RE: Understanding Cognition: The Dissonance Of Flat Earth
Rather they say that we are accelerating upwards at 10 ms/2 (presumably going many millions of times the speed of light at this point in history.)
Just a quick expansion on what Cryptogee said because a lot of people don't understand what m/s2 means.
The Earth's gravitational pull accelerates an object towards the Earth's center of mass (the center of the Earth) at 9.8 m/s2. What that means, is that every second, an object falls 9.8 meters faster than it did the second before.
So, if you dropped a ball from a tall building, after one second, it would be falling at 9.8 m/s. After two seconds, it would be falling at 19.6 m/s ... and so forth.
Because Earth has an atmosphere, eventually the ball would reach a maximum rate of fall ("terminal velocity") due to air resistance.
What the Flat Earthers are claiming though, is that objects are not "falling down" towards the Earth, but rather that the Earth is "accelerating up" towards the objects.
As the Earth, and its atmosphere, would be accelerating through the vacuum of space, there would be no resistance, and so, the rate of acceleration would continue, unhindered, forever. An additional 9.8 m/s, ever second.
Earth's age (roughly 4.5 billion years), multiplied by an increase in velocity of 9.8 m/s every second, would result in a current velocity of ... a lot ... as Cryptogee stated, many many times the speed of light (I'll leave it to him to do the math).
But where would the energy to create such an acceleration be coming from? Just to accelerate a mass the size of the Earth to 99% of the speed of light would require more energy than all the stars in the observable universe.
Cognitive dissonance, indeed.
Quill
Well, if one does not want to believe in simple Newtonian physics, I see no reason to believe in relativistic physics. Hence speed of light is no problem, and the energy requirement can also be ignored for the same reason.
Even within the relativistic point of view, maintaining such an acceleration is unproblematic - it's a question of reference frames. If someone falls off the edge of the pancake, they will see the pancake accelerate with 9.8 m/s^2, but as the speed between the man-over-pancake and the pancake gets a significant fraction of c, the MOP will see the acceleration of the pancake decrease. The speed of the pancake will grow towards c in an asymptotic way, never reaching c.
This is a great devil's advocate argument by the way!
So @tobixen I would say that when you made this statement, you were 100% correct:
So therefore we can disprove the constantly accelerating disk earth with . . .
aeroplanes!!!
If the earth is constantly accelerating, then every plane that took off would come crashing down to earth as soon as it stopped accelerating and hit cruising speed. Because as you rightly pointed out, (or at least alluded to) the only way to stay at a constant height above the ground in the accelerating pancake model would be to keep accelerating yourself.
Ergo planes would not work unless they were continually accelerating upwards, and landing would be problematic to say the least. :-)
I think even the most logic-deprived flat earther would have problems getting out of that one without using the words; 'because magic.'
Cg
Sorry. As far as I can see, the only difference between the "accelerating pancake"-theory and the "gravitational planet pull"-theory is that the actual g experienced by the airplane at cruising altitude would be a tiny bit less than the actual g experienced on ground. Except for that, both theories are compatible with airplanes flying. The thing that keeps the plane from falling down is aerodynamic lift.
Though, what I do wonder about in the accelerating pancake theory is ... what is keeping the air in place? It should spill over the edges and fall of the pancake as the pancake is accelerating.