The Flaws In The Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory
Nowadays, due to massive expansion of technology and, as a result, also forms of instant communication systems, mainly social media, ability of members of our society to communicate rapidly over long distances has greatly increased. We are now able to preserve acquaintanceship with other people, even if it means living very far away. Internet also enables us to find people with similar interests and beliefs. While this is a great opportunity to create new friendships, it also allows people with questionable theories to rise and get audience. Those people create, what is called by other people, Conspiracy Theories.
Definition of a conspiracy theory provided by Oxford Dictionairy is “A belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event. ”One of the most recognizable conspiracy theories is the theory that Earth is not a geoide, but instead a flat disc and that governments and space agencies are covering it. Believers of this theory present a lot of arguments, that are supposed to prove their theory, some of them considered to simply be missing a key feature of thinking, while others considered to be carefully tailored to manipulate people without proper knowledge in a certain field. With that comes a question: “To what extent are Flat Earth believers' claims flawed?” I state that the arguments presented by believers of this theory are in general greatly flawed and I am going to support my claim with appropriate arguments.
The first flaw that Flat Earth Supporters make in their arguments is a great misunderstanding of gravity. The definition of gravity, provided by Oxford Dictionairy is “The force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth, or towards any other physical body having mass. “In one of his videos, a man named Shahzwar Bugti presents a series of arguments, apparently disproving gravity, supporting them by experiments. According to his experiments, jumping, magnets and force of buoyancy disprove gravity entirely. However, the value of the force of gravity depends on the mass of both objects, as shown on the equation F=(G*M*m)/r^2, where “F is the force of gravity (measured in Newtons, N), G is the gravitational constant of the universe and is always the same number, M is the mass of one object (measured in kilograms, kg), m is the mass of the other object (measured in kilograms, kg) and r is the distance those objects are apart (measured in meters, m)'. Our muscles are able to overcome the force of gravity, because of two significant factors, both of which are key in this equation. The first factor is that mass of the human body is relatively small compared to the mass of Earth, while the second one is that our distance from the center of mass of Earth is at least 6,357 km, if we are standing on the Pole. In the end of Bugti's video he states 'Density and Buoyancy, not Gravity'. This sentence is flawed, because density is a scalar. According to Tom Henderson from physicsclassroom.com 'Scalars are quantities that are fully described by a magnitude (or numerical value) alone.' That means that density alone is not able to produce a force. In order to do so, it would have to be like gravity, which is a vector, which Tom Henderson explains like this: 'Vectors are quantities that are fully described by both a magnitude and a direction.' Furthermore, according to the Archimedes' Principle 'upward buoyant force that is exerted on a body immersed in a fluid, whether fully or partially submerged, is equal to the weight of the fluid that the body displaces and acts in the upward direction at the center of mass of the displaced fluid. 'It clearly states that the body's force's magnitude is equal to the magnitude of weight, determined by gravity, of fluid that the body displaces. If gravity did not exist, it could not have had any magnitude and therefore, force of buoyancy would not have any magnitude, resulting in no possible movement.
The second reason that those arguments are flawed is misunderstanding of perspective. A video made by user Phuket Word is supposed to explain the sunset on the Flat Earth and states that it is due to perspective. However, according to believers of Flat Earth themselves, the sun and the moon are floating high above the ground, never going under the disc. The flaw with Word's video is that the representation of sun on his video first crosses the horizon to be fully under it and then begins to slide accross the lines of perspective. The lines of perspective are paralel to each other and to the ground. That means that on a flat surface the lines of perspective and horizon would never cross and therefore, a sunset as we know it, is not possible. The second reason that perspectie is being misunderstood is the same reason, 'Flat-Earthers' believe in the sun being very close to Earth. The base of this theory are crepuscular rays. The definition of crepuscular rays provided by Merriam-Webster Dictionary is 'a streak of light that seems to radiate from the sun shortly before or after sunset when sunlight shines through a break in the clouds or a notch in the horizon line and illuminates atmospheric haze or dust particles'. According to the theory of Flat Earth, when there is a space in the clouds, through which light can pass, we are able to see, that the light passing through a smaller hole illuminates a large area, so the sun must be just over the clouds. The flaw of this theory involves not considering the real definition of perspective. The mentioned hole seems smaller to us, because it is much further away. It is the same reason the further end of a straight road seem more narrow than the closer one to the observer. It is due to perspective. The hole in the clouds seems smaller to us, but it is in fact very similar size to the area light rays passing through it cover.
The third way perspective is misunderstood is during attempt of explanation of the phenomenon of ships disappearing beyond the horizon. Since on flat Earth there is no curvature, the phenomenon of ships seemingly sinking after crossing the horizon would not be possible. Believers of Flat Earth claim that it is due to perspective. A user under the name Ghan D uploaded a video of him apparently proving the perspective. His experiment consist of him putting a camera on the ground and walking away. We can clearly see his legs slowly disappearing into the ground. This experiment was done incorrectly, because of the grass covering the majority of the field of view. This is creating an illusion of the person's legs slowly disappearing. In order to properly conduct this experiment, it would have to be done on a perfectly flat surface, with nothing standing in the way, nor interupting the potential results in any way.
The last reason that Flat-Earth-proving arguments are flawed are intentional manipulations. This is considered to be one of the most drastic of all other arguments, because it exploits naivety and misinformation of regular people and it is carefully planned to gain audience and spread this idea. One of the examples of intentional manipulation is the first argument in Dave Murphy's interview, where he talks about Flat Earth. In his first argument he mentions the artificial horizon on a plane. According to him the gyroscope, on which the artificial horizon is based, would always stay upwards and the artificial horizon would start to go upwards, because of the constant position of the gyroscope. He asked a pilot about this and recieved info that it has electronic correction systems. He then asked the manufacturer of the artificial horizon and he denied any electronic correction systems being in the artificial horizon, just the mechanical parts. Mr. Murphy said that if there is no electronic correction system, threre is no correction system at all and that the plane must be going over a flat surface, not a curved one. It is true that artificial horizons do not have electronic correction systems, because they have mechanical ones. Mr Murphy intentionally failed to acknowledge the possibility of a mechanical correction system, because as soon as he heard that there is no electronic correction system, he knew he could use it as an argument to prove that the Earth is flat. The second manipulation Mr. Murphy uses is that apparently NASA's photo from the moon is a fake one and Earth is just pasted there. He proves that by downloading the image from the NASA website and lowering the saturation levels. When he does that, it can be seen that there is some sort of cubature around the Earth, which Murphy interprets as it being pasted there. However, he intentionally did not show the rest of the photo after the procedure, because it would show that the same cubature can be seen around other objects in the photo. This fenomenon occured because the author downloaded a compressed, low quality image. This cubature is a result of compression of the photo. Should the same experiment be conducted on a raw, uncompressed image, it would not show any of this. On the other hand, believers of Flat Earth make one claim that is true and that is about NASA editing their photos. NASA makes it clear that they do, in fact edit their photos.
The problem with Flat Earther's claims is that they try to make us think that it is not public, that it is to fool our perception. However, in the document about image processing, NASA stated that 'Due to the resolution and design of the video cameras used to make the images, they must be processed in order to return the most information possible. The surface of Mars is such a low-contrast object that without enhancements, features would be lost in the wash of monocolor. Also, because the human eye cannot adjust to differences in illumination across a field of view, illumination must be normalized.' This means that NASA does edit their images, but they do it to extract as much information as possible, while keeping it close to the original.
Suming up, I was trying to prove that Flat Earther arguments are heavily flawed. In my opinion my arguments are apropriately proving the flaws of the thinking of the believers of the flat Earth theory. They have a great misunderstanding of important laws of nature and combined with falling under manipulation gives birth to such theories. People believe manipulators from this community and do not consider checking the validity of those claims. I personally can safely say, that my thesis was proven right, supported by appropriate evidence.
Bibliography
- Conspiracy theory | Definition of conspiracy theory in US English by Oxford Dictionaries (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/conspiracy_theory Oxford University Press
- Bugti, S. (2016, May 03). Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V-ZfRXReKM
- Wood, D. (n.d.). Gravitational Force: Definition, Equation & Examples. Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://study.com/academy/lesson/gravitational-force-definition-equation-examples.html
- Gravity | Definition of gravity in English by Oxford Dictionaries. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gravity
- Oxford University Press Earth radius. (2019, April 14). Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_radius
- Henderson, T. (n.d.). Scalars and Vectors. Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1DKin/Lesson-1/Scalars-and-Vectors Archimedes' principle.
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary D, G. (2015, November 08). Retrieved May 19, 2019, from https://youtube.com/watch?v=m2YkS7pjMmk
- Murphy, D. (2016, July 06). Retrieved May 19, 2019, from https://youtube.com/watch?v=iqwk8r6Y1ko
