# DIY: Testing Earth's curvature. Clear assumptions, proposition of two experiment. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 23, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023 "2014-02-23T17:11:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/21 "2014-02-24T15:44:33Z")
> [@karol](#): > > You still don’t seem to understand but there’s another point. There’s no so called downward refraction 🙂 That’s funny. You mean what I learned in high school physics is all wrong and the book will have to be rewritten? In 400 years or so of physics experiments, everyone was doing it wrong until you came along? And refraction, which is the basis of all transmissive optics, including possibly the glasses you are wearing, doesn’t exist? And magnifying lenses, telescopes and microscopes don’t actually work? Who knew! ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/22 "2014-02-24T16:12:49Z")
Wow. “Skycentrism:We live inside the earth”? And here I thought we were fighting a bit of garden-variety ignorance, not a full-on, make-up-your-own-facts lunatic fringe theory. My mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/23 "2014-02-24T16:18:44Z")
> [@karol](#): > > Is it convex or concave ? > This thread is not a joke. I count on normal and essential discussion 🙂 Well, let’s see how normal this discussion started, first: Are you claiming that the photographs and videos taken of the Earth from space are fake? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/24 "2014-02-24T20:52:15Z")
Wait! I want to hear the OP explain lunar eclipses, and the circular shadow. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/25 "2014-02-24T21:33:18Z")
Or we could cut all the way to the chase, and just ask karol about what exactly he thinks the lizard people that are in charge are going to do to us. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/26 "2014-02-24T22:04:16Z")
So a lone guy with a fucking \*camcorder \*has disproven everything we know about the Earth; everything that can be and has been observed by using satellites, rockets, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/27 "2014-02-24T22:05:23Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Wait! I want to hear the OP explain lunar eclipses, and the circular shadow. Or, you know… Voyager, Jupiter, etc. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/28 "2014-02-24T22:06:47Z")
I live near a lake that’s wide enough that we can’t see the other shore _(due to the convex nature of the earth, karol…)_. When we were kids we loved to pretend it was the ocean, and Europe was on the other side of the lake. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/29 "2014-02-24T22:16:44Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > A few points: > > 1.) This was experimentally tested in Norfolk England… Well, yeah, but everyone knows Norfolk is ridiculously flat. It’s not normal. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/30 "2014-02-25T00:04:14Z")
Here, let’s try this counter-experiment: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/7cvYIHIgH-s/maxresdefault.jpg "Amateur Rocket Launch to 121,000' at Mach 3 On-board Video - Qu8k - Near Space Launch") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cvYIHIgH-s) Ka rol, your experiment is local in nature, whereas this experiment is more regional (NW Nevada) in nature, and seems to remove those pesky atmospheric phenomena that may taint any experiment. Feel free to watch at your own leisure and pause the video near apogee and take a straight edge to the earth (left frame of video since the right frame is a fisheye lens) to confirm it’s convex curvature. Long version: [Qu8k - BALLS 20 - Carmack Prize Attempt - High Altitude Rocket On-board Video - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvDqoxMUroA) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/31 "2014-02-25T05:11:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > A few points: > > 1.) This was experimentally tested in Norfolk England, first resulting in a finding that the earth was flat (!). More careful measurements later proved the earth convex (whew!) The effect of atmospheric refraction on the results has been noted: > > [Bedford Level experiment - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment) > > 2.) Cyrus Teed (“Koresh”) and his Koershans backed a similar experiment by Ulysses Grant Morrow in 1896 along the Illinois Drainage Canal, which proved the earth concave, just as Teed believed. Critics blamed atmospheric refraction. (Same cite. see also Martin Gardner’s _Fads and Fallcies in the Name of Science_. Alsi _The Big Book of Weirdos_) The experiments at the Bedford Level and the Koreshans both get chapters in Eccentric Lives And Peculiar Notions ( I highly recommend it.). Teed seems to have been a true believer who wanted what he thought was best for humanity. The commune he and his followers built is still intact in Florida. I’d like to go some day, but it’s quite a trip from where my kin in the Sunshine State live. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/32 "2014-03-05T11:58:31Z")
[Wired article showing an interesting way to see the curvature of the earth.](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/03/see-curvature-earth-airport/) Concourse A at the Atlanta Airport. ---
**Author:** ![karol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/977dab/32.png) [@karol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/karol)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/33 "2014-03-05T13:21:37Z")
> [@](#): > > At the point chosen for all the experiments the river is a slow-flowing drainage canal running in an uninterrupted straight line for a six-mile stretch to the north-east of the village of Welney. The most famous of the observations, and the one that was taught in schools until photographs of the Earth from space became available,[1][2] involved a set of three poles fixed at equal height above water level along this length. As the surface of the water was assumed to be level, the discovery that **the middle pole** , when viewed carefully through a theodolite,\*\* was almost three feet higher than the poles at each end was finally accepted as a new proof that the surface of the earth was indeed curved\*\*.[3] Curved indeed. But guess in which direction ? The hoax of refraction and angular declination of the horizon: [http://ow.ly/u9ri8](http://ow.ly/u9ri8) ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/34 "2014-03-06T19:17:44Z")
> [@karol](#): > > Curved indeed. But guess in which direction ? > > The hoax of refraction and angular declination of the horizon: [http://ow.ly/u9ri8](http://ow.ly/u9ri8) Convex. Again…you are describing something very local in size, but as you increase the distance, it is readily apparent that it is concave. You didn’t look at the video I listed which removed the atmospheric effects, did you? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/35 "2014-03-06T20:28:17Z")
You can’t convince crazy, **Yeti**. But a noble effort nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/36 "2014-03-06T20:49:12Z")
A [Fata Morgana](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)) is a mirage caused by the bending of light where objects over the horizon are sometime visible. ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/37 "2014-03-06T20:56:24Z")
The part I can’t understand is what’s the point of believing a theory as loony as a concave earth? You have to claim that everything we know about physics and optics is wrong, but what do you get to explain instead? Is it just a ploy to lure web traffic? ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/38 "2014-03-06T22:27:39Z")
> [@Twoflower](#): > > The part I can’t understand is what’s the point of believing a theory as loony as a concave earth? You have to claim that everything we know about physics and optics is wrong, but what do you get to explain instead? Is it just a ploy to lure web traffic? Bingo…especially the YouTubers who fearmonger to get advertisement revenue for outlandish bullshit. There’s one guy called “BPEarthwatch” who fearmongers in the name of the Lord and with any comet that is in the news (Elenin, ISON, etc.)…and even when the comets fall apart, he still rails on that the pieces will hit earth and make the rapture imminent. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/39 "2014-03-06T22:56:51Z")
> [@Twoflower](#): > > The part I can’t understand is what’s the point of believing a theory as loony as a concave earth? You have to claim that everything we know about physics and optics is wrong, but what do you get to explain instead? Is it just a ploy to lure web traffic? I think it’s something about propping up a particular interpretation of the Bible - something about the sky being God’s garment - therefore it has to be wrapped around him, with the earth outside of it, or some such nonsense. The most stupid part of this is: IF the earth is concave, and it only looks convex because of optical illusions… You won’t be able to prove this using an optical instrument such as a camcorder. ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023/40 "2014-03-07T01:44:51Z")
> [@Yeticus\_Rex](#): > > Bingo…especially the YouTubers who fearmonger to get advertisement revenue for outlandish bullshit. That would certainly explain the insistence on reading articles and viewing videos, instead of offering an explanation to defend his position. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diy-testing-earths-curvature-clear-assumptions-proposition-of-two-experiment/682023.md?page=3)