrications of ignoramuses.
Adherents of the theory conduct experiments, publish research papers, providing evidence that humanity does not live on a rotating ball flying through space at enormous speed (30 km/s). According to these people, the earth is a flat disk covered with a transparent dome.
Despite the seeming madness of this theory, it continues to excite minds. Flat Earth theorists can immediately ask the following questions: why doesn’t water from the oceans overflow from the “disk” where the Sun hides at night, where tens of thousands of photographs of the spherical planet come from? We have dedicated this article to the answers to these and other questions.
History of the Flat Earth Theory
School education provides a clear guideline: - this is a fairy tale invented by our ancestors, who did not have the opportunity to carry out serious scientific work. The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Chinese agreed that the Earth was flat. The Sumerians and Scandinavians “agreed” with them in absentia. In mythological cosmogenesis, the ancient Vedas and the Bible, our planet is clearly called flat. The same can be said about Buddhist and Hindu practices.
If we talk about an earlier time in relation to us, then there were plenty of flat Earth theorists in the Middle Ages. A categorical breakdown occurred during the Renaissance, and in our time everyone knows that our planet is round. The scientific research of our ancient ancestors was ostracized and thrown to the margins of history.
But this does not mean that everyone agrees with the ideological dictates of modern science. There were people who did not believe the textbooks and began to study ancient treatises in all seriousness.
In the 19th century. in England, the British scientist and inventor S. Rowbotham organized the Flat Earth Society. Rowbotham conducted hundreds of scientific studies that proved, in his opinion, that the Earth is flat.
Hiding under the fictitious name "Parallax", Rowbotham published the brochure "Zetetic Astronomy", which contained descriptions of his experiments and presented evidence of the impossibility of the existence of a spherical earth. Samuel argued that the planet was flat and the ocean was completely flat.
The brochure went through many reprints during Rowbotham's lifetime, and each time it became thicker: Parallax added more and more chapters to it. The number of supporters of the flat Earth theory also grew rapidly.
Samuel Rowbotham was not without marketing talent; he always took money for lectures. The researcher was so confident in his theory that he could attack with his fists those who expressed doubts about his conclusions.
Very soon, adherents of the flat Earth theory appeared all over the world. There were especially many of them in Europe and the United States. Among the followers of this trend there are also very unexpected personalities, for example, Adolf Hitler.
Surprisingly, the number of followers of the flat earth theory is growing every year. In some countries, this idea even caused some semblance of a social split. Adherents of the Earth-disk theory categorically reject the arguments of modern scientists and provide their own evidence, which seems to them the only correct one.
To understand how serious the dispute with flat Earth supporters is, just open the Yandex search engine. At the very first request, an abyss of articles, photographs, videos, forums and heated debates dedicated to Rowbotham’s theory will open in front of you.
Before we begin to familiarize ourselves with the most popular evidence of flat Earth adherents, we will study their key postulates.
Parallaxists imagine the Earth as a disk with the North Pole at the center. The diameter of the planet coincides with official scientific data - 40 thousand km. The disk is covered with a dome, behind which the Sun and Moon are visible. Thanks to these heavenly bodies, there is day and night on the planet. Gravity is something fundamentally different from the phenomenon that modern science studies.
According to Rowbotham and his followers, the South Pole does not exist in principle. There is no Antarctica either. The entire circumference of the earth's disk is surrounded by a wall of ice.
Photographs from space have been declared a clever photoshop and a fake. In general, astronautics is a complete deception and scam. Rockets, devices for transporting and lifting ships are skillfully executed props. Space travel and videos from the ISS are filmed on Earth by professional filmmakers.
The spherical nature of the planet was declared by Rowbotham's supporters to be a lie spread by conspiratorial Freemasons. Scientists, NASA specialists and astronauts know the truth, but they receive money from the Masons and therefore remain silent.
Flat Earth
What is the Solar System?
The idea of flat Earth adherents about the structure of the solar system is also interesting. At school they teach that several planets revolve around the sun; the Earth occupies the third orbit from the Sun, located between Venus and Mars. Is it possible for such a system to exist? Rowbotham's followers answer unequivocally: no.
In their opinion, a model with a stationary Sun is impossible, if only because there is constant movement in the Universe. If the generally accepted version of the solar system were correct, the star would fly through space at incredible speed, carrying the planets with it. In this case, oval orbits of the planets would be impossible, only spiral ones.
Another interesting argument concerns the forces of repulsion and attraction, thanks to which balance is achieved in the solar system: the planets do not fly away from the star and do not collide in space. Proponents of the flat Earth theory point out that all planets have different masses. If the solar system were as described in textbooks, large planets would be located closer to the sun, and small ones would be further from the sun. After all, an object with a smaller mass simply does not have enough repulsive force to “escape” from the sun. According to the calculations of Rowbotham's adherents, in the paradigm accepted by official science, the Earth would be in the sixth orbit. This is determined by its mass. Such a distance from the Sun would make life on the planet impossible: eternal cold would reign here.
Evidence base
Of course, the most interesting thing about the flat Earth theory is the evidence collected by Parallax supporters. With a planet diameter of 40 thousand km, the planet rotates in 24 hours. These data allow you to calculate the rotation speed: more than 400 m/s. That is, according to official science, the Earth rotates at a speed of 0.5 km/sec.
Rowbotham's adherents ask the question: how can planes land exactly on the runway under such conditions? The earth is round and constantly rotating! According to the calculations of supporters of the theory, the runway will shift due to the rotation of the planet, and the plane will not be able to land.
Another proof: if we agree that the Earth is spherical, a cannonball ejected from the mouth of a cannon in the direction from West to East will be in the air 2 times less than it actually is. If you shoot from a cannon from East to West, the cannonball will travel twice as far due to the rotation of the Earth in the opposite direction.
However, neither the first nor the second phenomenon is observed, which, according to Rowbotham's adherents, exposes the generally accepted opinion that the Earth is a spherical rotating body.
Proponents of the theory also point out: if you shoot upward, the flight of the cannonball will continue for a certain time, during which the location of the gun will shift relative to the projectile by 5-6 kilometers, but this is not observed.
These simple conclusions evoke a sense of triumph among Rowbotham's supporters. Traditional science answers: do not forget about the atmospheric column, which rotates with the planet and “drags” everything that gets into it. Adherents of the earth-disk put forward a counterargument that is striking in its boldness: in their opinion, atmospheric pressure simply does not exist.
Official film about the real shape of the Earth from Terra Convexa
At the end of the film, experts from official science summarize the experiments carried out and give an authoritative conclusion regarding the tests performed.
Terra Convexa provides answers to many questions.
Criticism of the theory of atmospheric pressure
The inventor of the mercury barometer, E. Torricelli, suggested that the entire atmosphere of the Earth uniformly and constantly presses on the planet. The Italian proved his idea through experiments with water and mercury. Torricelli refuted Aristotle's postulate that there is no absolute emptiness (vacuum) in the Universe. An Italian scientist created a vacuum in which there was completely no atmospheric pressure.
Torricelli’s experiment worked perfectly with mercury and alcohol, but the trick did not work with water: the Italian was never able to create a water barometer. Modern science proved that barometers on water are possible, but their size will be much larger than mercury or alcohol ones. You can read more about Torricelli’s experiments in his own works. For example, there you can find out where the scientist got a bucket of mercury, a radioactive liquid metal.
Flat Earth adherents could not help but pay attention to Torricelli’s experiments and try to expose them. In their opinion, a false vacuum was formed in the Italian’s test tubes. In fact, the space was filled with mercury vapor. On this basis, Rowbotham's supporters concluded that atmospheric pressure is a myth, like gravity. The vast space above the planet remains motionless. Adherents of the Earth-disk point to freely flying birds, to clouds that “travel” across the sky at the will of the wind. The pilot of a helicopter hovering above the earth, according to the logic of a spherical rotating planet, must see a gradually changing landscape beneath him. But this is not observed.
Why does a stone thrown strongly into the air land in almost the same place, and not many meters from the person who made the throw? Parallax adherents give an unequivocal answer - this happens because the earth is a flat, stationary surface.
Horizon and curvature of the earth
Rowbotham began making the first experiments about the curvature of the earth; his modern followers are conducting hundreds of similar studies. If our planet is a sphere, then, taking into account the curvature of the surface, the horizon line should be a solid line, behind which nothing is visible. However, in practice, mountains, giant sculptures or Egyptian pyramids are perfectly visible on the horizon.
The Needles Lighthouse in the British county of Hampshire (height - 54 meters) can be seen from a distance of 60 km, with the curvature of the earth being 282 m. If the Earth is a sphere, the lighthouse should be 282 m below the horizon. The situation is similar with ocean-going ships. Gradually moving away from the shore, the ships disappear behind the horizon. This would seem to confirm that the planet's surface is curved. However, supporters of the flat Earth theory armed themselves with high-quality optical instruments - and saw ships that supposedly “disappear” beyond the horizon...
With the naked eye, a person cannot see a ship that has moved away to such a considerable distance; in addition, vision is limited by a scattering perspective. With good optics, the horizon line disappears, and the stronger the optics, the greater the distance you can see.
Thus, according to flat Earthers, there is no horizon line. The pictures from the International Space Station are fake because the sky is a dome. When flying in an airplane, a person sees the rounding of the earth - but this is only an illusion. Even the UN coat of arms seems to Rowbotham's adherents to be a model of a disk-earth.
Round and at the same time flat Earth: video
Watch a video online about the round flat Earth
Moon landing: NASA hoax
Members of the Flat Earth Society pay special attention to the story of the American landing on the Moon. Of course, they are confident and furiously prove that man has never set foot on the only satellite of our planet. Rowbotham's supporters point to a photograph of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which is widely believed to have once carried earthlings to the moon.
With a strong magnification of the photograph, it is clear that the lunar shuttle is made of materials sold in a hardware store: plastic and cardboard shields, foil and polyethylene. Of course, it is impossible to fly anywhere on a device built from such materials.
Proponents of the flat Earth theory carefully studied photographs of astronauts, discovering rings with Masonic signs on their hands. For Parallax adherents, the Freemasons are the world's main conspirators who have penetrated everything international structures and governments of all countries of the world.
Where do photographs of Mars come from?
The situation is similar with photographs of Mars. For followers of the theory, photographs of the Red Planet are a skillful fake, Photoshopped. Photographers hired by the conspirators take pictures of deserts and mountainous terrain on Earth, then, after processing the pictures, pass them off as photos from Mars.
Photos of the lifeless Martian desert covered with stones have spread all over the world. If we reverse filter these images in Photoshop, we will get an ordinary earthly landscape with a blue sky. There are many such places on Earth.
Weird air travel
Many aircraft routes seem extremely illogical. For example, the Sydney-Santiago flight would seem to be much more convenient to travel through New Zealand. It will be a straight and simple route with one refueling.
In reality, a plane from Australia to Latin America flies through Mexico and the USA. If we consider the Earth to be spherical, this looks extremely strange: the plane makes a large detour, consuming fuel and increasing the distance. If the same route is drawn on a flat Earth map, it becomes clear that the airline has chosen the most reliable and direct route.
Rowbotham's followers suggest checking in this way any air route that seems illogical and strange. When transferred to flat earth, the trajectory begins to look quite adequate.
Video: How do planes fly over a rotating earth?
Why do all planes fly on maps of a flat Earth and not a spherical one?
Picture of the universe
To better understand the logic of flat earth theorists, you need to know what they think about the universe - the Moon, the Sun, the stars. In general, they adhere to the same statements that Rowbotham used two centuries ago. The only thing is that they constantly have to “fight off” new scientific discoveries.
For example, lunar photographs were claimed to have been taken on Earth. Followers of the theory regularly conduct research expeditions, the main goal of which is to search for areas where “false” images from space were taken.
In the summer of 2015, the Society published photographs from the Icelandic expedition, which depicted landscapes that were exactly like the photographs presented by the Americans as lunar. Earlier, journalists suggested that the astronauts of the first Apollo expedition put their hands on the Bible and say: “I swear that I was on the moon.” All astronauts refused. A video of the flat-Earther experiment can be found on the World Wide Web. One astronaut began to rudely swear at the journalist, another tried to laugh it off, and the third simply sent the TV reporter.
The Flat Earth Society analyzed all the data from alternative researchers, superimposed it on its own theory and came to a stunning conclusion: it turned out that the Moon is not a satellite of our planet at all. The moon doesn't exist at all.
But what then do we see in the sky? According to Parallax adherents, this is a constantly updated hologram. They control the hologram from Earth.
But what do Rowbotham's followers think about the stars? People began to study astrology many centuries ago; this science is one of the first in the world. People discovered the same Ursa Major several thousand years ago.
How can it be, flat Earth adherents ask, that during this time the constellations have not undergone any changes? After all, all celestial bodies, including stars and galaxies, move in the Universe at colossal speed. The Earth rotates around its own axis, flies around the Sun in its own orbit, but people in different countries of the world always see the same “set” of stars above them? Why is that? Why do the stars stand still above the Earth, rotating and rushing through space, like soldiers on guard? Members of the Society consider this situation absurd.
In this regard, supporters of the “flat theory” declared the stars to be holograms. They don't exist either.
Sun
If the Moon and stars are holograms, then what about the Sun? Does the universal luminary really not exist? But what then warms the planet and brings life to all its inhabitants?
Flat Earthers claim that there are actually seventeen Suns. They all hover over different regions of the planet, shining and heating with different intensities. The Society's brochures list the characteristics of different suns: Californian, Russian, Chinese, etc.
Any scientist will call these statements sheer nonsense. However, the explanations of Rowbotham's adherents are by no means devoid of a certain logic. The color of the Sun we observe varies from pale yellow to bright red and burgundy, depending on natural conditions or time of day. According to prevailing scientific ideas, a person sees the sky as blue or dark blue because the sun's rays, breaking through the planet's atmosphere, are divided into corresponding spectra.
But why, then, do we see a yellow sun? If we observe a star through the prism of the atmosphere, then it should be blue. Followers of the flat earth theory give a clear answer: the fact is that the Sun is located not above the atmosphere, but below it.
As a result, the Society paints the following picture of the universe: the Earth-disk is covered with a dome, under which there are artificially made holograms - the Moon, stars and the Sun. Those who wish to learn more about the ideas of Parallax adherents can find a lot of videos and articles on the Internet.
The closer to the light source, the warmer it is
The nature of misconceptions is based on people’s inability to give answers to the simplest questions. At the same time, we like to provide a lot of pseudoscientific evidence for the craziest theories.
For example, try to answer the following question: it is obvious to everyone that the closer an object is to a source of light and heat, the hotter it is. Try touching a light bulb or getting close to a fire – does it get hotter? Certainly!
But why then, when rising up in a hot air balloon, do we find ourselves in a zone of severe cold? And the higher we rise, the lower the temperature becomes.
When answering this question, most people will talk about layers of the atmosphere that have different temperature characteristics. All this evidence is taken from books and has not been tested in practice.
Let's focus on the obvious - the closer a person is to a heat source, the warmer he is. This should also be true for the Sun. The closer to the luminary, the higher the temperature. However, in practice this is not observed. Followers of the flat Earth theory conclude that the Sun is not a source of heat, since in space in this case it would be much hotter than on our planet.
Counter-arguments of official science
Straight horizon
People only think that they see a straight line of the horizon. Already from an airplane or from the roof of a skyscraper you can notice the curvature of the earth's surface.
Fake photos from space. NASA conspiracy
In the flat Earth paradigm, NASA is almost a criminal organization. One gets the feeling that the American space agency is led by Professor Moriarty, and all of his employees are masons-conspirators, hiding the truth from people because of the desire for personal enrichment.
However, there is not only NASA in the world. Russia has its own space agency, Roscosmos, which broadcasts from the ISS and launches manned spacecraft into space. Russian cosmonauts, like their American colleagues, confirm that the Earth is a ball. Is it really true that the Freemasons “rule” Roscosmos?
There is no gravity
Another popular claim of the Flat Earth Society is that there is no gravity and the planet is constantly moving upward. If this statement is true and the Earth does not attract anything, then how can birds and airplanes fly?
The sun is located 5 thousand kilometers from the surface of the Earth, its diameter is 51 km
Why, in this case, do seasons change on the planet, day gives way to night, and there are climatic zones? If the Sun were positioned in the manner described by Parallax adherents, the entire surface of the Earth would have the same temperature.
How do planes land on a round and rotating Earth?
Airplanes “rotate” in the atmospheric column along with the Earth.
Atmospheric pressure is a myth
Anyone who makes such a statement should visit the mountains and experience the effects of atmospheric pressure first-hand.
Books on Flat Earth Theory
The idea of the Earth as a disk is very stable and has been very popular for two centuries. Various authors and researchers paid attention to this theory and presented evidence of the correctness of the Parallax teachings in their books.
One of the most popular books of this kind is “Ancient Cosmology” by W. Warren. This large work tells about the cosmogonic ideas of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, ancient Chinese, and Buddhists. Readers will learn how our ancestors imagined the Universe. The book contains more interesting illustrations.
“The Earth is not a ball: 100 proofs” by M. Carpenter. The book contains the most convincing, from the author’s point of view, evidence of the correctness of the flat Earth theory.
“The Earth is not a Globe” by S. Rowbotham. A book by the founder of the Earth-Disc Supporters Society. Rowbotham did a lot of work to confirm the theses he put forward.
At the end of September, the domestic program “The Most Shocking Hypotheses” aired on REN-TV, which excited the public.
For a whole 45 minutes, in all seriousness, specialists, experts and even a whole former NASA employee prove to the viewer that planet Earth actually flat.
If you don't believe me, here's the show, enjoy:
Ask any schoolchild what shape our planet is. Average answer: spherical. And why all?
- Yes, they teach us that at school.
Stop fooling us! With the light hand of REN-TV, more and more people are beginning to believe in a flat Earth.
Earth figure
Any child will say that the Earth is round. Almost. Officially, our planet has the shape of a geoid, that is, a ball slightly flattened at the poles.
Adherents of revolutionary theory deny this. Among them it is believed that we live on a flat disk with curved edges, which is covered with a dome on top. The North Pole is located in the center of the disk, and the South Pole does not exist as such. This is a kind of ice wall that protects us.
Doesn't remind you of anything?
In Game of Thrones, for example, the world is also flat. And the border is a huge wall, beyond which wildlings live, and white walkers rule the roost. Who knows, maybe this is not fiction, but real story.
Why don't we know anything
There is an opinion that NASA is constantly misleading us ordinary people.
In the program “The Most Shocking Hypotheses,” ex-NASA employee Matthew Boylan himself claims that the Earth is flat and its real appearance can be seen on the UN flag.
For several years he painted a blue round planet and passed it off as reality. So, in his opinion, the department exists only to promote the theory of the sphericity of the planet.
The only way to check is to get a job in the department.
Curvature
Scientists came up with the curvature parameter. In reality, neither architects, nor militaries, nor planners ignore the fact that the planet is spherical. When calculating, it is assumed that the Earth is stationary and flat. And everything works out: the shells fall where they should, the buildings are not destroyed. If we live on a geoid, then why doesn’t this fact count?
In practice I can give an example: The city of Chicago is visible across the bay from a distance of 140 km, which contradicts science.
If the Earth were a ball, the city would sink about 1.5 km down relative to the observer.
Check it out for yourself
In May 2017, American Darryl Marble was able to simply and easily prove the flat-earther hypothesis while flying on an airplane.
If the Earth is spherical, then the ship should fly along a curved trajectory; thus, at certain intervals, the pilot needs to lower the nose of the aircraft so that it does not fly into space or into the upper atmosphere.
Darryl took a building level with him on the flight. However, throughout the 23 minutes or 326 km of travel, the plane never lowered its nose. Means, it flies exactly in a horizontal straight line, and the Earth is flat.
Try it too. Launch the construction level on your phone during your next flight.
What about space flights?
Everything is set up! The filming was edited, fortunately technology allows it. In fact, humanity has never left the near-Earth dome.
Pictures are taken using a Fisheye lens. So any straight object in the photo will become spherical. The videos are generally all edited using chromakey technology. Attentive observers notice air bubbles, studio lighting, and reflections in spacesuits.
Is everything we know a myth?
You will say that ships sooner or later disappear on the horizon. Yes, but this does not happen because the surface is curved. We simply cease to clearly distinguish objects due to the density of the atmosphere.
They say gravity doesn't exist either. Our disk simply flies upward with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s 2 and thus keeps us on the surface. True, it is not yet entirely clear why birds remain in the air, for example.
Admit it, you didn’t hold a “candle” in space. There is no 100% evidence that the Earth is spherical. This year we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite. Did this really happen? Was the satellite really launched into space? Or is everything rigged and we are being deceived?
It’s up to you to believe long-proven truths or become supporters of a shocking hypothesis. As they say, “trust but verify”! Whose side are you on?
https://www.iphones.ru/iNotes/747643?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com
“Vasechkin, prove to us that the Earth is round.” - “But I didn’t say that.”
Today we find it easy to laugh at dialogue from a popular children's film. And once upon a time, the shape of planet Earth was the subject of fierce discussions between scientists and was even a bargaining chip in human destinies. For every piece of evidence from supporters of the “round” theory, there were many refutations. Today this issue has been removed from the agenda. Photographs taken from space confirm: the Earth resembles a ball, an orange, a tennis ball, although not perfectly smooth in contour. If Vasechkin had been a diligent student, he would have easily proven this...
How ideas about the shape of the Earth have changed
In the days before our era, science, if it could be considered such, was based on myths, legends and simple observations. The huge starry sky above our heads gave rise to many different fantasies about the structure of the Universe, the astronomical objects inhabiting it, their appearance and forms of interaction.
Later, religion made its contribution to ideas about what our planet looks like, what it rests on and why it rotates. The Creator has his own laws of the universe, so the arguments given by scientists were often questioned or refuted, and the authors of the hypotheses themselves were persecuted.
Versions about whales, elephants and a giant turtle holding a large flat disk called planet Earth seem naive today. However, for a long time they were considered the only true ones.
The Greeks had a rather original theory about the shape of the Earth. The flat cosmic body is supposedly located under the cap of the celestial hemisphere and is connected to the stars by invisible threads. And the moon and the sun are not objects of the Universe, but divine creations.
Modern hypotheses regarding the flat configuration of the planet were also very peculiar. In order to defend this version, even the so-called Flat Earth Society appeared. Assumptions about a round shape were completely rejected, and the theory itself was presented in the eyes of its opponents as a conspiracy and a set of pseudoscientific fabrications.
Proponents of the flat earth form argued that:
- The Earth is a flattened disk with a diameter of 40 thousand kilometers centered near the North Pole.
- The sun, moon and stars do not move around the planet, but seem to hang above its surface.
- The South Pole does not exist. Antarctica is an ice wall located along the contour of the planetary disk.
- The sun, with a diameter of 51 kilometers, is located above the Earth at a distance of about 5 thousand kilometers and illuminates it like a powerful spotlight.
But the main arguments for the inconsistency of the “round” theory were the statements that man did not fly into space, did not land on the Moon, all space photographs of the Earth are falsifications, scientific institutions are in collusion with the governments of pseudo-space powers, and all inhabitants of the planet are part of a big secret experiment.
It is clear that such statements cannot be taken seriously, because such “evidence” has nothing to do with science.
The most famous theories that the Earth is round
Let's go back to the history of early times. Doubts regarding the fact that the Earth has a flat surface did not leave scientists. If this is so, they reasoned, the celestial bodies should be in the same visibility zone, and the time of day should be the same in all corners of the planet.
However, the sun at different zones and latitudes continued to rise and set at different periods, and the stars that shone brightly at one point were invisible at another. All this proved that the Earth has any surface shape except flat.
In the 5th-6th century BC, Pythagoras recounted in detail in his work the impressions of one sailor from traveling in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a real diary of observations, which the scientist carefully analyzed. It was on the basis of these stories that the scientist suggested that the earth might resemble a large ball.
In the 4th century BC, Aristotle spoke in favor of a spherical shape. He cited three, now classic, proofs:
- When an eclipse occurs on the Moon, which is located next to the Earth, the shadow cast from our planet has an arc-shaped outline. This can only happen if the object the light hits is a ball.
- Ships leaving for the sea do not “dissolve” gradually as they move away, but seem to fall into the water, approaching the horizon.
- The stars that people love to look at can be admired in one part of the Earth, but remain invisible in another.
The fact that our planet is a ball was among the first to be proven by the ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes. He made his conclusions using a specially designed pole, which cast a shadow in sunlight.
By observing the position of the sun simultaneously in different populated areas, the scientist was able to measure the height of the sun at its zenith and compare the indicators with each other.
It turned out that the points of the sun's position relative to the earth's surface are at an angle to each other. This proved that the planet has a round shape. Eratosthenes even managed to measure half the diameter of the globe. Surprisingly, modern calculations practically coincided with the indicators of the ancient scientist. The size of the Earth in radius today is almost 6400 kilometers.
There are versions of researchers that the shape of the planet is not perfectly round, but uneven, sometimes flattened on the sides. It even more closely resembles an ellipse, although this is not noticeable from photographs from space.
It is worth remembering that Newton also argued that the circumference of the earth’s sphere is not a figure that a modern schoolchild can draw with a compass. Modern space discoveries and measurements have shown that the diameter of the Earth is indeed not the same everywhere.
In the 19th century, the German mathematician and astronomer Friedrich Bessel was able to calculate the radii in places where the planet is compressed. Researchers used these data until the 20th century.
Already in our time, the Soviet scientist Theodosius Krasovsky presented more accurate measurements to the academic community. According to these data, the difference between the equatorial and polar radii is 21 kilometers.
And finally, according to the latest scientific hypotheses, the planet has the shape of a so-called geoid. It is different everywhere and depends on the height of the hills located on it, the depth of the depressions, as well as the intensity of water movements in the world's oceans.
However, the fact that our planet has the shape of a three-dimensional circle has long been beyond doubt. And the presence of many existing versions on this issue proves: the Earth is a unique space object, the mysteries of which scientists are still trying to unravel.
Top 10 evidence that the Earth is round
So, if schoolboy Petya Vasechkin learned his lesson and presented the ten most common (and now generally accepted by humanity) evidence of the sphericity of our planet, this is what he would list.
- During a lunar eclipse, when the Earth's satellite enters the shadow cast by our planet, it is clear that the reflection has the shape of a circle, a circular segment or an arc from it, depending on the degree of darkness. This is why when the Moon darkens, it turns into a crescent rather than half a triangle or a square.
- Ships moving away from the shore do not dissolve, going beyond the horizon, but seem to fall beyond it. This means that the planet is changing its curve. So the worm, moving along the surface of the apple, changes the trajectory of its movement. The fact that ships do not fall from top to bottom, as one might assume, is explained by the fact that the earth is constantly turning, aligning the guides for further linear movement. And of course, a spherical figure is characterized by a shift in gravity towards the center.
- In different hemispheres of the globe you can see different constellations. If you imagine a flat table with a lampshade hanging above it, it is equally visible from every point of the table. If you place a ball under the lampshade, the lamp at the bottom will not be visible. Constellations that are clearly visible in the northern hemisphere of the Earth should not be looked for in the sky of the southern hemisphere and vice versa.
- The length of shadows that fall on a flat surface has the same indicators. Two shadows from a round object have different lengths and form an angle.
- The view of a flat surface is the same from any height. If you rise above something spherical, then you have the opportunity to observe more distantly. The prospect in this case increases.
- Photographs taken from an airplane at various altitudes show that the Earth has curves. If the earth were flat, it would look level from any height. If you take a trip around the world, you can do it without stopping because the Earth has no “edges.”
- Photographs from aircraft, which can fly higher than airplanes, clearly demonstrate that the horizon does not have a straight contour, but a curved contour.
- There are several time zones on our big planet. When dawn comes in one, the sun sets below the horizon in the other. This is how a spherical body rotates around its axis. If the sun illuminated a flat surface, people would not know nights.
- Everything on the Earth's surface is attracted toward the planet's core. It is for spherical objects that the center of mass shifts to the middle.
- Since 1946, we have been able to take photographs of the Earth from space. All of them are the best visual evidence that we live on a ball.
From the first school classes we learn the immutable truth that the Earth is a ball rotating at a maximum speed of 1670 kilometers per hour around the Sun. Then the more advanced ones will learn that our planet is not a sphere, but a geoid, that is, a certain heavenly body irregular shape, close to an ellipse, which, in general, does not change the essence of the issue.
However, our ancestors believed that the Earth was a flat disk in the middle of the ocean. This version is reflected in the sacred texts of the world's main religions and in the works of ancient and medieval scientists. But the most amazing thing is that even today there is a whole army of supporters of the flat Earth theory, and its ranks are growing every day. Flat-earthers provide a whole heap of “irrefutable” evidence in favor of their hypothesis. But maybe they are right, and the Earth is really flat?!
From Rowbotham to Irving
The flat earth hypothesis began to function on a scientific basis in the 19th century. The English scientist and inventor Samuel Rowbotham spent his entire life conducting various experiments and experiments, the purpose of which was to prove that our planet is a flat disk. He presented their results under the pseudonym Parallax in a small book, Zetetic Astronomy. Rowbotham's followers founded the Universal Zetetic Society in England.
Then the Americans John Alexander Dowie, who founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in 1895, and his successor Wilbur Glenn Voliva, became passionate preachers of the flat Earth theory. After the death of the latter, the activities of the Universal Zetetic Society died out, but Rowbotham's ideas were revived in 1956 by Samuel Shenton, who created the International Flat Earth Society. It remains active today, distributing brochures, newsletters and other literature promoting the flat Earth model.
It is difficult to say how many people are officially members of this society; various sources give figures ranging from several hundred to tens of thousands. However, numerous supporters of the flat Earth theory live on all continents. Among them, for example, are such celebrities as American basketball player, NBA legend, and now TV presenter Shaquille O’Neal and Cleveland team player Kyrie Irving. Skeptics may argue that these are athletes, that is, people who are unlikely to be burdened with a solid baggage of scientific knowledge.
However, among flat-earthers there are many owners academic degrees, which was proven by a sensational television program under the heading “The Most Shocking Hypotheses”, shown on September 25 of this year on the Russian channel “REN TV”. It was attended by candidate of technical sciences Pavel Sviridov, British scientist Dave Murphy, former NASA employee Matthew Boylan, archaeologist Vadim Shegalov, science popularizer Andrei Bukharin and other scientists. In addition to existing ones, they also provided new evidence in favor of the flat Earth theory.
South Pole - no
Take a look at the official UN emblem. It shows a map of the Earth centered on the North Pole, around which the continents are located. Flat earthers are sure that this is exactly what our planet actually looks like. This is a flat disk with a diameter of just over 40 thousand kilometers. In its center is the North Pole, but there is no South Pole: instead there is the edge of the earth, which is encircled by an ice wall.
"How so? - you will be surprised. - After all, everyone knows that the South Pole exists; it was discovered by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen in 1911. In addition, there are detailed maps of Antarctica, depicting in detail the outlines of the icy continent surrounded by the waters of the World Ocean.” But it's not that simple! Researchers point out that there is still not a single image of Antarctica from space in the public domain. All famous photographs are graphics. And science does not hide this fact. It can be assumed that some photographs are available in military organizations, but they are inaccessible to ordinary people and even scientists.
According to one hypothesis, photography of Antarctica is impossible due to the strong ionizing effect in the area above the South Pole, which is weakly protected by the Earth's magnetic field. But this is refuted by official information, according to which photographs of Antarctica were taken from space by orbiting satellites launched back in the late 1960s. But we don’t see these photos.
According to the international treaty, it is strictly forbidden to study Antarctica without official permission from government authorities. All scientific research is carefully controlled at the state level.
It turns out that Antarctica is a border zone where not everyone can get. Why? Proponents of the flat Earth hypothesis argue that there is only one explanation for this: Antarctica is not at all what we think it is. And perhaps that is where the key to what our planet really is lies.
Flat horizon
Among the world-famous scientists who had no doubt that the Earth was flat was a professor - a Swiss physicist and the first person to visit the stratosphere. Immediately after his flight on the stratospheric balloon in 1931, he stated that from a height of 17 thousand meters the Earth seemed to be a flat disk with edges curved upward.
British scientist Dave Murphy gave an interview to Macedonian television in the spring of 2016, in which he spent an hour arguing that the Earth is in fact flat. If an airplane pilot were flying in a curved line, he argued, he would have to lower the nose of the aircraft every five minutes, but this does not happen. Moreover, if the plane begins to follow a curved line, the gyroscope will maintain a level position, and then the artificial horizon will begin to roll back, but this does not happen either. This, he believes, is absolute proof that the plane is flying over a level surface.
According to Murphy, it is enough to do simple calculations to understand that the curvature of the Earth is a parameter invented by scientists, and in reality it is not taken into account either in the design of bridges or even in artillery. On the contrary, all calculations are created taking into account the fact that the surface of the planet is absolutely flat. Some Russian scientists agree with this. Among them is Pavel Sviridov, Candidate of Technical Sciences:
— The practice and calculations of ballistics, including even the launching of missiles, proceed from the fact that there is no rotation of the Earth, and the Earth is a plane. Then everything works out, the rockets land where they need to, the shells fall at the right point...
Both Dave Murphy and Russian scientists agree on another point: the curved horizon of the Earth, as we are used to seeing it in photographs from orbit, is in fact an illusion that is achieved with special filming equipment equipped with a fish-eye lens. To prove their hypothesis, the researchers cite a video from the Soyuz, made in 1969. It has a completely flat horizon. This is what the Earth actually looks like from orbit without a fisheye lens, which distorts the image at the edges. Scientists also pay attention to the recording of Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the stratosphere, made in 2012. The footage shows that the horizon is a straight line.
Under the hood
Proponents of the flat Earth hypothesis are citing more and more indirect evidence of their correctness, and among them is that the planet may be protected by a hard transparent shell - a dome that cannot be penetrated.
All over the Earth, eyewitnesses are recording a frightening phenomenon: a glow in the sky and light waves of an unclear nature. For example, a mysterious blue loop hung for a long time in the night sky over Los Angeles, resembling a hole through which light leaked. A similar anomaly was recently recorded in San Francisco. A glow resembling a hole was observed several months ago in Italy. Some anomalies can be explained by an optical phenomenon, a halo, while others do not obey physical laws, experts say. Like, for example, giant circles of clouds in an incredible color palette. Some experts suggest that they arose due to ice crystals that took on a bizarre shape. However, Pavel Sviridov puts forward an unexpected hypothesis. According to it, these anomalies are caused by a malfunction of the dome, which protects the Earth from external influences.
By the way, Hillary Clinton spoke several times about a certain dome that humanity needs to break through in order to change the world for the better. Andrei Bukharin, who heard three of her speeches, is convinced that the dome that Clinton mentions is not a figurative expression at all, but a definite hint for those who understand what she is talking about. But official science does not take the hypothesis of some kind of dome protecting the Earth seriously.
What then to do with the rockets that humanity has been launching into space for more than 50 years? Proponents of the flat Earth theory claim that all space flights actually take place in near-Earth space, and we obtain information about them through combined imagery. They are sure: 99% of photos and videos taken from space are fake, skillfully created graphics. But why was such falsification necessary? The theory of a spherical Earth is simply beneficial to the space industry. Over the past 100 years, huge amounts of money have been spent from government budgets on the development of the space program. It is quite possible that NASA, Roscosmos and other organizations simply need to imitate vigorous activity.