Pros sweat the details that deserve being sweated over, amateurs sweat about stuff that doesn't.
At least in my experience.
Unfortunately my experience includes Metallica. What I took home from that was that all the band members are complete dicks but their sound engineer (Big Mick) is a thoroughly good guy!
One can not navigate accurately without it.
Secondly, one can see the sea curve on a clear day.
(I'll do the physical geography speech on a raincheck)
you do realize that you're actually coming across as saying that you believe that Earth is flat, do you?
I've never seen the sea curve, even standing on a volcano at 10,000 feet above the Pacific or flying 35,000 above it.
That said, I have have taken the only photo (that I know of) that shows the curvature of the earth from ground level. It's hard to tell, so I'm not really sure.
Sorry for the OT, but the Flat Earth stuff has been a hobby of mine for years.
this "senses vs what scientists tell us" thing...
what is your view on optical and (cough) audio illusions then?
BTW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Deutsch and http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=101
Pano
It was you and not Scott !
I can’t understand how I managed it but I mixed things up.😱
My apologies to both of you.
George
It was you and not Scott !
I can’t understand how I managed it but I mixed things up.😱
My apologies to both of you.
George
It's unclear to me how "perspective" would cause "top first coming toward" and "top last going away." Could you give an explanation that the simple-minded can grasp?
It's a bit more than "what we're taught," I think. It's also that the experimental consequences of sphericity can be predicted and easily measured (which ultimately means 'experienced') by anyone. Likewise, the experimental consequences of "flat earth" require special pleading to explain why their experimental predictions are refuted.
btw, silence in place of an answer will be interpreted (likely by most) as "I don't have an unified theory but I do have one that is applied on a case-by-case basis" 😀
We do accept it after enough evidence, that can overrule our intuition. But only if you are already open to it and/or have no vested interest in your opinion. Otherwise, no amount of evidence will sway you.
There is a school of thought that maintains that the scientific method is very unnatural to humans, and everyday experience seems to bear that out.
jan
Pano, how about the fact that as soon that you deny an established theory you also take upon yourself the burden of disproving all the consequences?
Two answers to that:Pano said:
1. Some things we are taught are not contrary to our direct experience. For example, the fact that the world is round is something we do experience (see my seaside example above) - you need to be inventive to reconcile that with a flat earth.
2. Most people are incapable of combining their direct experience with a little maths. Note that any experience can only be understood in the light of some form of theory; if the theory is trivial or commonplace people might not notice it. For example, flat geometry only develops meaning once you can conceive of curved geometry.
If the earth is flat we should have no problems creating accurate, undistorted maps of the entire earth.
So how come we can only create ones with the gross distortions which are in line with trying to project the surface of an (almost) sphere onto a flat piece of paper?
So how come we can only create ones with the gross distortions which are in line with trying to project the surface of an (almost) sphere onto a flat piece of paper?
I'm not sure it's a valid point, my guess is that mapping is done based on the spherical hypothesis.
I'm pretty sure that by now everything has been travelled and measured.
No hypothesis, only actual measurements.
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