The famous basketball player Shaquille O'Neal said that he is a supporter of the theory flat earth. Despite the humorous tone of the message, it immediately hit the media headlines and caused a heated discussion among conspiracy theorists.

RT asked a psychologist why the marginal Flat Earth Society is becoming mainstream and why people are starting to believe in more and more incredible things.

NBA legend center Shaquille O'Neal said he shares Cleveland point guard Kyrie Irving's position that the Earth is flat.

"It's true. The earth is flat. Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind: through what we read, see and hear. The first thing we are taught in school is that Columbus discovered America. But think about it: when he got here, he met red-skinned people with long hair smoking peace pipes. So Columbus didn't discover America," O'Neill said on The Big Podcast. The legendary basketball player, after this discouraging statement, continued to goad his co-hosts.

A few weeks earlier, Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving made a similar statement, but later said he was only joking. Such comedic comments by famous athletes caused a stir in the American segment of the Internet, because, as it turned out, the flat earth society is becoming more and more popular.

The Flat Earth Society is a fringe organization even according to a variety of US conspiracy theorists and alternative historians following on the trail of UFOs, Bigfoot and Masonic conspiracies. For example, the popular conspiracy YouTube channel Secure Team has almost a million subscribers and video with supposedly alien objects and muddy photos of alien bases on the moon. In one of the published materials, the authors of the channel expressed regret at the "growing number of people regressing to this ancient faith." The channel was immediately attacked by thousands of followers of the Flat Earth Society.

The society itself declares on its website that it is guided solely by scientific principles. According to the theorists who resort to the method of Cartesian skepticism, the burden of proof lies with everyone who believes that the Earth is spherical. Evidence of this they regard as insignificant or fabricated. At the same time, they are happy to publish videos from low orbit, supposedly proving that the Earth is flat.

“The most reliable proof of a flat earth is the Bedford level experiment. Conducted many times over a stretch of water six miles long, it has shown results that prove the absence of curvature of the earth's surface. on the society website.

The experiment referred to by the organization was carried out by the English inventor and founder of the society Samuel Rowbotham in 1838.

• bedford experiment

Society members claim that our planet is a flat disk 40,000 kilometers in diameter, centered around the North Pole. Also, adherents of this theory deny the existence of gravity and the South Pole, instead of which a huge wall of ice extends around the disk.

The followers of this theory claim that all photographs of the Earth from space are computer generated, and the belief in a spherical Earth supports a global conspiracy of governments and scientists. space flights are a hoax, and the moon landing was filmed jointly by Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky from a screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke.

The society produces a huge amount of Internet content, literally flooding its supporters and opponents with a variety of "proofs": from obscure mathematical formulas to lists of quotations from the Bible. It got to the point that even fundamentalist Christians took up arms against the followers of the flat Earth. Radical Baptist preacher Stephen Anderson, himself a world government conspiracy theorist, launched an angry tirade against the society's followers.

Many alternative journalists, historians, and conspiracy theorists have speculated that the Flat Earth Society itself may be backed by government intelligence agencies who want to ridicule any alternative view of the world.

RT turned to the candidate of psychological sciences Alexander Neveev for a comment. The scientist explained that there are two reasons why people can suddenly begin to take anti-scientific postulates seriously.

“The first is external in relation to a person. We receive a huge amount of information in the form of specially prepared information packages. We are simply told something, and we take it for granted. This is completely normal, since we do not need to learn absolutely everything from our own experience. You don't have to go to America to find out how people live there. But a side effect of this is that people have misunderstandings and fears that some forces can distort any information. The media saturates a person with news, facts, but no one is concerned with developing an understanding of them. As a result, we have a similar situation. No one has seen our globe with their own eyes, only in photographs, respectively, a huge number of insinuations are possible, ”said the psychologist.

“The second reason is that our minds are initially embedded with systems of errors - cognitive distortions and heuristics. Under the influence of these distortions, we tend to consider our version of events the most plausible. A person does not seek refutation of his beliefs. Our mind functions on the principle of cognitive ease - what does not bother us, we tend to consider the truth. Actually this is an illusion. Conspiracy theories exploit the problem that we cannot directly show a person evidence to the contrary - send him into orbit and show that the Earth is round. It is very difficult to explain to them mathematically, astronomically the parameters that made scientists come to this conclusion. It is very easy to say that scientists lied and the Earth is flat, and it is very easy to perceive it, ”the expert concluded.

January 31st, 2014

Like a flat worn coin
The planet rested on three whales.
And they burned smart scientists in bonfires -
The ones that said, "It's not about the whales."
N.Olev

Going out into the street and looking around, anyone can be convinced: the Earth is flat. There are, of course, uplands and depressions, mountains and ravines. But on the whole it is clearly visible: flat, sloping along the edges. The ancients figured this out a long time ago. They saw the caravan disappearing over the horizon. Climbing the mountain, observers noticed that the horizon was expanding. From this followed the inevitable conclusion: the surface of the Earth is a hemisphere. In Thales, the Earth floats like a piece of wood in an endless ocean.

When did these ideas change? In the 19th century, a false thesis was established, which is still being replicated today, that people considered the Earth to be flat before the great geographical discoveries.

So, in the manual for teachers “Lessons on the world around us” in 2007, it says: “For a long time, ancient people considered the Earth to be flat, lying on three whales or three elephants and covered with a dome of the sky ... They laughed at scientists who put forward a hypothesis about the spherical shape of the Earth, they persecuted the church. The navigator Christopher Columbus was the first to believe in this hypothesis... The teacher can tell the children that the first person who saw with his own eyes that the Earth is not flat was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.”

In fact, already in the III century BC. the ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276-194 BC) not only firmly knew that the Earth is a ball, but also managed to measure the radius of the Earth, having received a value of 6311 km - with an error of no more than 1 percent!

Around 250 BC, a Greek scholar Eratosthenes first accurately measured the globe. Eratosthenes lived in Egypt in the city of Alexandria. He guessed to compare the height of the Sun (or its angular distance from a point overhead, zenith, which is called - zenith distance) at the same time in two cities - Alexandria (in northern Egypt) and Syene (now Aswan, in southern Egypt). Eratosthenes knew that on the day of the summer solstice (June 22) the Sun was at noon illuminates the bottom of deep wells. Therefore, at this time the Sun is at its zenith. But in Alexandria at this moment the Sun is not at its zenith, but is separated from it by 7.2 °.

Eratosthenes obtained this result by changing the zenith distance of the Sun with the help of his simple goniometric tool - the scaphis. This is just a vertical pole - a gnomon, fixed at the bottom of a bowl (hemisphere). The skafis is installed so that the gnomon assumes a strictly vertical position (directed to the zenith). The pole illuminated by the sun casts a shadow on the inner surface of the skafis divided into degrees.

So at noon on June 22 in Siena, the gnomon does not cast a shadow (the Sun is at its zenith, its zenith distance is 0 °), and in Alexandria, the shadow from the gnomon, as can be seen on the scale of the skafis, marked a division of 7.2 °. At the time of Eratosthenes, the distance from Alexandria to Syene was considered equal to 5000 Greek stadia (about 800 km). Knowing all this, Eratosthenes compared an arc of 7.2 ° with the entire circle of 360 ° degrees, and a distance of 5000 stages with the entire circle. the globe(denoted by the letter X) in kilometers. Then from the proportion it turned out that X = 250,000 stages, or about 40,000 km (imagine this is true!).

If you know that the circumference of a circle is 2πR, where R is the radius of the circle (and π ~ 3.14), knowing the circumference of the globe, it is easy to find its radius (R):

It is remarkable that Eratosthenes was able to measure the Earth very accurately (after all, even today it is believed that the average radius of the Earth 6371 km!).

And a hundred years before him, Aristotle (384-322 BC) gave three classical proofs of the sphericity of the Earth.

Firstly, during lunar eclipses, the edge of the shadow cast by the Earth on the Moon is always an arc of a circle, and the only body that can cast such a shadow at any position and direction of the light source is a ball.

Secondly, the ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the long distance, but almost instantly, as it were, “sink”, disappearing below the horizon line.

And, thirdly, some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, and for other observers they are never visible.

But Aristotle was not the discoverer of the sphericity of the Earth, but only provided irrefutable evidence of a fact that was known even to Pythagoras of Samos (c. 560-480 BC). Pythagoras himself, perhaps, relied on the evidence not of a scientist, but of a simple sailor, Skilacus of Caryanda, who in 515 BC. made a description of his voyages in the Mediterranean.

But what about the church?

There was a decision to condemn the heliocentric system, approved in 1616 by Pope Paul V. But there was no persecution of supporters of the sphericity of the Earth in Christian churches. The fact that "earlier" the church represented the Earth standing on whales or elephants was invented in the 19th century.

By the way, for what they really burned Giordano Bruno.

And yet the church was noted in the question of the shape of the Earth.

Of the 265 people who, on September 20, 1519, set off on a trip around the world under the leadership of Magellan, only 18 sailors returned on the last of the ships on September 6, 1522, sick and exhausted. Instead of honors, the team received a public repentance for one lost day as a result of moving through time zones around the Earth in westbound. So the Catholic Church punished the heroic team for a mistake in celebrating church dates.

This paradox around the world travel for a long time was not recognized in society. In Jules Verne's novel Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg almost lost his entire fortune due to ignorance. In the "Science and Life" of the 80s, the conflicts of the teams that returned from the "round the world" are described with the accounting department, which does not want to pay for an extra day of business trip.

Misconceptions and primitive ideas are tenacious not only in the church.

It is probably worth noting one more point, the fact is that the figure of the Earth is different from the ball.

Scientists began to guess about this back in the 18th century, but what the Earth really is - is it compressed at the poles or at the equator - it was difficult to find out. To understand this, the French Academy of Sciences had to equip two expeditions. In 1735, one of them went to carry out astronomical and geodetic work in Peru and did this in the equatorial region of the Earth for about 10 years, and the other, Lapland, worked in 1736–1737 near the Arctic Circle. As a result, it turned out that the length of the arc of one degree of the meridian is not the same at the poles of the Earth and at its equator. The meridian degree turned out to be longer at the equator than at high latitudes (111.9 km and 110.6 km). This can only happen if the Earth is compressed at the poles and is not a ball, but a body close in shape to spheroid. At the spheroid polar radius less equatorial(for the terrestrial spheroid, the polar radius is shorter than the equatorial one by almost 21 km).

It is useful to know that the great Isaac Newton (1643-1727) anticipated the results of the expeditions: he correctly concluded that the Earth is compressed, because our planet rotates around its axis. In general, the faster the planet rotates, the greater must be its compression. Therefore, for example, the compression of Jupiter is greater than that of the Earth (Jupiter manages to make a revolution around the axis with respect to the stars in 9 hours and 50 minutes, and the Earth only in 23 hours and 56 minutes).

And further. The true figure of the Earth is very complex and differs not only from a ball, but also from a spheroid. rotation. True, in this case we are talking about the difference not in kilometers, but ... meters! Scientists are engaged in such a thorough refinement of the figure of the Earth to this day, using for this purpose specially carried out observations from artificial satellites of the Earth. So it is quite possible that someday you will have to take part in solving the problem that Eratosthenes took up a long time ago. This is very what people need case.

What is the best way to remember the figure of our planet? I think that for now it is enough if you imagine the Earth in the form of a ball with an “additional belt” put on it, a kind of “slap” on the equator region. Such a distortion of the figure of the Earth, turning it from a sphere into a spheroid, has considerable consequences. In particular, due to the attraction of the "additional belt" by the Moon, the earth's axis describes a cone in space in about 26,000 years. This movement of the earth's axis is called precessional. As a result, the role of the North Star, which now belongs to α Ursa Minor, is alternately played by some other stars (for example, α Lyra - Vega will become it in the future). In addition, because of this precessional) movements of the earth's axis Zodiac signs more and more do not coincide with the corresponding constellations. In other words, 2000 years after the era of Ptolemy, the “sign of Cancer”, for example, no longer coincides with the “constellation of Cancer”, etc. However, modern astrologers try not to pay attention to this ...

And where did this stupid idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba flat Earth on three elephants / whales come from?

Nprime Thales believed that the Earth floats in water, like a piece of wood. Anaximander imagined the Earth in the form of a cylinder (at the same time he indicated that its diameter was exactly three times its height), on the upper end of which people live. Anaximenes believed that the Sun and Moon were as flat as the Earth, but corrected Anaximander by pointing out that the Earth, although flat, was not round, but rectangular in plan, and did not float in water, but was supported by compressed air. Hecataeus, based on the ideas of Anaximander, compiled geographical map. Anaxagoras and Empedocles did not object to this to the founders, considering such ideas not contradictory physical laws. Leucippus, considering the Earth to be flat, and the atoms falling perpendicular to this plane in one direction, could not understand how then the atoms could connect with each other, forming bodies - and said that no, the atoms in their fall must somehow, deviate even a little. Democritus, in defense of the flat Earth, cited the following argument: if the Earth were a ball, then the sun, setting and rising, would be crossed by the horizon along an arc of a circle, and not in a straight line, as it really is. Epicurus solved the problem of the fall of atoms on the flat Earth, which tormented Leucippus, by attributing to the atoms a free will, by virtue of which they deviate and unite at will.

Obviously, these ancient Greek scientists-atheists-materialists relied on the mythological ideas set forth in poetic language by Homer and Hesiod in the 7th-8th centuries BC. Similar myths about a flat Earth were among the Hindus, Sumerians, Egyptians, and Scandinavians. But I don’t want to go even further there - I’m writing about something completely different. As a curiosity, one can note the book "Christian Topography" by Cosmas Indikoplova, written between 535 and 547, in which the author represents the Earth as a flat rectangle covered with a convex roof of the sky - a kind of casket-chest. This book was immediately criticized by Cosmas's contemporary John the Grammarian (c. 490-570), who then cited the same quotations from the Bible as the justification for the sphericity of the Earth, as I did. The official Church, however, did not interfere in this dispute about the shape of the Earth, it was much more worried about the heretical views of the arguing - Cosmas was a Nestorian, and John was a tritheist and monophysite. Basil the Great disapproved of such disputes, considering their very subject not related to matters of faith.

If you look for elephants / whales, then first of all you can turn to the once popular work of Slavic folk spiritual literature - the Pigeon Book, where there is a verse: "The earth is founded on seven whales." The folk tradition about the Pigeon Book goes back to the “book with seven seals” in the 5th chapter of the Revelation of John the Theologian, and the verse about whales is borrowed from the apocrypha “The Conversation of the Three Hierarchs”. The outstanding collector of Slavic folklore A.N. Afanasiev wrote: “There is a legend among our common people that the world stands on the back of a colossal whale, and when this monster, suppressed by the weight of the earth’s circle, moves its tail, then there is an earthquake. Others argue that from time immemorial, four whales served as a support for the earth, that one of them died, and his death was the cause global flood and other upheavals in the universe; when the other three also die, at that time the end of the world will come. An earthquake happens because the whales, after lying on their sides, turn to the other side. They also say that in the beginning there were seven whales; but when the earth became heavy with the sins of men, four went into the depths of Ethiopia, and in the days of Noah all go there. And so there was a general flood." Some linguists suspect that, in fact, marine animals have nothing to do with it, but we are talking about fixing the Earth along its four edges, since in Old Slavonic the root "kit" meant "edge". In this case, we again return to Kosma Indikoplov, whose curious book about a rectangular Earth was very popular in Rus' with the common people.

"Flat Earth Societies"

Well, in order to amuse the weary reader in the end, I will point out such not a curiosity, but complete insanity, like the existence of the “Flat Earth Society” in our enlightened time. However, the Flat Earth Society existed from 1956 to the beginning of the 21st century and included in its better times up to 3,000 members. They considered photographs of the Earth from space fakes, other facts - a conspiracy of the authorities and scientists.

The origins of the Flat Earth Society were the English inventor Samuel Rowbotham (1816-1884), who in the 19th century proved the flat shape of the Earth. His followers founded the Universal Zethetic Society. In the United States, Rowbotham's ideas were adopted by John Alexander Dowie, who founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in 1895. In 1906, Dowie's deputy Wilbur Glenn Voliva became head of the church and championed and promoted a flat earth until his death in 1942. In 1956, Samuel Shenton revived the World Zetetic Society under the name International Flat Earth Society. Charles Johnson succeeded him as president of the society in 1971. During the three decades of Johnson's presidency, the number of supporters of the society increased significantly: from a few members to approximately 3,000 people from different countries. The Society distributed newsletters, leaflets, and similar literature advocating the flat earth model. In the face of its leaders, the society claimed that the landing of a man on the moon was a hoax filmed in Hollywood according to the script of Arthur Clarke or Stanley Kubrick. Charles Johnson died in 2001, and the continued existence of the International Flat Earth Society is currently in question. According to the statements of the supporters of the society, all the governments of the Earth have entered into a world conspiracy to deceive the people. When Samuel Shenton was shown photographs of the Earth from orbit and asked what he thought of them, he replied: "It is easy to see how photographs of this sort can fool the ignorant person."

The generally accepted statement that ancient scientists considered our Earth to be flat is not entirely true. Of course, someone considered it flat, but in fact there were several versions, including one that the Earth is a ball. Today, it would seem, all points over i are placed and no one doubts that the Earth is a ball revolving around the Sun.

No matter how. Whether for the sake of laughter or for the sake of PR, or maybe for religious reasons, but the world has again split into two opposing camps on this issue. Are you surprised? If they come up to you and begin to assert that the Earth is flat, will you twist at your temple? Oh well. Is the fact that the Earth is a ball (to be precise, a geoid) and revolves around the Sun, a generally accepted theory and, it seemed, beyond doubt? It wasn't there...

What is the Earth: round or flat?

On the one hand, modern science claims that the Earth is round, and on the other hand ... At the head, perhaps, is the Flat Earth Society. The main goal is to prove that the Earth is flat, and the governments of all countries are in a conspiracy and in various ways mislead about the sphericity of the Earth, hiding the fact that the Earth is flat.

The Flat Earth Society still finds its adherents.

The basic concepts of a flat earth society are:

The Earth is a flat disk, 40,000 kilometers in diameter, centered on the North Pole.

The sun and moon and stars move over the surface of the earth.

Gravity is denied. Free fall acceleration occurs because the Earth is moving upward with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s². Due to the curvature of space-time, this can last indefinitely.

The South Pole is gone. Antarctica is actually the icy edge of our disk - a wall encircling our world.

All photographs of the Earth from space are fakes.

The distance between objects in the southern hemisphere is actually much greater. The fact that flights between them are much faster than it should be according to the map of a flat Earth is simply explained - the crews of the airliners are involved in a conspiracy.

The Sun is something like a powerful searchlight 51 km in diameter, which circles over the Earth at a distance of 4800 km and illuminates it.

Everything that happens is an experiment on us.

All scientific institutions deliberately lie about the earth being spherical and so on.

The government is also lying - working for their masters - reptilians.

There were no flights into space, there’s nothing to say about the Moon, it’s all a hoax.

All videos about flights into space were filmed on Earth.

And off we go. Gradually, the world splits into two halves. One goes to live on a round and spherical Earth, the other - also round, but flat.

Both sides provide "irrefutable" evidence of their vision of the shape of the earth.

Here are some of the most Interesting Facts universe from the lips of both opponents.

The earth is flat because:

IN THE ZONE OF VISIBILITY THE HORIZON LINE IS FLAT Flat-Earth Evidence: Take any photo that has a flat horizon line, not a rounded one. Ball-Earth Refutation: to see real curvature of the horizon line or a plane in the frame, you need a much greater distance from the shooting point from the surface of the earth. This is clearly visible in pictures from space. flat earth response: all pictures from space are fakes of NASA and the like. Space does not exist.

THE BIBLE SAYS A FLAT EARTH

Flat Earth Evidence: in many descriptions in the Bible, the earth is a flat earth.

(Daniel 4:7, 8): “The visions of my head on my bed were like this: I saw, behold, a very tall tree in the middle of the earth. This tree was large and strong, and its height reached to the sky, and it was apparently up to the ends of the whole earth » -

This expression only applies to a flat earth.

Balloon rebuttal:(published taking into account the opinions of fundamentalist Christians):

It should immediately be clarified that the Bible is not scientific work pursuing the goal of explaining the structure of the universe. In the Holy Scriptures, this is done figuratively and in a language understandable to the common people, based on the knowledge that the people had at that time. However, when carefully read and interpreted, the Bible does not contradict modern science and does not indicate that the Earth is not spherical.

In this case, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, who ruled from September 7, 605 to October 7, 562 BC, is described. e .. The tree in a dream, as it turned out from the interpretation of the dream by Daniel, is Nebuchadnezzar himself. Correctly considered the edge of the Earth should be the border of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, for a simple reason: Nebuchadnezzar never ruled the whole Earth. In addition, it speaks of seeing, and not of direct observation.

Flat earth:

(Isaiah 42:5): “Thus says the Lord God, who made the heavens and their expanse, who spread out the earth with its products.” This can only be done with flat earth.

Balloon rebuttal:

IN this description talks about what is now commonly called the continents. modern science considers continents to be flat with minor reservations. If this action is considered applicable to a plane, this does not indicate in any way that the entire Earth is also flat.

Flat earth:there is no continuation of the dialogue from the opponent yet

(Matthew 4:8): “Again the devil takes him [Jesus] to a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory”

This is only possible if the earth is flat.

Balloon rebuttal(from Bible scholars and scholars):

All the highest mountains on Earth are known. Climbers climbed everything, and more than once. To consider all the “kingdoms”, alas, is not possible with any of them, and the reason is not at all that the Earth is round (this is just not a hindrance), but that it is impossible to consider anything at such a distance . But modern man can view "all the kingdoms of the world" on a computer monitor or smartphone. However, the possibilities and abilities of Satan are far superior to human ones. In what way he showed the kingdoms and why a high mountain was needed, we do not know.

The most interesting thing is that theoretically this is how you can view the entire Earth. Don't be surprised, it's really true. This phenomenon is called diffraction. Under certain conditions, we see the horizon line much further than theoretically we should see it. This is how mirages occur. Of course, in real life the chances of seeing something like that are incredibly small. After all, this requires a certain air temperature, humidity, transparency and, possibly, something else. Even less likely to see the whole Earth. And absolutely insignificant - to view what you want. But who said that the devil does not know how to use this phenomenon? Showing such mirages-pictures to Jesus would be a very effective way to influence his human spiritual and sensual nature in order to achieve admiration from him. On the other hand, here, too, we can talk about seeing without direct observation.

Flat earth:there is no continuation of the dialogue from the opponent yet

(Job 38:12,13): “Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning and indicated to the dawn its place, so that it embraces ends of the earth and shook off the wicked from her…”

(Job. 37:3 ) "Under the whole sky, its peal, and its brilliance - to the ends of the earth ."

Edges can only have a plane.

Balloon rebuttal:(from Bible scholars and scholars):

The Lord speaks to Job about the unshakable, established by Him order of the alternation of day and night. It is figuratively said that the dawn disperses darkness and stops the deeds of the wicked committed at night. The expression "end of the earth" is also used by those who are well aware of the spherical shape of the Earth.

There are other references in the Bible to the edges and corners of the Earth, which can be interpreted in different ways: for example, that these are the edges of continents or countries. In addition, the Bible itself confirms that the word "earth" means dry land:

(Gen. 1:10 ) And God called the land earth and called the collection of waters the seas.

Therefore, as proof that the earth is flat, these scriptures cannot be accepted.

Flat earth:there is no continuation of the dialogue from the opponent yet

BEDFORD EXPERIMENT

Conducted in 1838 by Samuel Rowbotham. This experiment is considered the most reliable evidence.

The essence of the experiment is extremely simple. Rowbotham found a flat area of ​​about 10 km (6 miles) on the Bedford River. He set up the telescope at a height of 20 inches (50.8 cm) from the surface of the water and began to observe the receding boat with a five-meter mast.

Throughout the movement of the boat, the mast was visible. On the basis of which Rowbotham declared that the Earth is flat.

If the earth were round, the mast would have been out of sight.

Balloon rebuttal:

uplift horizon in this case was due to the phenomenon of refraction. Due to positive refraction, the visible horizon has risen. As a result, its geographic range has increased compared to its geometric range. This made it possible to see objects hidden by the curvature of the Earth. At normal temperature, the rise of the horizon is 6-7%.

Reference: When the temperature rises too high the visible horizon can rise to the true mathematical horizon. earth surface at the same time visually straighten. The earth, to the delight of flat earthers, will become flat. Of course, only visually. The visibility range under these conditions will become infinitely large. The radius of curvature of the beam can become equal to the radius of the globe.

Reference: The Italian physicist and astronomer Grimaldi Francesco Maria (1618-1663) is considered the discoverer of the refraction of light.

Naturally, Samuel Rowbotham was well aware of the phenomena of refraction. And it is quite logical that the published book describing experiments proving that the Earth is flat did not arouse any interest among scientists. But there were many adherents. One of Hemplen's followers even made a bet of 500 pounds (the amount, at that time, not a small amount) that he supposedly would prove to any opponent that the Earth is flat. And such an opponent was found. It was the scientist Alfred Wallace. Of course, he knew exactly what he was doing. The experiment was carried out in the same valley. But Wallace slightly changed the observation. He used an intermediate point - a bridge, on which the circle was fixed. A horizontal line was placed at the end point. The telescope, circle and line were at the same height relative to the surface of the water. If the Earth were flat, a line could be seen through the circle at its center. Naturally, this did not happen. However, Hemplen refused to pay the due amount and called Wallace a liar and a forger.

So what is Earth?

Isn't it time to tell true story that Magellan simply swam in a circle, and not around the Earth. Cook, in search of Antarctica, sailed along the edge of the Earth. And by the way, he was right: Antarctica does not exist! Kruzenshtern also doubted for nothing when he discovered Antarctica. After all, he just ran into an icy wall that was created so that the oceans would not flow out. It is not clear, of course, how he managed to get around our Earth disk (yes, yes, disk, let's call a spade a spade) in 751 days. Again conspiracy and falsification! He didn’t put anything on the map and didn’t go anywhere, I suppose he drank beer somewhere in Australia, and they gave him ready-made maps, they drew them in NASA. NASA is such a special organization that fools us for our billions, draws cool pictures of space, makes programs for viewing the supposedly round Earth, and shoots hoax shows of flying into space and to the moon. The governments are in cahoots, all the scientists are in cahoots, the pilots are in cahoots, the police are also in the know - collusion, everything smart people also in conversation. In short, everything is in conspiracy against honest people who understand the essence of the true universe and, finally, with the advent of the Internet, are ready to open the eyes of those who are not yet in the know.

This is what this serious problem looks like today. So what kind of Earth do we actually live on? If you know any facts, please report them in the comments. Perhaps in the article you will be able to detect inaccuracies or the need to supplement it, we also comment. And we will certainly make an addition, and possibly a continuation, taking into account all your comments and wishes. Please behave correctly, do not send participants to the third class high school or to a psychiatrist, twist your finger at your temple. Checked - not working. Only weighty arguments and evidence of a flat or spherical Earth will help save the situation.

On October 4, 2017, the planet Earth celebrated the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the space age of mankind - the launch of the first artificial satellite Earth.

Satellite to expose the conspiracy of scientists

But, as it turns out, even now there are skeptics who believe that all space research is a complete hoax. In particular, scientists allegedly lie about what shape our planet actually has.

At the end of September American hip hop artist Bobby Ray Simons, acting under the pseudonym B.o.B, began raising funds for the construction of satellites. With their help, he is going to expose the NASA conspiracy and prove that the Earth is actually flat.

This could be regarded as a curiosity, but, as it turns out, not too big, but quite active brotherhood of supporters of the flat Earth operates throughout the planet.

Mr. Rowbotham and his followers

In 1992, the Vatican - perhaps the world's most conservative organization - officially rehabilitated Galileo Galilei, recognizing that the Earth is not a stationary body and does revolve around the Sun. On this, it would seem, the story with a flat Earth should have ended. But it turned out completely different.

In the 19th century English inventor and writer Samuel Rowbotham He wrote a book in which, based on his own experience, he proved that the Earth is flat. He popularized his theory with the help of lectures, and attracted many supporters. In the United States, Rowbotham's supporters founded the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church, which preached the idea of ​​a flat earth.

In 1956, the International Flat Earth Society was formed. Oddly enough, but the ranks of this organization were replenished even after the flight of Gagarin and the landing of American astronauts on the moon. By the way, it was the supporters of the flat Earth who actively promoted the version that the moon landing was a hoax filmed in Hollywood.

Earth is a disk, the North Pole is the center, Antarctica does not exist

So what is the Earth according to the supporters of this theory?

Our planet is a disk 40,000 kilometers in diameter, in the center of which is North Pole. In fact, there is no Antarctica and the South Pole - for the southernmost continent they take a wall of ice encircling the planet at the edges. The sun, moon and stars revolve above the surface of the earth.

Pictures from space are not considered by supporters of a flat Earth as an argument. In their opinion, planetary scientists are in a conspiracy, and everything that is published is a well-thought-out lie.

“I'm going down. At the same place!"

May 2017 American Darryl Marble I took a building level with me on the plane and put it on the table in the back of the front seat. According to the calculations of the man, in 23 minutes of the experiment, the plane must cover 326 kilometers. According to Marble, if the Earth has a curved surface, then the trajectory of the aircraft will deviate from the horizontal by 8 kilometers. To compensate, the pilot would have to lower the aircraft's nose. But this did not happen, which means, they say, the Earth is flat. The experimenter called the existence of gravity "just a theory."

Blogger jeranism drove his car for 144 kilometers on the highway and recorded the entire journey on video. According to his calculations, if the Earth were a ball, then during the journey he would rise by 1.6 kilometers. Since the road remained flat, and there were no bends, it means that no spherical Earth exists.

In July 2017, the fighter for the flat Earth became famous in Russia. Schoolboy Maxim Ozherelyev on his video channel on the Internet, he fiercely defended the version about the plane of his native planet: “Here I jumped. The earth rotates at a speed of 400 meters per second. I'm going down. At the same place! I think why the Earth didn’t do this… move, and I didn’t fly away 400 meters somewhere?

Maxim became famous throughout Runet, but he turned out to be not a very persistent person. After users ridiculed him, he chose to delete his videos, and on this topic he no longer speaks.

“Who are we with? With God and the Bible, or with the Freemasons and their pseudoscience?

However, there are people in Russia who are stronger in faith. IN social network"VKontakte" there is a "Flat Earth Society", whose members are more than 28 thousand people.

“This group was created to counter pseudoscience that encroaches on the foundations of the biblical world order,” the organizers of the project say. - Why do we defend the truth about the Flat Earth? It's not that we, like all honest people, are fighting for the Truth. And not even that the plane of the Earth is obvious to anyone who has eyes and the ability to look with them. It's all about the question of trust in God... The Bible gives us a clear and precise picture of the world order. Modern science, financed by Masonic circles, denies this picture and slips its own instead, designed to confuse minds. We have a choice - who are we with? With God and the Bible, or with the Freemasons and their pseudoscience?

Agree, this no longer sounds like a funny joke. One more step, and adherents of this society will begin to interpret the advocacy of the sphericity of the Earth as an insult to the feelings of believers, with all the ensuing consequences.

flat earth on TV

On September 25, 2017, the supporters of the flat Earth in Russia had a real holiday. The REN TV channel showed the release of the TV show "The Most Shocking Hypotheses" with Igor Prokopenko, in which the floor was given to those who believe the Earth is flat.

Among the heroes of the program were former NASA employee Matthew Boylan, who claimed he was forced to edit real satellite images to make the Earth appear spherical, and Pavel Sviridov, one of the most famous "flat earthers" of Russia. The latter announced his performance in the program on the Internet in the following way: “I am involved in the creation of this film. As you know, TV success is measured by ratings. Therefore, I appeal to you with a request - spread information about this film as much as possible, let as many people as possible watch it, be active, write reviews, discuss, including on the channel's forum, and then we will break through this dam of lies and silence. In the program, Sviridov claims that NASA, while demonstrating footage of astronauts from orbit, is actually using chromakey and other technologies, falsifying reality. The floor was also given to other supporters of the flat Earth from among bloggers and amateur scientists who debunked all evidence of the sphericity of the planet.

At the same time, the real scientists were not given a word in the program, and it turned out that they had nothing to object to Sviridov and the company.

"Those who want to know information that is recognized as official science - this is a textbook of natural history"

But a real scandal erupted after it became known that the author of the program, Igor Prokopenko, became the winner of TEFI-2017 in the nomination ... "Educational Program". True, he received the award not for "The Most Shocking Hypotheses", but for his other project - "Military Secret".

The presentation of the award to Prokopenko immediately after the program about the "flat Earth" caused indignation among many. The journalist himself answered the critics as follows: “It is not my task that a number of data that appear in my program be recognized official science, for one simple reason: the program is called "The Most Shocking Hypotheses". Anyone who wants to know information that is recognized by official science is in the fourth grade natural history textbook. Those who want to know all the versions and hypotheses that exist today - from the classic to the most ridiculous and fantastic - this is for us. There is no contradiction in this."

Indeed, there is no contradiction. In fact, the TEFI laureate said the following: I have the right to express any theory, and if someone who is not burdened with the burden of knowledge falls under their influence, then this is not a problem for the creators of the program.

“I don’t believe that people can be such idiots”

The cosmonauts who are now in orbit also joined the discussion of the topic, which became unusually acute on the days of the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first satellite.

During the presentation of the SPACEWALK 360 project, dedicated to the first panoramic video in history, which was made in open space, Russian Sergei Ryazansky remarked: “In my opinion, flat-earthers are such a cool professional space trolling. I don't believe people can be such idiots."

And yet, one can argue with the heroes of space. People can be extraordinary idiots. Even in the 61st year of the space age.

The shape of the Earth - our home - worried humanity for a long time. Today, every student has no doubt that the planet is spherical. But it took a long time to get to this knowledge, they went through church anathemas and the courts of the Inquisition. Today people are wondering who proved that the Earth is round. After all, not everyone liked the lessons of history and geography. Let's try to find the answer to this interesting question.

Excursion into history

Many scientific work confirm us in our thoughts that before the famous Christopher Columbus, mankind believed that they lived on a flat Earth. However, this hypothesis does not stand up to scrutiny for two reasons.

1. discovered a new continent, and did not sail to Asia. If he had anchored off the coast of real India, then he could be called the man who proved the sphericity of the planet. The discovery of the New World is not a confirmation of the round shape of the Earth.
2. Long before the epochal journey of Columbus, there were people who doubted that the planet was flat, and presented their arguments as evidence. It is likely that the navigator was familiar with the works of some ancient authors, and the knowledge of the ancient sages was not lost.

Is the earth round?

Different peoples had their own ideas about the structure of the world and space. Before answering the question of who proved that the Earth is round, you should familiarize yourself with other versions. The earliest theories of world-building claimed that the earth was flat (as it was seen by people). They explained the movement of heavenly bodies (sun, moon, stars) by the fact that it was their planet that was the center of the Cosmos and the Universe.

IN Ancient Egypt The earth was represented by a disk lying on four elephants. They, in turn, stood on a giant turtle floating in the sea. The one who discovered that the Earth is round has not yet been born, but the theory of the sages of the pharaoh could explain the causes of earthquakes and floods, the rising and setting of the sun.

The Greeks also had their own ideas about the world. The earthly disk in their understanding was covered with celestial spheres, to which stars were tied with invisible threads. They considered the moon and the sun to be gods - Selena and Helios. Nevertheless, the books of Pannekoek and Dreyer collected the works of the ancient Greek sages, which contradicted the then generally accepted views. Eratosthenes and Aristotle were the ones who discovered that the earth is round.

The Arab teachings were also famous for their precise knowledge of astronomy. The tables of the movement of stars they created are so accurate that they even raised doubts about their authenticity. The Arabs, with their observations, pushed society to change their ideas about the structure of the world and the universe.

Evidence for the sphericity of celestial bodies

I wonder what guided the scientists, denying the observations of the people around them? The one who proved that the Earth is round drew attention to the fact that if it were flat, then the luminaries would be visible in the sky at the same time for everyone. But in practice, everyone knew that many of the stars that are visible in the Nile Valley cannot be seen over Athens. The sunny day in the Greek capital is longer than, for example, in Alexandria (this is due to the curvature in the north-south and east-west directions).

The scientist, who proved that the Earth is round, noticed that the object, moving away during movement, leaves only its upper part visible (for example, the masts of the ship are visible on the shore, and not its hull). This is only logical if the planet is spherical and not flat. And Plato also considered the fact that the ball is an ideal shape to be a strong argument in favor of sphericity.

Modern evidence for nodularity

Today we have technical devices that allow us not only to observe celestial bodies, but also to rise into the sky and see our planet from the side. Here is some more evidence that it is not flat. As you know, during the blue planet closes the night luminary itself. And the shadow is round. And also the various masses that make up the Earth tend to go down, giving it a spherical shape.

Science and Church

The Vatican recognized that the Earth is round rather late. When it was impossible to deny the obvious. Early European writers at first dismissed this theory as one that contradicted Holy Scripture. During the spread of Christianity, not only other religions and pagan cults succumbed to persecution. All scientists who have different experiences, made observations, but did not believe in one God, were considered heretics. At that time, manuscripts and entire libraries were destroyed, temples and statues, objects of art were destroyed. The holy fathers believed that people do not need science, only Jesus Christ is the source of the greatest wisdom, and there is enough information in the holy books for life. The geocentric theory of the structure of the world was also considered incorrect and dangerous by the church.

Cosmas Indikopleust described the Earth as a kind of box, at the bottom of which rested a stronghold inhabited by people. The sky served as a "lid", but it was motionless. The moon, stars and sun moved like angels across the sky and hid behind a high mountain. Above this complex structure rested the Kingdom of Heaven.

Some unknown geographer from Ravenna described our planet as a flat object, surrounded by an ocean, an endless desert and mountains, behind which the sun, moon and stars are hidden. Isidore (bishop of Seville) in 600 AD did not exclude the spherical shape of the Earth in his works. Bede the Venerable was based on the work of Pliny, therefore he stated that the Sun is larger than the Earth, that they are in the form of a sphere, and that the cosmos is not geocentric.

Summing up

So, returning to Columbus, it can be argued that his path was not based solely on intuition. Not wanting to diminish his merits, we can say that the knowledge of his era should have brought him to India. And society no longer rejected the spherical shape of our house.

The first idea about the Earth-sphere was expressed by the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes, who measured the radius of the planet already in the fourth century BC. The error of his calculations was only one percent! Checked his guesses in the sixteenth century, having made his famous Who proved that the Earth is round? Theoretically, this was done by Galileo Galilei, who, by the way, was sure that it was she who revolves around the sun, and not vice versa.