[geocentrism] Re: Ships Hull for Regner
- From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:06:32 +1000
I read this article years ago Steven. Engenious if true.. Just shows how
science like statistics can be manipulated to win a case. But in 1881 poor old
Samuel Birley Rowbotham did not have a stratospheric flying jet to observe from
did he, nor a laser beam . But Christopher Columbus's father had an equivalent
method. to prove to his young son that the world was a sphere. He took him
from the beach observation of a departing ship, to the top of a nearby cliff,
which of course brought the hull back into view.. So the Catholic legend
goes.. as I said, engenious if true.
However much Samuel troubled to answer the objection concerning an elevated
view position, its strange he did not consider a telescope. The known curvature
of the earth was calculated and all mariners of his time used the drop below
the horizon measured on a known mast height to estimate distance of another
ship. The figure of x miles per foot, exactly conformed with the known or
estimated size of the sphere.
Philip.
----- Original Message -----
From: Steven Jones
To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 12:13 AM
Subject: [geocentrism] Ships Hull for Regner
Dear Regner,
Smiles all around. Firstly, you must think I'm some wacky guy who is merely a
musician, but I have an open mind and am quite rational I assure you. Since
I've looked at the concave Earth quite a lot recently, you might be surprised
to know that I can expertly answer your supposed proof of the Earth's
convexity. I cite from the excellent book "Earth not a Globe" by by Parallax
(Samuel Birley Rowbotham) [1881]. Although this is flat Earth material, it's
relevant still for the argument proposed.
If your using Thunderbird, make sure you allow remote images so the diagrams
display.
CHAPTER XIV.
EXAMINATION OF THE SO-CALLED "PROOFS" OF THE EARTH'S ROTUNDITY.--WHY A SHIP'S
HULL DISAPPEARS BEFORE THE MAST-HEAD.
IT has already been proved that the astronomers of the Copernican school
merely assumed the rotundity of the earth as a doctrine which enabled them to
explain certain well-known phenomena. "What other explanation can be imagined
except the sphericity of the earth?" is the language of Professor de Morgan,
and it expresses the state of mind of all who hold that the earth is a globe.
There is on their part an almost amusing innocence of the fact, than in seeking
to explain phenomena by the assumption of rotundity, another assumption is
necessarily involved, viz., that nothing else will explain the phenomena in
question but the foregone and gratuitous conclusion to which they have
committed themselves. To argue, for instance, that because the lower part of an
outward-bound vessel disappears before the mast-head, the water must be round,
is to assume that a round surface only can produce such an effect. But if it
can be shown that a simple law of perspective in connection with a plane
surface necessarily produces this appearance, the assumption of rotundity is
not required, and all the misleading fallacies and confusion involved in or
mixed up with it may be avoided.
p. 202
Before explaining the influence of perspective in causing-the hull of a ship
to disappear first when outward bound, it is necessary to remove an error in
its application, which artists and teachers have generally committed, and which
if persisted in will not only prevent their giving, as it has hitherto done,
absolutely correct representations of natural things, but also deprive them of
the power to understand the cause of the lower part of any receding object
disappearing to the eye before any higher portion--even though the surface on
which it moves is admittedly and provably horizontal.
In the first place it is easily demonstrable that, as shown in the following
diagrams, fig. 71, lines which are equi-distant
"The range of the eye, or diameter of the field of vision, is
p. 203
[paragraph continues] 110°; consequently this is the largest angle under
which an object can be seen. The range of vision is from 110° to 1°. . . . The
smallest angle under which an object can be seen is upon an average, for
different sights, the sixtieth part of a degree, or one minute in space; so
that when an object is removed from the eye 3000 times its own diameter, it
will only just be distinguishable; consequently the greatest distance at which
we can behold an object like a shilling of an inch in diameter, is 3000 inches
or 250 feet." 1
The above may be called the law of perspective. It may be given in more
formal language, as the following:. when any object or any part thereof is so
far removed that its greatest diameter subtends at the eye of the observer, an
angle of one minute or less of a degree, it is no longer visible.
From the above it follows:--
1.--That the larger the object the further will it require to go from the
observer before it becomes invisible.
2.--The further any two bodies, or any two parts of the same body, are
asunder, the further must they recede before they appear to converge to the
same point.
3.--Any distinctive part of a receding body will be-come invisible before the
whole or any larger part of the same body.
The first and second of the above propositions are self-evident. The third
may be illustrated by the following diagram, fig. 73.
p. 204
Let A represent a disc of wood or card-board, say one foot in diameter, and
painted black, except one inch diameter in the centre. On taking this disc to
about a hundred feet away from an observer at A, the white centre will appear
considerably diminished--as shown at B--and on removing it still further the
central white will become invisible, the disc will appear as at C, entirely
black. Again, if a similar disc is coloured black, except a segment of say one
inch in depth at the lower edge, on moving it forward the lower segment will
gradually disappear, as shown at A, B, and C, in diagram fig. 74. If the
disc is allowed to rest on a board D, the effect is still more striking. The
disc at C will appear perfectly round--the white segment having disappeared.
p. 205
The erroneous application of perspective already referred to is the
following:--It is well known that on looking along a row of buildings of
considerable length, every object below the eye appears to ascend towards the
eye-line; and every thing above the eye appears to descend towards the same
eye-line; and an artist, wishing to represent such a view on paper, generally
adopts the following rule:--draw a line across the paper or canvas at the
altitude of the eye. To this line, as a vanishing point, draw all other lines
above and below it, irrespective of their distance, as in the diagram 75.
Let A, B, and C, D, represent two lines parallel but not equi-distant from
the eye-line E, H. To an observer at E, the vanishing point of C, D, would be
at H, because the lines C, D, and E, H, would come together at H, at an angle
of one minute of a degree. But it is evident from a single glance at the
diagram that H cannot be the vanishing point of A, B, because the distance E,
A, being greater than E, C, the angle A, H, E, is also greater than C, H,
E--is, in fact, considerably more than one minute of a degree. Therefore the
line A, B, cannot possibly have its vanishing point on the line E, H, unless it
is carried forward towards W. Hence the line A, W, is the true perspective line
of A, B, forming an angle of one minute at W, which is the true vanishing point
of A, B, as H is the vanishing point of C, D, and G, H, because these two lines
are equidistant from the eye-line.
p. 206
The error in perspective, which is almost universally committed, consists in
causing lines dissimilarly distant from the eye-line to converge to one and the
same vanishing point. Whereas it is demonstrable that lines most distant from
an eye-line must of necessity converge less rapidly, and must be carried
further over the eye-line before they meet it at the angle one minute, which
constitutes the vanishing point.
A very good illustration of the difference is given in fig. 76. False or
prevailing perspective would bring the lines A, B, and C, D, to the same point
H; but the true or natural perspective
brings the line A, B, to the point W, because there and there only does A, W,
E, become the same angle as C, H, E. It must be the same angle or it is not the
vanishing point.
The law represented in the above diagram is the "law of nature." It may be
seen in every layer of a long wall; in every hedge and bank of the roadside,
and indeed in every direction where lines and objects run parallel to each
other; but no illustration of the contrary perspective is ever to be seen in
nature. In the pictures which abound in our public and private collections,
however, it may too often be witnessed, giving a degree of distortion to
paintings and drawings--otherwise beautifully executed, which
p. 207
strikes the observer as very unnatural, but, as he supposes, artistically or
theoretically correct.
The theory which affirms that all parallel lines converge to one and the same
point on the eye-line, is an error. It is true only of lines equi-distant from
the eye-line; lines more or less apart meet the eye-line at different
distances, and the point at which they meet is that only where each forms the
angle of one minute of a degree, or such other angular measure as may be
decided upon as the vanishing point. This is the true law of perspective as
shown by nature herself; any idea to the contrary is fallacious, and will
deceive whoever may hold and apply it to practice.
In accordance with the above law of natural perspective, the following
illustrations are important as representing actually observed phenomena. In a
long row of lamps, standing on horizontal ground, the pedestals, if short,
gradually diminish until at a distance of a few hundred yards they seem to
disappear, and the upper and thinner parts of the lamp posts appear to touch
the ground, as shown in the following diagram, fig. 77.
The lines A, B, and C, D, represent the actual depth or length of the whole
series of lamps, as from C to A. An observer placing his eye a little to the
right or left of the point E, and
p. 208
looking along the row will see that each succeeding pedestal appears shorter
than the preceding, and at a certain distance the line C, D, will appear to
meet the eye-line at H--the pedestals at that point being no longer visible,
the upper portion of each succeeding lamp just appears to stand without
pedestal. At the point H where the pedestals disappear the upper portions of
the lamps seem to have shortened considerably, as shown by the line A, W, but
long after the pedestals have entered the vanishing point, the tops will appear
above the line of sight E, H, or until the line A, W, meets the line E, H, at
an angle of one minute of a degree. A row of lamps such as that above described
may be seen in York Road, which for over 600 yards runs across the south end of
Regent's Park, London.
On the same road the following case may at any time be seen.
Send a young girl, with short garments, from C on towards D; on advancing a
hundred yards or more (according to the depth of the limbs exposed) the bottom
of the frock or longest garment will seem to touch the ground; and on arriving
at H, the vanishing point of the lines C, D, and E, H, the limbs will have
disappeared, and the upper part of the body would continue visible, but
gradually shortening until the line A, B, came in contact with E, H, at the
angle of one minute.
If a receding train be observed on a long, straight, and horizontal portion
of railway, the bottom of the last carriage will seem to gradually get nearer
to the rails, until at about the
p. 209
distance of two miles the line of rail and the bottom of the carriage will
seem to come together, as shown in fig. 79.
The south bank of the Duke of Bridgewater's canal (which passes between
Manchester and Runcorn) in the neighbourhood of Sale and Timperley, in
Cheshire, runs parallel to the surface of the water, at an elevation of about
eighteen inches, and at this point the canal is a straight line for more than a
statute mile. On this bank eight flags, each 6 ft. high, were placed at
intervals of 300 yards, and on looking from the towing path on the opposite
side, the bank seemed in the distance to gradually diminish in depth, until the
grass and the surface of the water converged to a point, and the last flag
appeared to stand not on the bank but in the water of the canal, as shown in
the diagram fig. 80.
The flags and the bank had throughout the whole length the altitude and the
depth represented by the lines respectively A, B, and C, D.
Shooting out into Dublin Bay there is a long wall about three statute miles
in length, and at the end next to the sea stands the Poolbeg Lighthouse. On one
occasion the author sitting in a boat opposite "Irish Town," and three miles
from the sea end
p. 210
of the wall, noticed that the lighthouse seemed to spring from the water, as
shown in the diagram fig. 81.
The top of the wall seemed gradually to decline towards the sea level, as
from B to A; but on rowing rapidly towards A the lighthouse was found to be
standing on the end of the wall, which was at least four feet vertical depth
above the water. as seen in the following diagram, fig. 82.
From the several cases now advanced, which are selected from a great number
of instances involving the same law, the third proposition (on page 203) that
"any distinctive part of a body will become invisible before the whole or any
larger part of the same body," is sufficiently demonstrated. It will therefore
be readily seen that the hull of a receding ship obeying the same law must
disappear on a plane surface, before the mast head. If it is put in the form of
a syllogism the conclusion is inevitable:--
Any distinctive part of a receding object becomes invisible before the whole
or any larger part of the same object.
p. 211
The hull is a distinctive part of a ship.
Ergo, the hull of a receding or outward bound ship must disappear before the
whole, inclusive of the mast head.
To give the argument a more practical and nautical character it may be stated
as follows:
That part of any receding body which is nearest to the surface upon which it
moves, contracts, and becomes in-visible before the parts which are further
away from such surface--as shown in figs. 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, and 70.
The hull of a ship is nearer to the water--the surface on which it
moves--than the mast head.
Ergo, the hull of an outward bound ship must be the first to disappear.
This will be seen mathematically in the following diagram, fig. 83.
The line A, B, represents the altitude of the mast head; E, H, of the
observer, and C, D, of the horizontal surface of the sea. By the law of
perspective the surface of the water appears to ascend towards the eye-line,
meeting it at the point H, which is the horizon. The ship appears to ascend the
inclined plane C, H, the hull gradually becoming less until on arriving at the
horizon H it is apparently so small that its vertical depth subtends an angle,
at the eye of the observer, of less than one minute of a degree, and it is
therefore invisible; whilst the
p. 212
angle subtended by the space between the mast-head and the surface of the
water is considerably more than one minute, and therefore although the hull has
disappeared in the horizon as the vanishing point, the mast-head is still
visible above the horizon. But the vessel continuing to sail, the mast-head
gradually descends in the direction of the line A, W, until at length it forms
the same angle of one minute at the eye of the observer, and then becomes
invisible.
Those who believe that the earth is a globe have often sought to prove it to
be so by quoting the fact that when the ship's hull has disappeared, if an
observer ascends to a higher position the hull again becomes visible. But this,
is logically premature; such a result arises simply from the fact that on
raising his position the eye-line recedes further over the water before it
forms the angle of one minute of a degree, and this includes and brings back
the hull within the vanishing point, as shown in fig. 84.
The altitude of the eye-line E, H, being greater, the horizon or vanishing
point is formed at fig. 2 instead of at fig. 1, as in the previous illustration.
Hence the phenomenon of the hull of an outward bound vessel being the first
to disappear, which has been so universally quoted and relied upon as proving
the rotundity of the earth, is fairly, both logically and mathematically, a
proof of the very contrary, that the earth is a plane. It
p. 213
has been misunderstood and misapplied in consequence of an erroneous view of
the laws of perspective, and the unconquered desire to support a theory. That
it is valueless for such a purpose is now completely demonstrated.
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Footnotes
203:1 "Wonders of Science," by Mayhew, p. 357.
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The next chapter: "Perspective on the Sea" is equally as good. :-)
So I hope this has given you an enlightening read, I'm not so silly as it may
seem! Concave or convex? This is my question to you, can you prove it?
Best Wishes,
Steven.
Regner Trampedach wrote:
Steven,
Just a quick experiment for you:
Go to the coast and bring some good binoculars. Scan the horizon
for ships (you need good visibility for this). You will notice that
at first you can only see the masts, and only when the ship gets
closer, does the hull come into view; You have seen the curvature of
the Earth - directly.
- Regner
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Quoting Steven Jones <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
oh dear, uhmm, I don't know what to say. This is the first I've heard.
Maybe it's time to investigate the concave Earth then! Since if the
Earth can be proven to be concave and not convex than heliocentrism can
be shown to be false!
Smiles. :-)
Steven.
Neville Jones wrote:
Dear All,
I respected Regner's request not to immediately respond to his last
posting, but instead have been giving this whole matter very careful
consideration.
There is now no doubt in my mind that the 24-hour images about the
ecliptic polar axis are always going to be snapshots of the diurnal
rotation in the heliocentric model and I concede, therefore, that the
celestial poles argument does not disprove the heliocentric model.
Steven and my web site will be amended in the near future, God willing,
to reflect this retraction.
I would just like to thank you all for some excellent debating and for
the many illustrations that several of you have provided. I hope that
none of you feel that your efforts were either wasted or unappreciated.
This topic will not be closed yet, since Allen has not had a chance to
fully digest Regner's post. If he concedes, as I have, then we will
close it off, otherwise he will now have one more to convince!
I hope that our little forum family is strengthened by this discussion
and that each one of us has learnt something from it, I know that I
have. If, however, anyone feels disappointed, then I apologise to you
for building your hopes up.
Best wishes,
Neville
www.GeocentricUniverse.com
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