How to confirm the weird "spherical Earth" theory, personally, without traveling very far from your home or sending compatriots all over the world.

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One of the features of our modern world is the Global Positioning System. (You flat Earthers may object to the name but that's what it's called.) I'm sure anyone with a cell phone will concede that GPS exists; even if you've no idea how it works, it can clearly locate your position on a map with a high degree of accuracy. This is - supposedly - done by receiving radio signals from satellites about 11,000 miles high in the sky, traveling in circular orbits around the sphere that is Earth. This wouldn't work with a flat Earth.

If you built your own GPS receiver, you'd be able to interpret these signals yourself. You'd need to understand how both the hardware and software work, which is a bit complicated; but you'd see that the radio sources the receiver is listening to have to be certain distances away from you, and moving according to the model of the orbits in the software used to interpret the radio signal. This could possibly be faked - for one position - but move a few dozen yards away and you're essentially triangulating the distance to those transmitters. (You'd need two recievers, and run them both simultaneously, to be abolutely sure, but you might not consider that necessary.)

Here is information on how to build a GPS receiver, the pattern for the FPGA and the software to interpret the output:

http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm -

tl;dr This is the result of a thought experiment regarding the "Flat Earth Conspiracy" theory. Is it possible to confirm this, oneself, without a lot of traveling or expensive equipment. (There *is* some expense, but it's not ridiculous.) One of the features of our modern world is the Global Positioning System. (You flat Earthers may object to the name but that's what it's called.) I'm sure anyone with a cell phone will concede that GPS exists; even if you've no idea how it works, it can clearly locate your position on a map with a high degree of accuracy. This is - supposedly - done by receiving radio signals from satellites about 11,000 miles high in the sky, traveling in circular orbits around the sphere that is Earth. This wouldn't work with a flat Earth. If you built your own GPS receiver, you'd be able to interpret these signals yourself. You'd need to understand how both the hardware and software work, which is a bit complicated; but you'd see that the radio sources the receiver is listening to have to be certain distances away from you, and moving according to the model of the orbits in the software used to interpret the radio signal. This could possibly be faked - for one position - but move a few dozen yards away and you're essentially triangulating the distance to those transmitters. (You'd need two recievers, and run them both simultaneously, to be *abolutely* sure, but you might not consider that necessary.) ------------------------------- Here is information on how to build a GPS receiver, the pattern for the FPGA and the software to interpret the output: http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm - [archive link](https://archive.ph/WQ3ok)

[+] [deleted] • 3 pts

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That would require flat earthers to trust people around the world, and for them to be able to measure the position of the sun and moon, which isn't that simple.

Some of these flat earthers also don't think the sun and moon actually exist, that they're some weird projections.

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" when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"

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An equatorial mount is able to track any object in the sky using a single axis of rotation at constant speed, and this can be done from any location on the earth. This single axis, constant speed, and any location is important.

For example, on the flat earth model it is impossible to track the sun using a single axis of rotation, unless you would happen to be standing exactly in the center of whatever circle the sun is doing that day. From any other vantage point the sun's track across the sky would become an oval, and you cannot track an oval using only a single axis of rotation at constant speed.

In addition, the axis of the equatorial mount is angled towards the sky at each latitude according to the angle of the sphere at that point. This proves the roundness. For example at the equator, the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the ground. At the poles, the axis is vertical, and in between the poles and the equator the the axis is aligned somehere between horizontal and vertical.

All of these bits of information taken together, proves a spherical earth. And at the same time it completely disproves a flat model.

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[–] • 2 pts

Let's also not forget:

Satellites move at about 9,000 mph—enough to make their onboard clocks slow down by 8 microseconds per day from the perspective of a GPS gadget and totally screw up the location data. To counter this effect, the GPS system adjusts the time it gets from the satellites by using the equation here.

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/st-equation-gps/

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[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

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I think the question here is what evidence is one willing to accept as sufficient to demonstrate that the Earth is spherical. If a flat earther is stubborn enough then they will reject any and all evidence you present. They can also come up with more and more elaborate flat earth models (epicycles upon epicycles) that are consistent with your evidence.

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All flat earthers are that stubborn; it’s the only way a person can believe such nonsense. You can give all manner of simple examples and experiments they can try, and if they don’t simply refuse and claim that you are wrong without even trying the experiments, they’ll just dismiss the evidence they find as Big Globe messing with their measurements. The only way to convince a flat earther out of their stance is to give them an even deeper conspiracy to believe.

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Asked s flat earther to build a sundial. He couldn't figure it out.

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>One of the features of our modern world is the Global Positioning System. (You flat Earthers may object to the name but that's what it's called.) I'm sure anyone with a cell phone will concede that GPS exists; even if you've no idea how it works, it can clearly locate your position on a map with a high degree of accuracy. This is - supposedly - done by receiving radio signals from satellites about 11,000 miles high in the sky, traveling in circular orbits around the sphere that is Earth. This wouldn't work with a flat Earth.

"supposedly"

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