Should "flat earthers" maybe try KSP?

[J128MM]

The entire idea of a flat earth is comical to us, the average KSP player. I'm starting to feel sorry for those lost, misguided souls. Should we maybe donate a few copies of the game to their cause? It might. . .. help? What are everyone's thoughts on this concept of a flat earth? Let's try not to mock them though. If this topic doesn't suit this forum, please feel free to remove this thread.

[Manwith Noname]

Darbbo님이 먼저 게시:

The fact that it has been proven to be able to see the bottom of buildings 60+ miles away proves that the earth is flat.

No, it proves that light can bend.

[Darbbo]

Explain same senario at night time. Earth is flat.

[Manwith Noname]

Light doesn't stop existing at night. If there was no light you wouldn't see anything 1 cm from you let alone 60 miles away. You're just showing that a lack of understanding of how things work results in people believing anything they choose.

[Darbbo]

A lack of understanding how things work? What you mean is I have a lack of understanding how you people can believe anything told to you without doing the research and experiments for yourselves. Try a simple experiment that kids at schools should have picked up on before getting brainwashed. Go to a park with a friend stand in the middle of a "merry-go-round" and have them spin you around until you are going 1037 miles per hour and you will have flown off of it long before that speed....But you people believe that we cannot feel the earth spinning 1037 miles per hour at the equator? You clearly have blinders on.

[JtBryant]

Earth has a radius of 6,378.1 km (3,963.2 mi) and a rotaional speed of 1,674.4 km/h (1,040.4 mph), so the angular velocity is only about .0000727 radians per second (.00416 degrees per second).
A standard marry-go-round has a radius of about 2m (6.56ft) so to match the angular velocity of the earth's rotaion it would need a rotaional velocity of only .0005235 km/hr (.0003253mph)

[UFO]

My favorite (and KSP related) piece of proof is to have a gander at Heavens above; mark out your location on the globe, pick out an Iridium flash that fits your schedule (sundown and sunup, generally) and it will show up like clockwork. The bright ones are impossible to miss. Or just go out on a really cold, clear night, wait until your eyes have adjusted and watch the satellites zip by overhead. There's generally a bunch of them visible on any given night, most of them faint. The thing with the Iridium sats is the double whammy: it's a group of satellites in orbit (gasp!) AND they have huge solar panels that catch the light of the sun, a big shiny object that is invisible to the observer when the flash is seen because it is... Wait for it... Under the horizon!
Hey, if the merry-go-round experiment has you so convinced (I'm sure an object 1.5 meters in diameter compares well to the earth) tell me what you think of the Coriolis force and I'll go make some popcorn. Free entertainment! ;-)

[Manwith Noname]

Somehow, I knew that kind of response would come eventually. Here's the thing, it's not just believing what I'm told. If you think I have never questioned reality then you are sorely mistaken.

Have I ever personally seen the Earth from space to know it's a giant ball? No

Do I have a telescope with which I have looked at Jupiter and seen it's moons transition across it and disappear behind it? Have I looked at Mars and Saturn? Have I seen Mercury transition across the Sun? Yes.

Is every single planet I have viewed a spheroidal shape? Yes.

Darbbo님이 먼저 게시:

Go to a park with a friend stand in the middle of a "merry-go-round" and have them spin you around until you are going 1037 miles per hour and you will have flown off of it long before that speed....But you people believe that we cannot feel the earth spinning 1037 miles per hour at the equator? You clearly have blinders on.

Again, your lack of understanding is what allows you to see this analogy to make sense. the merry go round doesn't have enough mass to override that of the Earth. It doesn't have enough mass to keep you rooted in place like the Earth pulls you to the ground. It also has a significantly smaller circumference that means you will feel the forces more dramatically because you are so close to it's centre of rotation.

Edit:

JtBryant님이 먼저 게시:

...Math...

I could go into greater detail about how light works but I'm keeping it simple. People who seriously believe the Earth is flat probably won't understand the complex explanations.

[Darbbo]

That means absolutely nothing. 1037 miles per hour is still 1037 miles per hour no matter how you try to explain it away. The fact that we lose our ballance on an airplane when walking down the aisle whn in flight means we can feel movement on a much smaller scale when compared to earths mass.

[Manwith Noname]

Oh, I also forgot to add...I simply listen to what I'm told and believe it as truth?

The irony.

[JtBryant]

It only requires .0339m/s/s of centripital acceleration to stay on the earth (much lower than the 9.8 it provides).
It would require 108164.1728 m/s/s of centripital acceleration to stay on your marry-go-round, or about 165350 lbs for a 150lbs person.

[Red]

They could just mod the game so all the bodies are flat.

But no the Earth is not flat. You can argue that most individuals have never seen the round Earth with their own eyes.
But you can be pretty sure there is absolutly no reason or point in lying about it either. So yes i trust that the Earth is round.

[Dandyman]

Manwith Noname님이 먼저 게시:

/snip
I could go into greater detail about how light works but I'm keeping it simple. People who seriously believe the Earth is flat probably won't understand the complex explanations

/snip
Flat Earthers are a fascinating glimpse into cognitive dissonance. No amount of explanations will ever matter.

[sal_vager]

Or they could be messing with you...

[Manwith Noname]

The thought had crossed my mind, that this is a ruse and flat Earthers are just playing a prank but if you spend any amount of time browsing these kinds of videos on youtube, these people should play poker because they really do give the impression this is a firm belief.

That may well be how it started out. Like a social experiment to see how they can influence people's thinking.

[TreeCase]

Darbbo님이 먼저 게시:

That means absolutely nothing. 1037 miles per hour is still 1037 miles per hour no matter how you try to explain it away. The fact that we lose our ballance on an airplane when walking down the aisle whn in flight means we can feel movement on a much smaller scale when compared to earths mass.

See, the problem with your experiment is that the two systems (Earth and the merry-go-round) are not equivalent. The merry-go-round is much smaller than Earth, and so accelerating it to 1037 miles per hour means it will rotate many, many more times than Earth would in the same timeframe. The Earth spins at a rate of 1 rotation per day. The merry-go-round would be spinning on the order of multiple rotations per second. To make your experiment proper, with the two systems being equal, you should have your friend spin the merry-go-round at 1 rotation per day. That would properly simulate the rotation of Earth.

(Basically restating what JtBryant said, but with less math.)