c/flat-earth-talk

That day my level went crazy on a construction site

I was framing a house in Phoenix and my 6 foot level kept showing everything was off by 1/4 inch. Took me two hours and three different levels to realize my eyes were playing tricks from staring at the sun. Has anyone else had a tool mess with your head like that?

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ivan774•11d ago

Curious about the horizon dip: my boat experiment gave me second thoughts

I took a boat out on Lake Michigan last month about 15 miles from shore with a good camera. I expected the horizon to drop steadily as I went further out, but it stayed pretty flat the whole time. The curvature calculators say I should have seen over 150 feet of drop, but my photos didn't show that. Has anyone else tried this kind of test and gotten weird results?

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nelson.vera•17d ago

My neighbor's laser pointer showed me the curve last Tuesday

He aimed a green laser across the lake at 7pm and the dot was clearly above the shoreline by 3 feet. Has anyone else tried this with a visible beam at night?

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aaronsullivan•17d ago

Found a 150 year old map that shows Antarctica with no ice

I was digging through some old books at a library sale last month and found a map from 1865 that shows Antarctica as a green continent with rivers and mountains. The weird part is they didn't discover Antarctica was ice covered until way later, so how did the mapmaker know the shape under the ice? Does anyone have info on old maps that don't match what we're taught about history?

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the_thomas•19d ago

My buddy from geology class dropped a line about gravity that shook my flat earth assumptions

We were grabbing coffee after class and he said 'if the earth were flat, gravity would pull everything toward the center of the disk, not straight down like we always feel.' Now I'm trying to wrap my head around whether that math actually works out or if he's just messing with me. Has anyone here looked into how gravity would behave on a flat plane?

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charles640•21d ago

The day I stopped trusting my horizon reference for star sightings

I used to take star positions as solid proof of a round Earth until last July when I set up a simple laser level across a lake at sunset. The water's curve actually bent the beam away from my target marker by about 3 inches over a mile. Has anyone else tried a basic laser test like that or am I missing something?

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roberts.leo•22d ago

My expensive laser level was off by almost an inch on a 10 foot wall

I was hanging some new shelving in my garage last weekend (a Saturday morning project that I thought would take 2 hours max). I pulled out my Bosch laser level that I spent $120 on two years ago, and it was giving me a line that looked fine to the naked eye. But when I went to check the end points with a bubble level, the right side was nearly an inch lower than the left. Turns out the calibration got knocked out of whack when I dropped it off a ladder back in February. I ended up using a string level for the rest of the job, which honestly worked better and cost me like $3. Has anyone else had a fancy tool fail on them mid-project like that?

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amy_west•24d ago

Just realized my compass experiment took 3 days to debunk my own flat earth theory

I spent last Tuesday afternoon at a local park in Phoenix with a cheap compass and a string, trying to prove the horizon was flat. What I thought would be a 10 minute check turned into a 3 day headache because the needle kept drifting toward a nearby parking lot's metal fence. Has anyone else had their simple tests get wrecked by urban interference?

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gavin228•24d ago

Took a laser level to the beach to test the curve and got a straight line instead

Honestly, I went down to Santa Monica Pier last Saturday with a 50-foot laser level and a friend to help spot. We set it up along the shoreline at sunset, aiming it across the water for about 3 miles toward the Palos Verdes cliffs. According to globe model, the beam should have dropped off by like 6 feet due to curvature, but it stayed dead level the whole time. We took photos and measurements with a ruler, and there was zero bend or dip anywhere. Has anyone else tried this kind of test on the ocean and seen the same thing?

3 comments

grant478•25d ago

Appreciation post: That clear night on my roof last Friday

I spent three hours on my roof watching stars with a cheap telescope I got for my birthday. The moon had this weird halo around it that I still can't explain. Has anyone else seen something like that near the moon on a cold night?

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lewis.mila•26d ago

Question about the 24 hour sun in Antarctica...

So I keep seeing videos from people who claim to be in Antarctica during summer and they show the sun circling overhead for 24 hours straight. That would be impossible on a flat earth model unless the sun is really small and close, moving in a circle above the plane. But then why do the compass readings and star patterns look totally different in the southern hemisphere compared to the north? Has anyone here actually tried to model how a small local sun would create those 24 hour days without breaking everything else we observe?

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ryanm60•26d ago

I finally bought a $150 laser level for my ceiling project

Used it to map out where the light fixtures go on my flat ceiling and it was spot on. Has anyone else used one for checking if their floor is truly level in a house built on a slab?

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the_piper•26d ago

Just saw a video claiming the horizon always rises to eye level no matter how high you go and I'm honestly rethinking everything

I was watching a live stream from a high altitude balloon yesterday and the horizon line stayed exactly level with the camera the whole way up, which directly contradicts what I was taught about curvature, so has anyone else seen this and actually looked into the math behind it?

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lily57•28d ago

TIL the sun sets differently at the coast than it does inland

I was down at Myrtle Beach last weekend watching the sunset over the ocean, and it just dropped below the horizon way faster than I ever see it set back home in Raleigh. My buddy Tim said that's because the earth is curved and the ocean's horizon is lower, but that got me thinking about how that fits with the flat earth model. If we're on a flat plane, shouldn't the sunset look the same everywhere? Has anyone else noticed this kind of difference and tried to explain it?

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logan525•29d ago

TIL a flat earther at a meetup actually changed how I look at sunsets

Went to a local meetup in Tulsa last month, and this guy named Dave pointed out that my whole argument about horizon curvature was based on a photo I took from a beach. He said the water distortion and lens flare were making it look curved when it's actually flat. I went back and took the same shot from a pier 50 feet up, and sure enough, the line straightened out. Anyone else had their own evidence turn against them after someone called out the setup?

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gray_morgan•1mo ago

Appreciation post: My brother showed me a simple experiment with a ball and a shadow

I used to be dead set on the flat earth idea, but my brother Dave suggested we go outside with a basketball and a flashlight. We set the ball on a stick in the yard and moved the light around it. The shadow on the ball matched what you'd see during a lunar eclipse, with a curved edge. That test took about 10 minutes and it made me wonder what else I could check myself. Has anyone else tried a hands-on experiment that shifted their view?

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robert659•1mo ago

My friend's 5 minute comment about the horizon really got under my skin

I was at a cookout last Saturday, just chatting with my buddy Mike about nothing in particular. He knows I'm into flat earth stuff, he usually just rolls his eyes and changes the subject. But this time he pointed out that if the earth was flat, then the horizon should always rise to meet your eye level no matter how high you go. He said something like "you ever notice how on a plane the horizon dips below the center of the window when you climb?" And honestly, that hit me hard because I've seen that with my own eyes a hundred times. I mean, I've watched those high altitude balloon videos too, and the curve is always there. It's got me questioning why I never really looked at that one detail before, you know? Has anyone else had a friend casually drop something that made you stop and think?

3 comments