Monthly Archive: October 2018

Landscapes and atmospheric refraction

Sometimes I'm bored and I'm getting involved in discussions with various kinds of pseudoscientists. Such discussions are often a waste of time, but it's possible occasionally to get something out of them - after all, if you want to explain to someone why there are wrong, you need to have a good understanding of the topic yourself. If your knowledge is not enough to counter the opponent's arguments, you need to expand it, and so you are learning. It was the case for me this time.

It all began with two flat-earthers appearing on a certain forum. The exchange started with standard arguments like timezones, seasons, eclipses, the rotation of the sky... what have you. As usual in such cases, those arguments were met with silence or really far-fetched alternative explanations. I'll omit the details, interested people can find standard flat-earth arguments on the web.

Well, you can't sway a person that is completely confident in their beliefs with arguments, so the discussion has become somewhat futile. Both sides stuck to their positions and mulling over the same issues time and time again has started. That is, until one of the flat-earthers started presenting photos which, according to them, proved that the Earth "can't be a ball with a 6371-6378 km radius", with descriptions that can be expressed shortly as "explain THAT!". Alright.

Challenge accepted!