Flat Earth

Admittedly I just wanted an excuse to post eclipse pics

On August 21, 2017; I finally got to see an eclipse with my own eyes. I vaguely remember an eclipse when I was really young, but I wasn't old enough to appreciate it. Now I couldn't see a total eclipse in Texas, but it was still pretty cool to see the moon cover the sun even just a little bit. We got about 60% coverage in El Paso. I really wanted to blog about the eclipse, but what is there really to blog about? The moon went in front of the sun for a little bit. I can't really post pictures because my camera couldn't really take any good pictures of the eclipse. To my misfortune, I did find an interesting excuse to talk about the eclipse: the flat earthers. Or rather I just fell for some clickbait and want to explain a pet peeve that is a common misconception.

Flat Earthers on the Eclipse

So to start things off, the video above is what triggered this whole blog post because I am sick and tired of people thinking that flat earth people are serious. Before you watch the video, let me save 20 minutes of your life by explaining their two main arguments:

1. The eclipse path doesn't make sense if the Earth rotates from west to east. The video purports it should actually be going east to west if the Earth was round.

2. The shadow cast on the Earth is too small.

Objection to 1 is very simple to explain. The moon moves around the Earth a lot faster than the Earth rotates. The moon travels around the Earth at about 3400 km/hr while the Earth rotates at about 1700 km/hr, thus explaining this path. Objection 2 can be best debunked by the following photo:

This was evidently obvious for anyone who was looking at maps of the shadow of the eclipse and noticed that people outside of the path could still see an eclipse.

Flat Earthers are the Biggest Trolls on the Internet

After the video is done talking about the eclipse, it goes into Flat Earth theories that are crazier than the craziest conspiracy theories. It also breaks my heart that some flat earthers use the Bible as a means to justify their "theory", but again this is just religious trolling. While the Bible does mention a firmament, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest a flat Earth. If you are interested in seeing all of the different theories, I found a compilation in the subreddit /r/theworldisflat. Now I don't like ad hominems, so I'll tackle a few of the points they bring up but not all of them.

Starting off with space hoaxes. This is unfortunately a very true thing. NASA has in the past given space rocks that are fake and released photos that are fake as well. I don't know the reasoning behind these, but these neither prove or disprove anything. Ancient people knew the Earth was round well before we could take pictures from space.

Now let's start getting to the actual trolling: the assertion that the burden of proof is on "round earthers". Never mind the mathematics, gravity, and what the Greeks did with measuring shadows; allow me to introduce exhibit A:

Exhibit A: the curvature of the Earth from a plane.

Now I didn't personally take this photo, but I see the curvature of the Earth all the time whenever I get a window seat and a long enough flight. Heck I can see some curvature if I'm at a high enough elevation.

Despite a modern misconception, even ancient people knew about this because ships or caravans would disappear from the horizon yet obviously those people would return and not mention anything unusual about their trip. Believing in a flat earth was never a prevailing thought amongst ancient people let alone during the days of Columbus.

A lot of the other "evidence" for a flat Earth requires an extraordinary extensive conspiracy whose purposes are just as extraordinary. They claim that gravity cannot explain how all of the water stays on the Earth if it were round. They assert the only way our oceans can exist is on a flat Earth with ice walls holding it in. You could ask for evidence of an ice wall, but they'll point to a conspiracy blocking evidence of such a wall. The reality is that a lot of the arguments will ultimately boil down to this.

While the Flat Earth Society is filled with trolls, it is also filled with people who simply like to test their argumentative skills. Admittedly, this is why I first explored the society. The main problem is that none of these arguments were compelling enough to dissuade me from what I could actually see with my own eyes. The other problem -like the ones I debunked earlier- is that they are so easy to debunk. Take the speed of the moon for example, point out how fast the moon moves relative to Earth's rotation, and then they'll ask you to prove how you know the moon moves that fast. Show them astronomical calculations, and they'll ask how you know you didn't make any errors. These are the flat earthers in a nut shell. After exploring it for a while, you'll get bored because in order for any "controversy" to be interesting, there has to be a compelling argument. Even political arguments that I fundamentally disagree with still have compelling arguments. Flat Earth has none although I doubt anyone is surprised by that. Aside from perhaps a handful of people, no one seriously believes in a flat Earth. It's mostly people who like to question conventional knowledge very similar to Descartes.