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From: madd@bu-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.flame
Subject: Re: The flat earth
Message-ID: <17127@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Mon, 7-Dec-87 20:59:07 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.17127
Posted: Mon Dec  7 20:59:07 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 15:34:20 EST
References: <9578@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <590@cos.COM> <4084@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Reply-To: madd@buita.UUCP (Jim Frost)
Distribution: na
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 37
Keywords: platygaeanism,creationism,astroloy
Xref: hoptoad talk.religion.newage:2017 alt.flame:889

In article <4084@bellcore.bellcore.com> vonn@wind.UUCP (Vonn Marsch) writes:
>O.K., so the earth is round. All this stuff about a flat earth is bull.
>You win. We, who gave the theory a try, who went around for a day or so
>thinking "what if it was flat?" wasted our time and aren't you smart
>for dismissing the idea out of hand. Yup, I musta' been *crazy* to 
>challenge modern scientific thought; I'll never do it again. As well,
>I might as well not even think about whether the ideas of Astology, ESP,
>Atlantis, Crystals, Witchcraft are valid; that's the kind of stuff
>that only little kids and crazy people think about.

About the flat earth stuff:  It's easy to show the earth is spherical
and also to find it's diameter.  All you have to do is take the angle
of the sun to the earth in relation to two lines (preferably
perpendicular).  Like, angle of sun to earth along longitudinal and
latitudinal lines (ie north-south and east-west).

Do this at three points widely separated (same hemisphere) at the same
time on the same day and look at the data you get.  The discrepancies
in the data will give you the angles necessary to project to the
center of the earth.  The geometry and math is simple so it is left as
an excercise to the reader.

I won't get into all the other things.

It's true that it can be good to question accepted scientific fact but
in some cases you have to be reasonable.  It's EASY to show the earth
is not flat.  Just try the above and see.

Honestly, I'd love to hear a flat earth description that describes the
seasonal angular differences between the sun and the earth and
retrograde motion of the planets.  I think it would be interesting to
listen to.

Cheers,

jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu