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We all were there when Elon Musk was asking ‘The Flat Earth Society” the important questions, poking at the reasoning behind the conspiracy theory that Earth is, in fact, a flat disc. While flat-earthers seem to lack substantial arguments in the debate and it seems quite obvious what the answer to the age-old question is, Imgur user GregPagel’s views were challenged after he snapped a photo of Lake Michigan.
After examining the photos, Greg, a 47-year-old musician from Manitowoc, realized that the horizon he captured seemed quite flat, instantly raising doubts about everything he knew about the Earth globe. “I’ve often looked at the horizon over that lake–thousands of times–and wondered, “am I seeing a curve? I’m not sure. Maybe a little? Or is my mind playing tricks?” As a kid, I’d look at it a lot,” Greg told Bored Panda. So, he did what any other person would do, and he used science to find out if this popular conspiracy theory had any truth in it. “When I actually did the math and made the diagram, I actually felt a rush,” Pagel recalled. Using Google Earth and some calculations, he was able to figure it all out and share the surprising flat earth theory results with the world. Scroll down to see what he found out yourself!
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Yesterday, imgur user Greg took some pictures in Manitowoc, Wisconsin
He snapped some beautiful panorama shots of Lake Michigan
However, he quickly noticed that something odd about the photographs
The horizon seemed pretty… flat
So Greg did what any other person would do and used science to figure it all out
From using Google Earth to graphs, the man dove head-first into the challenge
“The fun part was showing a .12 degree arc on a circle. It’s almost nothing!” – Greg told Bored Panda
And here’s your answer! 0.12 curve is barely noticeable, but it’s still a curve!
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What do you think ?
Alia Ris 6 years ago
Those flat-heads, I mean, flat-earthers would still scream IT'S PHOTOSHOPPED or IT'S A HOLOGRAM FROM CIA or whatever.
Full Name 6 years ago
I like the article and all that, but I have to say it bugs me when people use the "it looks flat in my photo" argument because lenses are curved and you can make anything look straight or curved by lilting the lens up or down, so it doesn't help either side of the debate because it's invalid to begin with. The pano part is also not valid because you have flat water, yet the road the photo was taken on now looks like a V, so it's obviously perspective distortion. I'm all for the flat earth debate (it's f*****g hilarious) so long as the people's "proofs" are a bit more well thought out than using photos which, again, are invalid for both sides of the debate.
Greg Pagel 6 years ago
Greg here. Good observations. Couple points--not and expert, I could be wrong. I think most lenses do not cause noticeable distortion. Fish-eye and other kinds, but I don't think my iPhone lens would. In fact, I did have the camera at different angles, but I (rather painstakingly) edited and cropped them so the horizon line matched. Pic 1 was actually angled lower than pic 2, but the line look the same. If there's distortion, wouldn't you say it's pretty negligible? And the Pano shot distorts things all over the place, but if you hold it steady, the horizon line looks *pretty much* like real life. Anyway, the point of the piece was that "The horizon looks pretty flat from here, no matter how you look at it." And then I tried to demonstrate why this would be true on a great big globe. Whether you think the earth is flat or round, it's going to look the same when you're a-sittin' on it! At least, I think so. I've never been to a flat planet, so it might look different. :)
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Alia Ris 6 years ago
Those flat-heads, I mean, flat-earthers would still scream IT'S PHOTOSHOPPED or IT'S A HOLOGRAM FROM CIA or whatever.
Full Name 6 years ago
I like the article and all that, but I have to say it bugs me when people use the "it looks flat in my photo" argument because lenses are curved and you can make anything look straight or curved by lilting the lens up or down, so it doesn't help either side of the debate because it's invalid to begin with. The pano part is also not valid because you have flat water, yet the road the photo was taken on now looks like a V, so it's obviously perspective distortion. I'm all for the flat earth debate (it's f*****g hilarious) so long as the people's "proofs" are a bit more well thought out than using photos which, again, are invalid for both sides of the debate.
Greg Pagel 6 years ago
Greg here. Good observations. Couple points--not and expert, I could be wrong. I think most lenses do not cause noticeable distortion. Fish-eye and other kinds, but I don't think my iPhone lens would. In fact, I did have the camera at different angles, but I (rather painstakingly) edited and cropped them so the horizon line matched. Pic 1 was actually angled lower than pic 2, but the line look the same. If there's distortion, wouldn't you say it's pretty negligible? And the Pano shot distorts things all over the place, but if you hold it steady, the horizon line looks *pretty much* like real life. Anyway, the point of the piece was that "The horizon looks pretty flat from here, no matter how you look at it." And then I tried to demonstrate why this would be true on a great big globe. Whether you think the earth is flat or round, it's going to look the same when you're a-sittin' on it! At least, I think so. I've never been to a flat planet, so it might look different. :)
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