It’s odd because many of the flat earthers don’t seem stupid exactly. The gyroscope experiment was well designed and requires some decent physics knowledge, but then they go and complete ignore the results for some complete bullshit explanation
Some are, yes. Their arguments are sometimes clever, and it takes a little doing to disentangle why they’re wrong. For example, the argument that the flat plane is accelerating at 9.8m/s/s, which gives the same effect as gravity. Some people note that this would mean the Earth would soon be traveling faster than light, but that’s wrong. At significant fractions of the speed of light, you no longer get the right answer by simply adding acceleration to how fast you were going previously from second to second. Rather, tt gets you infinitesimally closer to the speed of light without ever getting there.
However, this model doesn’t account for why we get different acceleration from gravity when we go to higher altitudes. It also depends on Einstein’s ideas of relativity, which flat earthers will often reject in other contexts.
But then there’s the gate swinging guy, and it’s not even clear what the hell he thinks he’s showing.
The gate swinging guy reminds me of my cousin, who also happens to be a flat earther.
She now thinks I’m in on it because I’m in HVAC, so I “know about pressure” but I don’t entertain her ramblings about how gravity isn’t real and its really the weight and pressure of the atmosphere pushing things down.
Notable excerpts from that argument:
Apparently pressure can only force things down, the pressure from air under an object doesn’t stop the pressure from above forcing it down.
The pressure of the atmosphere apparently isn’t from gravity pulling the atmosphere down, but rather it’s more like a soda bottle, where there’s a dome that holds in all the air and stops it from escaping to space. According to her it’s impossible to have a positive pressure next to a vacuum without the atmosphere being violently ripped away.
All satellites are really just balloons that have to be put up frequently because the balloons pop. But the ISS isn’t real. All rocket launches are really just for public amusement, they don’t do anything but provide an excuse to fund NASA, who is apparently in charge of the global conspiracy.
Before NASA, everyone knew the earth was flat and there was a dome in the sky, apparently. When asked for a source on this, she said it had all been erased.
When asked for the motivation in making people think the earth was round, it’s to make people question there faith.
Oh, and planets are actually spheres, but that’s okay because there’s no life or liquid water on them, earth is special because it’s a disk that god put the dome over to protect his creations.
When asked why people can’t jump higher on mountaintops, despite the atmosphere being noticeably less dense, I was told the atmosphere is the same pressure, the air is just colder, and people only where oxygen masks at high elevation because the air is too cold to breath comfortably, it’s cold not because of lack of pressure, but because it’s close to the dome, which touches the vacuum of space.(this is where I gave up).
It’s odd because many of the flat earthers don’t seem stupid exactly. The gyroscope experiment was well designed and requires some decent physics knowledge, but then they go and complete ignore the results for some complete bullshit explanation
Some are, yes. Their arguments are sometimes clever, and it takes a little doing to disentangle why they’re wrong. For example, the argument that the flat plane is accelerating at 9.8m/s/s, which gives the same effect as gravity. Some people note that this would mean the Earth would soon be traveling faster than light, but that’s wrong. At significant fractions of the speed of light, you no longer get the right answer by simply adding acceleration to how fast you were going previously from second to second. Rather, tt gets you infinitesimally closer to the speed of light without ever getting there.
However, this model doesn’t account for why we get different acceleration from gravity when we go to higher altitudes. It also depends on Einstein’s ideas of relativity, which flat earthers will often reject in other contexts.
But then there’s the gate swinging guy, and it’s not even clear what the hell he thinks he’s showing.
The gate swinging guy reminds me of my cousin, who also happens to be a flat earther.
She now thinks I’m in on it because I’m in HVAC, so I “know about pressure” but I don’t entertain her ramblings about how gravity isn’t real and its really the weight and pressure of the atmosphere pushing things down.
Notable excerpts from that argument:
Apparently pressure can only force things down, the pressure from air under an object doesn’t stop the pressure from above forcing it down.
The pressure of the atmosphere apparently isn’t from gravity pulling the atmosphere down, but rather it’s more like a soda bottle, where there’s a dome that holds in all the air and stops it from escaping to space. According to her it’s impossible to have a positive pressure next to a vacuum without the atmosphere being violently ripped away.
All satellites are really just balloons that have to be put up frequently because the balloons pop. But the ISS isn’t real. All rocket launches are really just for public amusement, they don’t do anything but provide an excuse to fund NASA, who is apparently in charge of the global conspiracy.
Before NASA, everyone knew the earth was flat and there was a dome in the sky, apparently. When asked for a source on this, she said it had all been erased.
When asked for the motivation in making people think the earth was round, it’s to make people question there faith.
Oh, and planets are actually spheres, but that’s okay because there’s no life or liquid water on them, earth is special because it’s a disk that god put the dome over to protect his creations.
When asked why people can’t jump higher on mountaintops, despite the atmosphere being noticeably less dense, I was told the atmosphere is the same pressure, the air is just colder, and people only where oxygen masks at high elevation because the air is too cold to breath comfortably, it’s cold not because of lack of pressure, but because it’s close to the dome, which touches the vacuum of space.(this is where I gave up).