Hello and welcome back to the Most Amazing Channel on the internet, I am your host Rebecca
Felgate and today I am talking about the Top 10 Flat Earth Myths Debunked…. Sorry Mad
Mike Hughs, sorry B.O.B…the round earth is here to stay…for a few more billion years,
anyway Do you guys think the earth is flat? Let me
know your thoughts in the comments section down below.
10 - Circumnavigation Vs Falling Off the Edge. Flat
Earthers tend to explain the fact that we don’t fall off the edge of the earth by
claiming we are enveloped by a giant ice wall. Mmhmm. This has been disproved time and time
again, starting with Magellan’s circumnavigation of the earth. In 1591, under the command if
Ferdinand Magellan, a surviving crew of 19 men sailed around the globe, voyaging over
three years from Spain to the Canary Islands, to Rio, to the very tip of Argentina over
the Pacific to Flint Island, round to Guam, the Mariana Islands, east Indonesia, South
Africa, back to cape Verde and then Spain again. Circumnavigation, bitch! Of course,
in 1492, dubious old Chris Columbus found the earth to be round, too, but he never went
in for a full circumnavigation. The Spanish circumnavigation took three years – a plane
can now fly around the earth in around 42 hours and the International space station
can circumnavigate in 2 and a half hours.
Okay, sticking with the ISS and circling back to the ice wall… not to state the obvious
or anything but at number 9 we have No Photos of Ice Walls vs Plenty of Photos from Space
So, if the earth is surrounded by a huge ice wall, why is there literally no evidence?
Why are there not first hand accounts, videos and photos of the wall. The first pictures
of earth were taken in 1947 from 100 miles in space. There were no wide angle lenses
in those days, so the pictures were strung together. Then, the next famous pictures of
earth came in 1966 when the first photo of the earth from the moon was taken. The real
money shot came in 1972, when the Apollo 17 Mission captured a full colour image of earth,
called the Blue Marble. Nasa took a beautiful high res image in 2015 from the moon of the
earth rise. Countless photos have been taken from the ISS over the past few decades. Flat-earthers
argue these are photoshopped, but photoshop was only released in 1990. Others argue the
images are models, but that would be some serious attention to detail as the images
of earth are all in correspondence with one another. If images are so easy to fake, where
are the images of the ice wall? A lot of flat-earthers have circulated pictures of Antarctica’s
100ft ice wall.. but as we know, planes can fly over those. Even drones can fly over them….
… why can’t we have a picture of the earth encased In ice around the perimeter? Cause
it isn’t there… maybe?
8 - Eratosthenes Experiment Ancient scientists, Eratosthenes calculated
the circumference of a round earth using sunlight over 2100 years ago. Eratosthenes was the
head librarian in Alexandria, Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were hella smart and we could have
learned a lot from them earlier on if we weren’t so focused on sticking solely to religious
scripture. Anyway, he knew that in the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, Egypt
would be at 0 degrees – so the sun would be directly overhead. In the summer solstice,
he measured the angle of the sun about Alexandria by measuring the shadow cast by a pole and
got a 7.2 percent angle. Why is this significant? Alexandria and Syene are 500 miles apart.
Eratosthenes divided 360 by 7.2, getting 50… which told him that the distance between the
two cities was one 50th the total distance around the world. He multiplied 500 by 50
to calculate the total circumference of the world, and got 25000 miles, which is just
100 miles off our modern day, more accurate measurement! Incredible. If you don’t quite
get it, have a look at this diagram and try rewatching back this point. It doesn’t matter
how long it takes you to understand something, just that you arrive there in the end.
Building on from this, we have time zones at number 7
Flat Earthers explain the sun and time zones by suggesting the sun is a spotlight that
orbits the earth. A picture seems to attempt to explain it, but that isn’t how it works.
Sunlight does not fall in circles like this. Instead, Eratosthenes’ calculation is better
at explaining sunlight. Humans need structure and we love time. Everyone wants to work in
sunlight and sleep during darkness. If the world was all on one time zone, 12pm would
be gloriously sunny in Seville in Spain, but devastatingly dark in Auckland, New Zealand,
therefore, to make life easier for the earth's population, we have time zones. Without a
spherical earth, time zones wouldn’t work. The earth rotates 15 degrees an hour, so we
have divided the world into 24 sections, which make up our 24 time zones. Within these zones,
sunrise and sunsets will still vary, for example, the sunrise to the sunset from Margate in
England to Dingle in Ireland, despite both being in the same time zone, differs by 50
minutes.
6 - Mad Mike Hughes Okay, so I interviewed Mike Hughes on Inform
Overload with Charlotte Dobre and I think he was a really nice guy. What I like about
him was that he had a theory and he was going to go to lengths to prove it…I can respect
that. What I don’t really like is the radio silence on the topic after his test. Let me
give you some more context for those of you that don’t know who this chap is. Mike Hughes
is a chap who built a rocket in his backyard because he wanted to bop up 1thousand 875
feet to see whether or not the earth is flat. Dangerous. But, he thought he was going to
make Elon Musk look like an idiot. Now we know you need to be 35 thousand feet up to
get a good look at the curve, so he was around 32 thousand feet shy of that…why he didn’t
spend the money on the rocket buying a plane ticket, we’re not sure. Either way, respect
to Mike, he blasted off in March…. But since coming back down to earth, neither he nor
the flat earth society, have discussed his findings. It seems, in the end, it might have
been more about the headlines than the earth curve for good old mike.
5. B.o.B Getting Proven Wrong and assorted Diss Tracks
Ahhh, B O B….what a lad. For those of you who don’t know B.O.B, he is an American
rapper, an accomplished trumpet player, and a Grade 9 drop out. in 2016 he tweeted a picture
of himself standing on a precipice to his 2 plus million twitter followers. In the caption,
he wrote – the cities in the background are approx. 16 miles apart. Please explain
this. Mate. Okay. 16 miles of a 24.9 thousand mile circumference earth isn’t far enough
to see a curve, babe. According to Nasa, you need to be around 35,000 feet up with at least
a 60-degree view of the earth to see the curve, which is why a lot of people who have been
in a plane can confirm they’ve seen the curvature. None the less, BOB said he was
going to set up a Go Fund Me page to raise a million dollars to sent his own satellite
up to photograph the earth as flat. The rapper was met with a slew of responses – including
from astronaut Scott Kelly, who shared a video with BOB. He said: Show you the curve, here
you go. One full orbit around the earth. Maybe donate funds to PuertoRicoRelief. I love the
rotation video! It is incredible. When the earth is dark, too..woah…and you can see
the auroras. Again, astronaut Terry Virts wrote: I can save BOB a lot of money, the
earth is round. I flew around it. Buzz Aldrin also piped up… as did Astrophysicist Neil
deGrasse Tyson….although BOB would not be convinced. He wrote: People usually discourage
you from doing something when they have something to hide… to which Paul Kautz wrote: That‘s
absolutely right! „Don‘t touch the stove, it‘s really hot!“ - „Ahhh, that must
be where you keep the gold then!“ Lol. I don’t even have time to talk about Neil
deGrasse Tyson distract he made, and the response…. Eesh. B.o.B, by the way, also believes 9/11
was an inside job, the moon landing was faked, the world will be taken over by the Illuminati
anddddd he has supported a holocaust denier.
4. Shaq O’Neal, the biggest troll? It wasn’t just BoB making headlines with
his anti globe sentiment – the retired basketball legend, Shaquille O’Neal was a bit confused
by roads. No, 7ft 1 isn’t high enough up to see the curve….and no, you won't see
a curve whilst driving, because it is so, so gradual. Shaq didn’t seem to understand
why he didn’t feel like he was going up or down. This is, verbatim, what he said in
a podcast interview: I drive from coast to coast, and this shit is flat to me. I’m
just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me. I do
not go up and down at a 360-degree angle, and all that stuff about gravity, have you
looked outside Atlanta lately and seen all these buildings? You mean to tell me that
China is under us? Is China under us? It’s not. The world is flat. According to earth
curvature.com for every 1 kilometres you travel, the earth curves downward 0.000008 kilometres,
so….8 centimetres, there is absolutely no way you would see that…and, of course, that
isn’t factoring in any topography of the earth, mountains, valleys, etc….the centre
of the earth, the core, is a perfect sphere, but the crust that we live on is lumpy and
bumpy. After he was called out by countless people for his comments, Shaq said he was
joking… he was trolling… but he couldn’t really explain why.
3 - Elon Musk's Mars Tweet Elon! I am all about a bit of Elon. He is
all about science, space, and throwing a little shade to the Flat Earth Society. So, a little
background for you… Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of Space X, the co-founder and CEO
of Tesla. the co-founder and CEO of Neuralink and he made his billions by starting Paypal
in the 90s. Forbes ranked him as 21st on their list of most powerful people in the world,
he is worth 20.8 billion dollars. The Flat Earth society is a collection of individuals
who promote the idea the earth is flat. Sure. I am sure we can all get on board with some
healthy skepticism, but when faced with an overwhelming amount of evidence in a key area,
maybe it’s time to let it go. Anyway, in November 2017 he tweeted that the Martian
sky is opposite to earth, the sunrise and sunsets are blue and during the day the sky
is red. He also wrote, why is there no flat mars society…to which the FES replied Hi
Elon, thanks for the question. Unlike the Earth, Mars has been observed to be round.
RIGHT. I mean, so has earth? There are thousands of images of the round earth and the Flat-earthers
argue they’re faked, sure…so why would images take of Mars be legit?
Building on from that at number 2 we have the Space X 2018 StarMan live stream.
Musk himself provided a live feed of his Space X Launch in February 2018 which distinctly
showed the earth as round! Yes, it was a bit ridiculously extravagant to send a cherry
red Tesla into space at the cost of around 90 million dollars, but this was his companies
own money, so…what of it really. The live stream was a landmark, he got some sweet pictures,
and proved the earth was round! I watched the live stream – faking that would probably
cost more than the launch and of course, what would be the point? The Flat Earthers response?
Can they deconstruct Elon and Space X’s endeavors with science? Erm, no. At a Flat
Earth conference in North Carolina, Mark Sargent simply said: “Elon Musk just pulls crap
out of his butt on a weekly basis.” Lol. While the fly the fake flag, they don’t
have any credible talking point to back it up.
Finally, at number one, the biggest let down of the flat earth theory is the Flat Earth
Society themselves. 1. Flat Earth Society
Bless them, no one is hurting the flat earth theory more than the Flat Earth Society itself.
So, the FES consider themselves to be at the forefront of intelligent and critical thinking…but
time and time again they prove themselves as …. Well I don’t want to be mean…
but… kind of idiotic. The flat earth website says: We live on a Flath Earth as opposed
to the more common ‘Globe’ model.” Yeeeeet on their facebook they wrote The Flat Earth
Society has members all around the Globe. Oh. Honey.
WELL, what a video… that took just about all the energy I think I can muster today!
Anything to say? Do you think the earth is flat?!
OKAY, before I go I am just going to read some comments from a recent video! I a, going
with the Top 10 Cursed Books You Shouldn’t Read Alone
Fellow Slytherin Kitty Cat said: Me: Reading "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," Thinks: Is
it weird that I LOVE books and I'm watching this video???
I don’t think that’s weird at all! I love watching videos and reading books…and I
love listening to audiobooks! You can like many things! How are you enjoying the Beedle
and the Bard?
Woah woah woah…. Andromeda said: I just read Tomino's hell out loud and nothing happened?.
You aren’t supposed to read that aloud! You’ll die! They continued by saying they
think that talk of curses and the like is harmless fun. – please do keep us updated
on what happens to you! Eek!
Chris Longshore said: Rebecca Looking Like a Whole Snack, as always….. wait….what
does that mean? And what kind of snack? I’d like to be a cheese board! Too fancy? A mars
bar then. Great… now I want a snack.