patrick jane forums

Just putting this here to have a place to put it.

One of the prime examples I am frequently given of the world being a globe has something to do with measuring distances in the southern hemisphere.  People look at the Azimuthal Equidistant map and say, "Here, look at how long the sun is up in on the equator and look at how long the sun is up over the 55th degree south latitude.  It would be up for different times."  Or, "Look at how fat Australia is.  Surely it must be really long to drive across.  How come nobody has done that yet?"

On the face of it that argument looks quite damaging.  People bring the axioms they are used to using when looking at the world as a globe and try to use them to break down the flat earth.  But that's exactly the trouble, the axioms of the two worldviews are very different.

A fair number of globe believers don't really understand what lines of latitude and longitude represent.  Most think of them as being ways of breaking up the ball earth into regular sections.  In reality the lines of latitude and longitude are measurements of earth made relative to the fixed features of the sky and the passage of time.  For example, Polaris the North Star is the central focus of the northern lines of latitude, 90 degrees north latitude meaning the North Star would be directly overhead.  (Not that anybody has actually claimed to be there, but I digress.)  Lines of longitude have been arbitrarily^a designated to come from Greenwich in England.  They have no fixed-in-time celestial marker like Polaris, although they do have regular markers in the form of the zodiac and the sun. 

Considering that these lines are the product of the relationship between the sky and the earth, and how we primarily calculate the measurements of the (ball) earth stem from the sky via the Eratosthenes method, using these lines to disprove the flat earth is irrelevant.  In the globe concept, the earth is a ball and the sky's features extend effectively infinitely out in all directions.  In the planar concept, the earth is flat and the sky presents itself to us as though the inside of a sphere when (assuming the dome firmament worldview) those features are refracted through the watery medium of the dome firmament.  In a simple abstract, if the shape of the earth shifts, the shape of the sky shifts a similar proportion. 

So to goes the discrepancy of measurement of distances with statute distances (like kilometers or miles), to relational distances (seconds, minutes, and degrees lat/long and nautical miles)^b. Statute distances are of fixed value over the face of the earth (or up, or nonlinearly).  Relational distances like nautical miles change depend upon your markers, in this case celestial markers.  For example, you can walk a mile on a winding path or on a straight path and personally travel the same distance.  However, if you were measuring the distance traveled relative to a fixed point, the winding path would result in an absolute measurement of shorter distance than the straight path. 

On an Azimuthal plane, relational distances in the southern hemisphere would become longer if measured statute.  However this is further complicated by how those areas were first charted in the first place.  They were almost certainly charted relationally to the celestial features when they were first measured.  How much of that then was measured statute and how much was measured relational?  As time has passed, whosoever is "in-the-know" of this grand conspiracy has certainly dipped their toes into the method of measure of these southern regions, if they were not the primary charters.  If an individual wants to know the score on how the alleged down-under was measured, they would have to perform the relational and statute measurements from scratch and compare notes to the accepted values.  Using celestial bodies alone as a method of proving or disproving the Azimuthal plane as the shape of the earth is moot. 

Historically, there are records of the southern areas not corresponding to charted values.  In particular this was noted in longer travel times for goods being shipped across the Atlantic to or past the southern coast of Africa.  Additionally, there are reports of traversing the southern hemisphere near along a particular southern latitude taking a great deal more time than anticipated.  If memory serves, these instances are both noted in the works of Samuel Rowbotham^p.  Contemporary indications are noted in the absence of flight-tracking south of the equator.^c  Similar discrepencies are noted for freight ships leaving Australia.^d

It is far more difficult to measure the earth than the main stream would have you believe.  I would even go so far to say as it is impossible to truly measure the earth.  I'm reminded of God challenging Job to measure the breadth of the earth.  The methods we have used or have been taught to use have been based on faulty axioms and thus resulted in the mess of the globe. 

^a Exactly how arbitrary that may be relative to occulted sources I can't say for certain. 

^b The definition of nautical miles has fairly recently been given a standard statute value of roughly 1.82 km if memory serves.  This further compounds the contemporary confusion. 

^c  Given the crackdown on flat earth content on the main stream platforms, it would not surprise me if some simulated elements in flight tracking have been added.  I can say that when I first came to research the shape of the world I was unable to find consistent flight data off Brazil. 

^d If I can find the source again I should like to link it here. 

^p I have found a reference as being from Alex Gleason's "Is the Bible from Heaven, Is the Earth a Globe" in chapter 19, p379.  Also of interest is Gleason's Chapter 17 which covers other items brought up in this post.