This is the third in the series of debunking
Flat-Earther flyer. On earlier videos, I explained
and debunked their point 'Airplane Level Flights'
and 'Water is a natural level'.
In this video, we will talk about point 3
on the flyer I have.
'Science says it's Sationary'? HUH? I guess
it's suppose to say 'Stationary'; well, I
make so many spelling mistakes myself, that
I shouldn't throw rocks' moving on...
Every scientific experiment has proven earth
is completely stationary. The sun, moon and
stars move around polar centre above us.
Followed by research: North Star, Michelson-Morley,
Sagnac Experiment and Airy's Failure.
It also has an image that seems to show the
earth being stationary with stars above moving
and making an almost perfect circle.
Well, there is a lot to talk about here. After
discussing the image, we will go through all
the experiments they mention. There will be
time-code in description.
But before we begin, have you ever experienced
the following phenomena? For example, when
you are on a train, the objects far away seems
to move relatively slower compared to the
objects close to you; for example railway
poles.
Well, things appear to move slower when they
are far away because they seem smaller, and
take longer to cross our line of vision. Likewise,
they appear to move faster when they are close
by, because they seem bigger. This is called
parallax.
So, if you only look at the object far away
and ignore every other details, you might
come to the conclusion that indeed you are
moving very slow; but that conclusion would
be incorrect.
This was also one of many problems of Geocentric
model. We created a model where earth is in
the centre and the remaining celestial bodies
orbit around us, oh yes; but then for every
single of those heavenly bodies, we had to
ignore the rest and had to come up with ideas
like epicycle which is orbit within orbit
to explain various problems.
This went on for a while until fifteenth century,
when we just gave up and accepted the face
that earth is not the centre of universe,
thanks to Nicolaus Copernicus.
Just like our train example, we can't just
look at one star that fits a particular narrative.
When you are in the northern hemisphere, if
you observe the north sky, it would appear
that the stars are moving counter-clockwise
around a point in the sky where you have Polaris
or the north star.
But when you move to equator, some of those
stars are no longer visible, and the stars
seems to travel from directly east to west
through the sky.
When you move to southern hemisphere, you
can no longer see Polaris; but don't feel
bad; you get to see the southern cross. Which
is not visible to those north of 35 Degree
North. And the stars would now appear to move
clockwise.
On a Flat globe model, this phenomena can
not be explained. There is no reason why someone
in southern hemisphere not be able to see
Polaris and vice versa. Where in a globe model,
it makes perfect sense. As people in southern
hemisphere looking south is looking at the
same part of the sky with southern cross.
Now what is so special about Polaris or North
Star; well, it is not the brightest; it is
actually ranked 46th brightest star known
today; it will not the oldest nor it's the
farthest. What makes it special is, it's situated
essentially above earth's north pole;
And it is pretty far away. How far; well,
it's estimated to be around 433 light years
away. Just for comparison, light only takes
roughly eight minutes to reach from sun to
earth.
Polaris won't be the North Star forever, thanks
to axial precession which is the motion of
earth that causes earth axis to trace out
an imaginary circle on the celestial sphere
every 26,000 years.
From the Northern Hemisphere, there are 30
visible constellations; five can be seen all
year, while the others appear seasonally.
For example, Virgo can be seen from March
to July. Where as in the Southern hemisphere,
the constellation can be viewed in the Autumn
and Winter months, though it will appear upside
down in comparison with the Northern hemisphere.
There is one more thing to talk about here:
remember the Stellar Parallax; this is the
apparent shift of position of any nearby object
against the background of distant object.
One way to explain it would be to use this
simple example, hold a finger in front of
your nose, and then alternately close one
eye and focus at the finger with the other
eye. The finger would appear to have shifted
in position. Now, as you move your finger
away from your nose, this shift would appear
smaller and smaller.
Now imagine your finger being a star very
far away; and your left eye is where the earth
is left from sun compared to the star, and
your right eye is the earth's position when
it is right from the sun. Using this method,
we can calculate the distance to your finger
or the star.
What does all of this means? Well; for some
stars that are very very far away, like Polaris,
it would appear to be still; but obviously
it depends on the accuracy of the measuring
device.
For some constellations, that are visible
throughout the whole year; like Draco or Ursa
Major or Minor; can you imagine what kind
of trail they would leave on a time-lapse
video.
How about the ones that are visible seasonally?
This hopefully explains the image, and the
part regarding research for North Star. But
what does this polar centre above us means?
When used in geographic term: well a polar
circle is a conditional circular line referring
either to the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic
Circle.
And we know the sun rises or comes into view
from east. Then it sets on west, or goes away
from view. So honestly I don't understand
what 'polar centre above us' means. I am just
so confused.
Now the remaining research: Michelson-Morley,
Sagnac Experiment and Airy's Failure.
At one point in history, we discovered that
sound needs a medium to travel; let it be
air, water or other medium, and that it wouldn't
travel in vacuum.
From that, we theorised that, light being
a wave similar to sound, it must also need
a medium. As we know there are no air, water
or such materials in the vastness of space,
there has to be something for the sunlight
to reach Earth. And we called this theoretical
medium Ether;
Once we figured out how to calculate the speed
to light, physicist A. A. Michelson and Edward
W. Morley performed an experiment in 1887,
that came to be known as Michelson-Morley
experiment; at the centre was a half-silvered
mirror; so this would reflect half the light,
and let the other half through; from this
centre, equal distance away was two mirrors;
Finally, one of the remaining axis was the
detector and light source in the final one.
The idea is, light would hit the half-silver
mirror, and then half would be reflected,
and the other half would pass through. Then
it would be reflected back, and combined to
get to final detector on the right.
A basic explanation of waveforms here; the
undisturbed position of particles when they
are not vibrating is called rest position.
The highest point above the rest position
is called 'Peak', and the lowest point below
the rest position is called 'Trough'.
If you take a waveform and combine it with
itself; well, then both of those are in-phase,
and the waveform would be accentuated.
This is called constructive interference.
Now, suppose you shift it enough, so when
you combine, the Peak of one waveform is in
the same place as the trough of other waveform.
Well, if they cancel each other, you would
have a flat line with an intensity of 0.
Anything in between: we will see an interference
pattern where intensity would be between the
'in phase' addition and the 'out of phase'
addition.
Now as the earth is moving, and suppose it's
moving from right to left in our illustration.
That would mean the light would deviate more
from horizontal axis to vertical axis, as
it would get a boost in one axis and resistance
in other due to ether flow. And that would
result in a different phased wave once combined
than initial source. We don't even need to
measure it against our initial source, as
by simply rotating this device, we should
be able to see the variance.
So, as far as principle goes, it is pretty
sound. However, they could find no discernable
phase changes.
Well, what does that mean? Either it means
maybe light doesn't need a medium to travel
and Ether is not real; or, the earth is stationary.
It took Einstein to come along and explain
that light is not like sound, and doesn't
need a medium to travel through.
French scientist Georges Sagnac in 1913 performed
a similar experiment with his setup called
a ring interferometer to prove the existence
of Ether. This time the beam of light is split
with a half-silver mirror, and then both beams
are made to follow the same path but in opposite
direction. Finally those beams were combined.
This interference pattern is first noted at
a rest frame. Now this whole device is spun,
and during this he noticed the pattern to
be different.
From this observation Sagnac came to the conclusion
that it was the Ether that caused the speed
change in light beams, and claimed that Ether
is also relatively static.
But what is really happening? And why did
both these experiment seems to indicate different
result.
Michelson-Morley earlier demonstrated that
if light travels through ether, then the earth
is not orbiting.
And, what did Sagnac observe? Well, he observed
light having different velocity which he attributed
to Ether.
And from those two apparent fact, Flat-earthers
come to conclusion that the earth is stationary.
Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell, in
1864, even before Michelson-Morley experiment,
demonstrated light to be an electro-magnetic
wave, and was able to calculate the speed
of light.
Einstein noticed that this equation didn't
take into factors like speed of source, the
observer or the medium.
This led to Einstein's eventual musings on
the theory of special relativity, which he
broke down into the everyday example of a
person standing beside a moving train, comparing
observations with a person inside the train.
He imagined the train being at a point in
the track equally between two trees. If a
bolt of lightning hit both trees at the same
time, due to the motion of the train, the
person on the train would see the bolt hit
one tree before the other tree. But the person
beside the track would see simultaneous strikes.
In simple terms, that theory states, the laws
of physics are the same in all inertial frames;
which means Maxwell's physical law for the
speed of light is also the same in all inertial
frames.
And inertial frame simply means a body is
at rest or moving at a constant velocity and
not accelerating.
This is what Michelson-Morley and as we will
find out later, Airy had shown as.
Two years before Sagnac's experiment, German
Physicist Max von Laue wrote the first description
of the Sagnac effect in the framework of special
relativity in 1911. By continuing the theoretical
work of Michelson, von Laue confined himself
to an inertial frame of reference, and in
footnote explained with equation and concluded
that this interferometer experiment would
indeed produce the same positive result for
both special relativity and the stationary
aether.
Well, for Sagnac's experiment, Max von Laue
concluded the beam travelling around the loop
in the direction of the rotation will have
further to go than the beam travelling counter
to the direction of rotation. This is because
during the period of travel, all the mirrors
and detectors will move slightly towards the
counter-rotating beam and away from the co-rotating
beam. As the distance changes, the beams will
reach the detector at slightly different times
and slightly out of phase, due to which we
would get a different interference fringes.
Sangac's effect is real and in fact we use
this effect to build ring laser gyroscope
that is used in navigation system. In fact,
it is so accurate that this gyroscope can
measure the rotation of earth.
Finally Airy's failure; English mathematician
and astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy tried
to prove the existence of ether drag.
To understand his theory, think of the scene
in Netflix Witcher where the mages capture
lightning in a bottle.
The lighting or photon is coming down perpendicular
to your bottle, or telescope.
Now instead of standing still, what happens
if you are moving;
Well, suppose there is this medium Ether that
is around us.
Now case study 1 would be, as the Earth is
moving, it is dragging the Ether with it.
Which means, even if you are moving, the photon
beam is also dragged with the Ether, and it
would still be perpendicular.
Earlier we talked about Stellar Parallax;
well, in 1720s, James Bradley tried that very
same experiment to determine the distance
to a star. Unfortunately due to the limitation
of equipments Bradley had available to him
at that time, he couldn't calculate the distance.
However, he did find out that he had to shift
his telescope at a slight angle.
This also meant case study 1 of Earth dragging
the Ether is not possible.
Comes in case study 2, that Ether is not dragged
with earth.
Now based on your movement, the relative velocity
of that light beam to you changes and becomes
diagonal.
You experience the same phenomena where if
the rain is coming down straight, you hold
your umbrella straight up but if you start
running, you would then angle your umbrella
to make it perpendicular to relative rain
direction.
Great; so you angle your telescope so the
light beam is coming in perpendicularly. But
if you are going around in an orbit, like
our planet, that would mean in 6 months time,
you would facing the other way; which means
you also have to tilt your telescope the other
way.
And yes, we do find that we need to tilt our
telescope slightly at different times of year
to see the same stars. We call this phenomenon
'Stellar Aberration': an astronomical phenomenon
"which produces an apparent motion of celestial
objects".
Bradley conceived of an explanation where
he considered a distant star is motionless
relative to the Sun, and the star is extremely
far away, so that parallax may be ignored.
He calculated the equation to find apparent
angle and true angle are related using trigonometry.
If we consider True angle to be 90 degree,
then we can simplify the equation to be the
offset angle equal to velocity of earth divided
by the speed to light;
Called the classical explanation, this formula
is far less accurate than relativistic formula;
but in the limit of small angle and low velocity
they are approximately the same, within the
error of the measurements of Bradley's day.
Knowing that light slows down with water Airy
theorised that the presence of water slowed
down the lights movement through the ether,
and reasoned that this slowdown shouldn't
affect the component of the lights velocity
caused by the motion of the earth; and this
would presumably change the angle of the light.
So in 1817, he filled a telescope with water
and expected this stellar aberration to be
different. But in reality, he detected no
change, and thus this experiment is known
as Airy's failure.
From this demonstration, Flat-Earther jumps
to the conclusion that the earth is stationary,
otherwise Airy should have detected some change.
Well, from Airys description of the telescope,
the length of the water column was 35.3 inches.
Next: light speed; we use a ratio for speed
of light through different medium compared
to it's speed in a vacuum. This is called
the refractive index of the medium; for air
it is roughly 1.0003, and for water it is
1.333
What that means is: if that part of telescope
was filled with air instead of water: well
in water it would take 3984.97 pico-seconds,
where in air it would take 2990.80 pico-seconds.
That is a difference of 994; well let's call
that 1000 pico-seconds; or one nano-second.
That is one billionth of a second; that is
the kind of precision we are talking about
back in 1817.
Next, we need to address the refraction. Even
if the equipment wasn't sensitive enough for
the speed, we should have seen the refraction,
right?
This brings us to Snell's law. This law eventually
named after Snell was first accurately described
by the Persian scientist Ibn Sahl at the Baghdad
court in 984;
Simply put a ray of light will bend when it
travels from one transparent medium to the
other. There are couple of things we can measure
here. First we need a normal line. This is
a line that is perpendicular to the surface
of both mediums. The angle between the incoming
ray or incident ray to this normal is called
'incident angle'. Finally when the ray bends
or refracts, that angle to the normal is called
'refracted angle'.
Snell's formula states
Incident Index times Sine value of incident
angle is equal to refracted index times Sine
value of refracted angle.
Given that, we can calculate that if sunlight
hits a swimming pool at 35 degrees to the
normal, we would get a refracted angle of
25 degrees.
Pretty cool, right. Back to Airy's telescope;
remember the whole point of tilting is so
the photon would appear to be perpendicular
to the telescope.
Which means our Incident angle is 0 degree;
Thankfully both sine and arc-sine value of
zero is zero; which means our refracted angle
is also zero; ie. Still perpendicular.
Hopefully that explains why Airy didn't see
any changes in stellar aberration.
Quick recap: Airy demonstrated with Ether
as a medium, it is definitely not being dragged
by earth.
Michelson-Morley experiment then demonstrated
with Ether as a medium, either it was dragged
with the earth, or the earth was stationary.
As Airy demonstrated that Ether was not dragged,
then the only other explanation is earth was
stationary.
Finally Sagnac, who demonstrated how light
takes longer path on a rotating device and
he attributed it to another proof of Ether's
existence.
I can see how Flat-Earthers combine these
finding to come to their conclusion.
But let's be fair; scientific method tells
us to set aside our biases and look at the
evidence. So let's give these a fair evaluation.
Can Michelson-Morley's experiment be taken
as evidence for non-moving earth? Well, yes,
I think it can.
But then again, we also have to look at all
the other evidences. If the experiment starts
with an assumption or a bias, the result may
be tainted and may have other explanations.
Watching the phases of Venus indicates that
Venus is orbiting the sun. Which would then
mean on a geo-centric model, sun is orbiting
the earth, and Venus is orbiting the sun.
Moons of Jupiter shows us that they are orbiting
around Jupiter, and Earth isn't the centre
of everything.
Go outside at night and find out where Mars
is with respect to the background stars. Do
this again the next night and you will notice
that it is in a different location with respect
to the background stars. In fact, all of the
planets do this'that's how we know they aren't
stars.
If you keep tracking the motion of Mars you
will notice that it moves to the east... except
for some special times. Occasionally Mars
will move west for short time before once
again moving east. This is called retrograde
motion.
On geocentric model where Mars orbiting the
Earth, this motion can not be explained. Where
in a heliocentric model, it makes perfect
sense.
Then we have stellar aberration; yes, that
is a proof for the orbit.
In February 3, 1851, a 32-year-old Frenchman...
who'd dropped out of medical school and dabbled
in photography... definitively demonstrated
that the Earth indeed rotated, surprising
the Parisian scientific establishment.
Acting on a hunch, Leon Foucault had determined
that he could use a pendulum to illustrate
the effect of the Earth's movement. He called
together a group of scientists, enticing them
with a note declaring, 'You are invited to
see the Earth turn.' Foucault hung a pendulum
from the ceiling of the Meridian Room of the
Paris Observatory. As it swept through the
air, it traced a pattern that effectively
proved the world was spinning about an axis.
Note that I have skipped proofs like Satellites
and photographs; as Flat-earther often claims
those are photoshopped. So I basically focused
on test you can do yourself at home.
First of all, we can all confirm that there
are certain stars we do not see from our current
location. Depending on where we are, we can
also confirm some stars are visible only during
a certain time of the year. Finally, we can
also verify that we have to slightly tweak
our viewing angle throughout the year to keep
a star in centre, and proving stellar aberration.
The other do it at home example we mentioned,
we get some more data points against Geocentric
model. Then if you also get to put up your
own pendulum or maybe get a ring laser gyroscope
using Sagnac Effect, you can get further proof
of the orbit.
So can we say this slide is thoroughly debunked.
Well that's all for this video; it was a bit
long, but I felt it's only fair to talk about
all their points instead of chalking to all
up to Ether in one sentence.
I do hope you have enjoyed it; if so, can
I please ask you to like the video and maybe
leave a comment to feed the youtTube algorithm.
As you can also see, I am at two-digit subscribers
count; so if you can also subscribe, that
would definitely help this channel grow, and
would be thoroughly appreciated.
Have a safe day; signing off.
