I wonder what the flat earther nuts have to say to people who have flown/sailed all the way around the world and come back to where they started. Oh wait, don't confuse me with the facts, just let me believe what I want!
The link in the first post has a picture of the inverse toroid shape they think it looks like. Interesting at least. Obviously the angels in the corners didn't deem them fit enough to sail into space, so they teleported them to the opposite planar region. I wonder how the atmosphere (or atmoplane) works at the edges... Do you get more and more severe radiation exposure and less and less air as you approach "the edge"? Does the ocean turn into a giant block of ice?
According to the IAU, "a planet is a body that orbits the Sun, is massive enough for its own gravity to make it round, and has "cleared its neighbourhood" of smaller objects around its orbit." So by definition, the Earth must be round and not flat, otherwise it is not a planet. The Earth would have to be much less massive in order to maintain flatness. Its wonderful how people are so desperate for attention that they are willing to make an nice person out of themselves if only to get human contact.
What the heck do they know? The IAU is still struggling with blowback from kicking Pluto out of the club....
Very true. However (comma!) Sometimes....they're not idiots. Submitted for your approval: Our solar system does NOT have only eight planets, and it is far more than a minority of scientists who still view Pluto as a planet and [not simply] a Kuiper Belt Object [sic]. The same is true for Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Only four percent of the IAU voted on this, and most are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Stern and like-minded scientists favor a broader planet definition that includes any non-self-luminous spheroidal body in orbit around a star. The spherical part is important because objects become spherical when they attain a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning they are large enough for their own gravity to pull them into a round shape. This is a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects. Pluto meets this criterion and is therefore a planet. Under this definition, our solar system has 13 planets and counting: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris PS...I copied the above to save my 3-1/2 finger typing time, but I think it's illustrate nonetheless...
Problem with Pluto is it was not until 1978 we realized how much smaller it really was. It's on a different plane than the other planets and occasionally closer than Neptune. Intellectually, I say its not a planet but it's hard to dismiss Pluto after it being considered a planet for 75 years. It will be interesting what we find out from Pluto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That's what happens to science sometimes....and politics. It devolves from a search for truth to some kind of circular firefight, where you're just whacking away at your opponents for the sheer joy of the fight...or profit...or notoriety...etc. There's no doubt that the issue of AGW is pretty hotly contested. I personally wouldn't call anyone who is honestly trying to prove or disprove the issue an idiot...or a denier (to use the current chic buzzword) until I try to glean his or her point in the discussion. It's funny that many of the really important scientific breakthroughs were made by people who were cutting against the grain of "current thinking" on the particular field in question. We'll see. It is rather entertaining to watch. Damn....more popcorn....
The problem with making those last four into non-planets, is that they thus disappear from the education of youngsters. Which is sad. I don't see any possible benefit from re-defining a planet away, nor in the particular definition they have chosen. It is not like 'planet' is some esoteric scientific jargon (like for example 'kuiper belt object').
Pluto will forever be a planet in my eyes. It was my favourite and still is. For exactly the same reasons: crazy orbit, sometimes last, sometimes not, and we all know that since it is made of ice, that's where the penguins come from. As for science in general, yes lots of discoveries have been made because of someone going off on some ridiculed tangent only to prove something correct. This is sort of the action that goes on within the temporal scientist community. Does time exist, does it not exist? Is there an inverse time for every positive time? That sort of thing. To say that you are going against the grain with regards to climate change is just stupid. It is not a fiercely debated topic outisde of a small group of morons who make a large racket. Similarly, going against the grain because you think the earth is flat is not because you are on the brink of a new genius discovery, it is because you are a gullible moron.
I call denialists morons too, but I keep looking for a label at least as descriptive but more politically correct. I think I'll try Neo Flat Earthers (NFEs).
Wow steveo, you got to love the complex 3d map those flat earthers created to fool themselves that boat travel could go west to get east while still maintaining the flat earth. It kind of reminds me of some of the alarmist models that have human induced warming pull us out of the little ice age. What was that you believe in AGW because the flat earthers do? Good for you. I'm sure those transpacific flights I've been on were faked and the pilot didn't realize great circles were caused by a toroid. What else, oh yes the Himalaya glaciers will melt by 2035. A 20 ft sea level raise in our life times. What other things did those that drive suv's destroy.? Its cold because its global warming. Polar bears will drown because of climate change. No it couldn't be they are threatened by hunting and poution, it must be a guy driving a car. If only the united states had passed climate change legislation the glacier on Kilimanjaro would have been saved, it must be warming. No, the temperature record proved that wrong. It must be ghg changed the climate to be dryer, it has nothing to do with natural variation or deforestation. Remember if you are a believer you must change the null hypothesis. The new null hypothesis is if it is bad it is caused by human generated ghg. It also must be the bad people in the US that don't believe causing all the problems. I do love the onion though. General relativity is just a theory, but one that is supported by more experimental evidence than any of the alternative theories. It doesn't matter if most people don't really understand it. If evidence comes up that General Relativity is wrong the theory should be modified or rejected. Some explanations in quantum physics actually sound as bizzare as the pushing instead of gravity. Then again tunneling like penguins aren't in the bible. Oh that is why we can look at experimental evidence that the climate is getting warmer, and that man is contributing to that climate. Its the evidence not belief. Belief gets you to places like the flat earth society, or teaching intelligent design in the kansas, a decision that was reversed in 2007.
