Problems and Paradoxes of Flat-Earth Theory
It should be abundantly clear that Flat-Earth models have severe problems in reproducing the many characteristics of a nearly spherical Earth. As we have mentioned, when Flat-Earthers are confronted with problems they frequently invoke an ad hoc argument to ‘fix’ the issue. In this section, we review some of the many issues faced by Flat-Earth theory, and the ‘explanations’ presented by the Flat-Earth community.
We found the Web site Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions to be a comprehensive and invaluable site. They present hundreds of cases where Flat-Earth models fail to explain observable data, and they provide the mainstream explanation for those cases. They present their arguments with impressive graphics that contrast the scientific consensus with Flat-Earth claims.
One of the more prominent Flat-Earthers is Eric Dubay. In 2015, Dubay authored a booklet 200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball. This is a strange cornucopia of miscellaneous claims. A number of these rely on appeals to statements in the Bible that seem to refer to a flat Earth. Other claims refer to 19th century books that champion the idea of a flat Earth. Several of these refer to ‘experiments’ carried out by Flat-Earthers. And others support conspiracy theories maintaining that all photographs showing a spherical Earth are fakes, as well as claims that orbiting satellites around Earth and all space programs (manned or unmanned) are faked, part of a vast worldwide web of conspiracies.
The site Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions includes hundreds of instances showing the errors in Flat Earth theories. We will summarize just a few of these here, and we make use of their fine graphics. We refer to the “Debunking Flat Earth” Web site for myriad other examples.
II.1: The Southern Hemisphere:
The figure below shows the map of the world according to Flat-Earthers. Some Flat-Earthers found this map, and claimed that it was a secret map depicting a flat Earth. Actually, it is an “Air Map of 1943.” Notations on the map state quite clearly that it is a “North Polar Azimuthal Equidistant Projection,” that is, a projection of the spheroidal Earth onto a plane with the North Pole as its center, and with the lines of latitude as concentric circles about the North Pole.
As is well known, it is impossible to project a sphere onto a plane without distortions, or without cutting the sphere in various places. In this case, the Southern Hemisphere is seriously distorted, and the distortions become progressively larger as one approaches the South Pole.
On a spherical globe, the distance between adjacent lines of longitude increases as one travels from the North Pole to the Equator. The distance between lines of longitude then decreases as one moves from the Equator to the South Pole; at the South Pole the lines of longitude again converge at a point. On this North Pole Azimuthal Equidistant map, the distance between lines of longitude continues to increase until one reaches the South Pole. This means that the distance between points in the Southern Hemisphere appears much greater on a Flat Earth map than on a globe.
On a Flat Earth map, countries in the Southern Hemisphere appear much larger than Northern Hemisphere countries. For example, on the map above South Africa appears to be similar in size to the U.S., while in reality South Africa has less than 15% the surface area of the U.S. Australia appears to be 3 or 4 times as large as the United States while it is actually about 80% as large.
Furthermore, paths on the flat Earth (particularly in the Southern Hemisphere) that lie along a “straight line” are nowhere near a straight line on a globe. This is illustrated in Fig. II.2. In a flat-Earth depiction (L side of Fig. II.2), the three cities Sydney (Australia), Los Angeles (California), and Santiago (Chile) lie nearly in a straight line. This suggests that the duration of flights from Sydney to Santiago (or vice versa) should be the same as the sum of the Sydney — LA flight time plus the LA — Santiago time.
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