I don’t have time to refute each of arguments, because there’re too many. But consider number 5 in your list. He describes a laser experiment that he claims cannot be accounted for on the current picture of the Earth. But if you think it through, it is perfectly well accounted for.
Here’s the version of the experiment performed by the two Polish guys on a lake. They place two stakes 2km apart. The stakes have lasers attached to them at 30 cm height from the surface of the water. They measure the height above the surface of the point at which the laser beams meet and find it to be 39-40cm above the surface of the water.
Wild Heretic claims, on the basis of this diagram, that on the convex Earth theory (i.e., the widely accepted theory) one should expect the height from the water at the point where the lasers meet to be smaller that the height at which the lasers are mounted. But Wild Heretic’s diagram misrepresents the state of affairs. Here is a better representation I drew and associated calculations that I did, which show that the convex Earth theory correctly predicts that the laser beams would meet approximately 38cm above the surface, which is very close to the observed 39-40cm.
EDIT: As dogiv points out below, I mis-interpreted the experiment. So the argument above is not a refutation of the experiment as described.
Sure. His arguments look pretty easy to refute using some basic physics and some Google searches. Let me know if you find any other argument of his that you find particularly compelling and I’ll take a crack at it.
Hmm, his argument that stars can never be seen anywhere at high altitudes (excepting the ‘fraudulent’ NASA photographs) doesn’t yet have an unambiguous counterexample I could find. He doesn’t deny that the stars must be higher than the atmosphere but think they only become visible near the ground.
But the articles on the solar equinox and the solstice are probably the best on the whole site. Or they just seem that way to me, because I don’t know enough math to refute them.
Stars become invisible at high altitudes because the Earth becomes very bright compared to the stars. This happens because when you are higher up, you see more of the sunlight reflected by the Earth. This happens because at higher altitudes more of the Earth is visible to you. Thus, your eyes or your cameras cannot distinguish the relatively dim light of the stars. The sky still appears black because there is no atmosphere to make the light scatter and give you feeling of being light outside that you experience on the surface of the Earth. You can see the stars if you are on the night side, you have good cameras, and you set the focal point to the sky.
This doesn’t actually seem to match the description. They only talk about having used one laser, with two stakes, whereas your diagram requires using two lasers. Your setup would be quite difficult to achieve, since you would somehow have to get both lasers perfectly horizontal; I’m not sure a standard laser level would give you this kind of precision. In the version they describe, they level the laser by checking the height of the beam on a second stake. This seems relatively easy.
My guess is they just never did the experiment, or they lied about the result. But it would be kind of interesting to repeat it sometime.
I don’t have time to refute each of arguments, because there’re too many. But consider number 5 in your list. He describes a laser experiment that he claims cannot be accounted for on the current picture of the Earth. But if you think it through, it is perfectly well accounted for.
Here’s the version of the experiment performed by the two Polish guys on a lake. They place two stakes 2km apart. The stakes have lasers attached to them at 30 cm height from the surface of the water. They measure the height above the surface of the point at which the laser beams meet and find it to be 39-40cm above the surface of the water.
Wild Heretic claims, on the basis of this diagram, that on the convex Earth theory (i.e., the widely accepted theory) one should expect the height from the water at the point where the lasers meet to be smaller that the height at which the lasers are mounted. But Wild Heretic’s diagram misrepresents the state of affairs. Here is a better representation I drew and associated calculations that I did, which show that the convex Earth theory correctly predicts that the laser beams would meet approximately 38cm above the surface, which is very close to the observed 39-40cm.
EDIT: As dogiv points out below, I mis-interpreted the experiment. So the argument above is not a refutation of the experiment as described.
Thank you! That’s the kind of thing I’m looking for.
Sure. His arguments look pretty easy to refute using some basic physics and some Google searches. Let me know if you find any other argument of his that you find particularly compelling and I’ll take a crack at it.
Hmm, his argument that stars can never be seen anywhere at high altitudes (excepting the ‘fraudulent’ NASA photographs) doesn’t yet have an unambiguous counterexample I could find. He doesn’t deny that the stars must be higher than the atmosphere but think they only become visible near the ground.
But the articles on the solar equinox and the solstice are probably the best on the whole site. Or they just seem that way to me, because I don’t know enough math to refute them.
Stars become invisible at high altitudes because the Earth becomes very bright compared to the stars. This happens because when you are higher up, you see more of the sunlight reflected by the Earth. This happens because at higher altitudes more of the Earth is visible to you. Thus, your eyes or your cameras cannot distinguish the relatively dim light of the stars. The sky still appears black because there is no atmosphere to make the light scatter and give you feeling of being light outside that you experience on the surface of the Earth. You can see the stars if you are on the night side, you have good cameras, and you set the focal point to the sky.
I’ll get to the equinox thing later.
This doesn’t actually seem to match the description. They only talk about having used one laser, with two stakes, whereas your diagram requires using two lasers. Your setup would be quite difficult to achieve, since you would somehow have to get both lasers perfectly horizontal; I’m not sure a standard laser level would give you this kind of precision. In the version they describe, they level the laser by checking the height of the beam on a second stake. This seems relatively easy.
My guess is they just never did the experiment, or they lied about the result. But it would be kind of interesting to repeat it sometime.
Would Snell’s Law possibly explain it? Someone claimed to me that it makes light refract more with decreasing altitude.
Don’t you want to get a handle on basic physics first, before going natural-law-hopping across Wikipedia?
Thanks. You’re right. I mis-interpreted their experiment as written. I’ll try to read it again to see what’s going on and see if it’s explicable.