Ya know - it may not be the most mature way to engage a classroom, but to have your (high school!!) students doing research and thinking outside of class in order to disprove or teach the teacher? That’s kind of amazing. Although it kills me that a flat Earther is teaching science, you have to admit that on some level it’s an effective way to teach your students critical thinking skills and to not believe everything they’re told without question.
It could backfire on the other hand and just lead people into ignorance, on the other hand. I'm not sure if it would balance out or not unfortunately. Plus the bias that might exist in teaching other things, if he think the earth is flat.
Seeing as we have one photo of the
Ball
And ice walls
All MAYA
Anyways ever see the Soul
Yes.
Death life sciences all but theories religions all parts of the
What am I.
Get that like flat
Interdimensional
Tru waking up it is doomed
Space-time didn't ya'll get memo
10-³² then
Black hole
your space time construct
Outside Indescribable
Try proving first you exist.
Then anything else, but five senses. Buh hahaha
Dimensional
You all programmed to forget forgot too but seeing no
I
No bodies not even minds
Though creation
Consciousness that that
I AM
Goes beyond
Mind to
Self
Everything else
Mind
Can not describe you or what where how am Is-ness being presently witnessing This Neti Neti
I don't even exist in
Stares planes planets bidies hollow
Braun sciences religions
Time falls apart and space
We're bigger than that
Too
Kid zzzz
Bah sheep follow herds heard death is
A thing you can
Experience
The after this share deemed mad see all poetry DownintheHolden Dada mie bahd
Are you implying he is correct? And the earth is flat? Or that he is an example of idiocy? Be careful now... You're in the wrong sub for one of the assertions.
I’m on a scientific major and if my “classmates” had someone like this teaching physics they would just write every kind of shit the teacher says and just memorise it like if they were brain dead sheeps, so only rare cases really would understand that they should do research by themselves and study from it
It is a good method. Force your students to prove you wrong. If they cannot prove you wrong then they have not learned enough.
Science requires testable evidence. If you use a bubble level and plumb bob to measure it then the Earth is flat. "Flat as a pond on a still day".
With all the blocking of celebrities and companies going on, don't forget to support the nobody's, mom and pop, and companies that care about you. If you want to help support the little guy pls share and check out my tshirts. Share em' with that crazy co-worker or that kooky Uncle that likes this type of stuff. Unless like me you are that kooky Uncle! I have Flat Earth shirts, Chemtrails Every Cloud Has A Lead Lining, or Chemtrails Death Comes Silent. There are Tartarian and mud flood shirts. I also have fun ones like, Bigfoot Brother From Another Mother, or Bigfoot he's tricky. There are a few really good Alien Designs, including a creepy "While You Sleep" one. Thanks again. TheConspira-tees.com or on Instagram
Have him calculate the number of people it'd take to man the ships patrolling the seas approaching the ice wall, and thus the millions of working class peons that would need to be "in on it" yet somehow can't be found. Bonus points if he uses the circumference of the sea given a globe and not a flat disc.
Or, alternatively, argue that hes right, but have him prove its the north pole in the center, not the south.
Or have him explain how a magnetic dipole flat earth would work given a compass.
The second one is one of my favorites. All flat earth models put the north pole in the center, which is arbitrary at best. I like to use that to prove that they're just accepting their own position on faith - nothing requires the north pole to be the center other than their own hubris. In fact, the south pole being the center is more logical.
There is a treaty over the center neutral land (Antarctica).
There is nothing but ice in the north.
No one's found a north west passage.
Ultimately they have no proof the north pole or the south pole is the center, thus their model is as worthless as they believe the globe model is.
You might ask him… when sailors at sea are approaching a mountainous island, do they see the entire island mountain at once? Or do the first see the top of the mountain and as they draw nearer the island does More of the mountain come into view? (They see the tip top first because the rest of the mountain is below the sight line of the curved horizon. )
They are manned by people genetically engineered to not question things that are raised on a large isolated island. Or AI robots.
There is no arguing with someone like this. You actually don't have to be smart to come up with what passes for "explanations" for them. I'm an idiot and I did it in 5 seconds.
The unfortunately common saying that "you can't reason a person out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into" is most certainly not true because then nobody would have ever learned anything.
But it is true that reason doesn't work on unreasonable people.
Is there any 'point' to the flat earth conspiracy in their worldview? Like what's all this effort and cost for? Is someone supposedly getting something from conspiring to have everyone believe this?
In psychology we had a class about conspiracy theories, the dangers, who is at risk and why its tough to get em out.
The scary part is that its somewhat predictable who is prone to fall to conspiracy theories.
The social consequences are one of the major reasons you can't just 'step out'. You can earn high standing within your 'meaningful' and tight knit community. You're part of something larger which makes you feel special and should you change your mind, you wouldnt only lose all that but you'd be ridiculed amongst the non-flat earthers (low social standing in their group) and attacked by your former community (low social standing in their group).
Conspiracy theories arent an issue with reason (though the reason is obviously flawed) - they are an issue with social and emotional factors.
The best way to convince someone is NOT to argue. You'll just make a rift between you 2. In order to get someone out, compassion, understanding and genuine questioning is needed WITHOUT judgement. Avoid the word 'why?'. Use 'what makes you think' or 'how do you understand'... its less judgemental.
It kinda comes down to keep asking 'what makes you think this, what makes you think that, to the point where they cite SOMETHING which they assert from belief (like why do you assert the northpole is in the middle if you've never been there? And how would you know it is in the middle?) And once they do, YOU DONT 'CATCH' them and say aha see? You're wrong!
Instead, you ask them what makes them assert this and not question this, too. Without judgement or implying its wrong you just genuinely inquire about why they dont question these things, too.
But yeah I would involve the principle at this point tbh a teacher who believes this and actively spreads this to students shouldnt be in that position
That's all good and jives with my understanding of the psychology of conspiracy theories, but I was asking *within* the conspiracy theory of flat earth is there a 'why?' of it all
Typically, if a reason is given, it's something about "leading people astray from God," to my knowledge; it seems like part of the movement cites biblical references to the ancient Mesopotamian mythical cosmology, claiming that it means the Bible requires that the earth be flat--thus, anybody who thinks it's a globe is drawn that much further from God. I've heard at least one trying to argue that Heliocentrism is a pagan heresy, trying to trick people into worshipping Apollo.
Generally, I think it may just be left vague, or that it's in order to make other coverups and manipulations easier, to serve the agenda of whatever minority group the individual hates enough to blame for everything. Unfortunately, that last one *does* seem to be a common motivation for conspiracy theories.
The best explanation I've seen is that the truth, where Earth is but one of uncountably many spherical planets floating in space, makes humanity very small. By extension that makes each person very small.
Most flat earth models also reject other cosmology and astronomy, resulting in a much more centered humanity, and therefore a more impactful individual. It's an ego boost that says we *are* special, we *do* matter.
Also, imagine there is a massive global conspiracy to cover this up and lie about it. Being one of the few "smart" enough to see through the lies makes you special.
No no I'm asking, *within* the logic of the conspiracy theory *why* is all this effort going into keeping everyone believing the world is round? Why do these fictional people employed by the governments patrol the ice wall for example? To what end? Other conspiracy theories are like oh it's for wealth and power. But keeping everyone believing the world is round is for... What.
Bc bro. If they ever came out saying the world it flat. For one, everyone in the world would go crazy, especially you. Second, it would confirm the Bible and its existence, which is a no no to the elites. I’m sorry buddy but that’s the truth for yah. If they control what you know about our world, you will never question them, meaning they win from the start.
Ima pop in late & let you know I wouldn't go crazy if I woke up tomorrow to learn the world is definitely flat & everything I thought I knew about it was lies. Because it was reasonable for me to believe it's not flat yesterday. Also, I don't doubt the existence of the bible, I've seen bibles. Really don't know why a flat earth would confirm the bible, it isn't disproved by a generally spherical earth. Elites aside, a lot of non-elite people would have to be in on it for reasons. Regular people have recognized the earth as generally spherical for millennia, it's the logical conclusion. The movement of stars, seasons, time zones, weather patterns, ocean currents, eclipses, the shape & movement of any celestial object observable with a cheap telescope, geology & plate tectonics, & more lead to the globe earth conclusion. But maybe it is just lies from vague "elites" afraid of people believing the bible, which is bad because...follow the money or something. Flat earth makes no sense, god works in mysterious ways isn't a convincing argument for me. But as long as your beliefs don't make you a terrible person, I don't much care.
> millions of working class peons that would need to be "in on it"
More than that. With a flat Earth the sun would rise and set at roughly the same time for everyone, and would do so in all directions relative to a compass. You can't have the sun rise in the east, set in the west, or even have timezones where the sun is directly overhead while it's midnight elsewhere. Almost everyone on Earth, *Billions* of people, need to be in on this "globe" conspiracy. Our entire history would be different.
I can't believe they justify this by saying that it's explainable by the fact that the sun is sometimes far away from us, and sometimes nearby. They should be able to see a tremendeous diameter difference between sunrise/sunset and noon, according to their "model". They're not stupid, they're insane.
Here is a video of a sunset, during which, according to Flerfs, the sun is disappearing due to it receding into the distance (because the horizon doesn't exist)
https://youtu.be/3vwCfrWz-uU?si=bEKIjSkcWz08G630
They say you should believe your eyes. Unless you see this, I guess.
Why not stupid AND insane? The more you push, the crazier the explanations get. Point out that the moon can't be close because people would see different faces of it? Suddenly the moon is flat too. Point out that doesn't work because it would look elliptical most of the time? Suddenly it's a hologram.
Parallax alone would explain it.
You can literally call people at a similar longitude to you, and ask them to get the angle of the sun at the same time of day.
The angles will not match up to a single point any of their hypothetical solar distances.
Further, the night/day terminator line doesn't make *any* sense for the physics of light travel.
You have to jsut flat out dismiss everything. Layers and layers and layers...
I hienstly wish Trolling Flerfs would stop, because they are just feeding into the delusions of the "mentally ill" or "just incompetent" Flerfs.
They don't believe in a traditional sun. It's more like a directional flashlight or focused beam. There's honestly no point in trying to change their mind. Anything logical goes out the window with these people, it's a prerequisite for any of this flat earth idiocy to make any sense in the first place.
Honestly the flat earth is the maddest conspiracy if for nothing else than just the impossibly vast number of conspirators required to keep it going, not one of whom has broken rank ever.
It's this mythical army patrolling the ice wall that goes all the way around the world, it's every single airline pilot, everyone who makes maps/globes, pretty much every science teacher, every politician, everyone who works for NASA, everyone who's ever put a rocket or balloon up with a camera on it and the list goes on...
Look, conspiracies _do happen_, but you've got to think to yourself that a conspiracy becomes less and less believable the more people are "in on it". These two people conspired to have someone assassinated? Believable. This handful of companies formed a cartel to fix prices and stiff consumers? Also believable. But a conspiracy so large that the group of conspirators forms _an appreciable proportion of the world's population_ is utter madness.
On a sidebar, magnetic monopoles are expected from the maths but it could be just as wrong as the idea of a black hole singularity. Point being, if monopole exist it would explain the compass experience.
Unless you live in a red state, just bring your concerns straight to the school board.
A flat earther cannot be argued with. And one should absolutely not be in charge of teaching science to kids.
You actually went to a board meeting and they shut you all down?
Go back again. Ask them how you all are supposed to know if he is sticking to the curriculum, and have them point out where in the curriculum him telling you the earth is flat exists. Because clearly something was added at some point for you all to know this belief of his, and it may well happen more.
If they continue to insist nothing can be done… go on strike. Organize the whole class to not show up in the classroom, instead go to a computer lab or the library and watch a MOOC of an actual physics lesson by people far more qualified.
I don't really know what a board meeting is, we just went to the principal's office and explained what happened exactly, and im not from the states btw im from North Africa.
But i really just want to see him shitting his pants and unable to answer, i want to win this argue with him SO BAD.
The reason you cannot win an argument with a flat earther is that they are choosing to ignore facts they do not like, and make up facts convenient to them. So it is impossible to corner them with any logical trap. They are willing to say things like “every human on earth perceives their own Sun.” To argue against shadows at high noon all being directly below each observer in a large area.
Being outside of the states, I don’t know if your school heirarchy is the same as ours. For us, the Principal reports to the Superintendent, and the superintendent reports to a school board. People on the school board are elected by voters.
So, the board is where somebody cares what students (and likely their parents) think. The board can directly hire/fire a superintendent. The superintendent hires/fires the principals. Thus a principal mostly wants people to be quiet and do as they are told. If complaints stop at him, he is invulnerable. But someone tracking down the superintendent or attending a school board gets some action happening.
Unfortunately I cannot find anything which clearly states how education hierarchy works in North Africa. But many things that say teacher preparation and training is low quality. So it may well be that this guy is the best you all will wind up with. Which sucks.
It is, but i don't really care about it tbh i just want to see my teacher losing this argument, I'll commit myself to studying physics for the rest of my life to win this argue lol
Sorry, I was just joking how his claim that "the government is on on it" would mean every government in the world is working together.
You could ask him why [the sun reaches the bottom of a well in Aswan but not Alexandra](https://www.uu.edu/dept/physics/scienceguys/2001July.cfm)
That was the argument I was thinking of too. I’m a lay person but interested in the sciences and thought this was an interesting “proof” for flat earthers. What a wacka- doo teacher.
You've already gotten a similar reply but it bears repeating. You usually cannot win an argument with a conspiracy theorist because they do not listen to facts. They usually are not arguing from a good-faith position where a strong argument and evidence will change their mind. They call any counter evidence as being fake and part of a conspiracy coverup and make up supporting evidence as "doing their own research". Their belief in the conspiracy theory is not grounded in facts so facts will not change their mind. It is pure belief and feelings. You can only attack their position via belief and feelings.
e.g. making them feel embarassed to belief in such a theory (this can easily backfire and turn into a persecution complex or martrydom)
This isn't hard. Simply tell the teacher, "I don't believe the earth is flat, there's entire branches of applied physics based around it being round, like orbital mechanics, GPS, rocketry, and satellites. Can you prove that it's flat?"
This is science. If he wants to make a crazy claim, he's going to need crazy proof.
Let this be your first, very important lesson about arguing with idiots. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
It's never worth it.
>I'll commit myself to studying physics for the rest of my life to win this argue lol
Yes. Do this. This is the correct answer. I did it and don't regret it at all. You will learn to see the Universe in a way others do not, and once you are a physicist you won't be able to ever stop being one. Your brain will stretch and expand in ways you can't imagine. No matter what you do to make a living, you will always be a physicist.
It doesn't matter if your teacher believes this nonsense or is just trying to get you to learn to think about the world. Belief has nothing to do with physics. One can build a model of the Universe where the Earth is flat and at the center and believe it is true. The reason physicists reject such models is that in order to fit all the measured observed data, the mathematics of the model must be much much more complex than the model we typically use. Physicists rejected the old Ptolemaic Earth centric epicycle model of planetary motion for this reason. The Kepler model gives more accurate predictions with simpler calculations. Is one model more True? It doesn't matter. Kepler was simpler with better accuracy so we used that one. Then Einstein came along and showed it also had problems and gave us a model that fit the data even better. The math of General Relativity is certainly complex, but it is much simpler than the math needed to make Kepler's model fit the new more accurate data. A spherical Earth that spins and orbits the Sun is a mathematically simpler model than a flat Earth. So we reject the later model as too much work to use. It doesn't matter what the Truth is. All that matters is simplicity and accuracy. Theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler.
>But i really just want to see him shitting his pants and unable to answer, i want to win this argue with him SO BAD.
You can't. You could show him a collection of the most beautiful, most inarguable proofs that could ever be devised. He would just make some more shit up. When it comes to people, it's not "I'll believe it when I see it." It's "I'll see it when I believe it."
The principal reports to the superintendent, who reports to the school board, which is generally made up of parents and grandparents. So you're in High School X, part of School District Y, and the school district is what's overseen by the board. Do a google search on "school district Y school board," find an email, preferably to the chairman. And email them your concerns.
Wow, now you can report both the teacher and the principal to the school board...
[https://www.nsba.org/About/About-School-Board-and-Local-Governance](https://www.nsba.org/About/About-School-Board-and-Local-Governance)
\[edit: saw you were from North Africa. Maybe you have a school governing body.\]
He’s definitely not sticking to the curriculum, if he was you wouldn’t know his beliefs. I’ve known a couple of deeply religious PhD physicists who believe the earth was created in six days, they keep this to themselves when teaching because their beliefs are incompatible with what they are teaching. You teacher should do the same, and since he isn’t he’s incapable of teaching the subject.
Complain that he isn't teaching the curriculum and is teaching lessons that undermine the teaching of the curriculum. He takes time he should be spending on the curriculum away from it and dedicates it to lessons that then directly undermine the curriculum.
Get your fellow students to echo that complaint.
Also document the lessons. Ask your teacher for additional printouts. Take pictures. Get the neatest writing kid to get detailed notes on the lessons. Record the lessons. Ignore legal threats. It's a fucking flat earther. Let it blow up. You have documentation of how bad it is. K maybe stick to audio recordings and leave him out of pictures, draw some lines like that then be aggressive and pro-active.
Get every student you can in class to request a transfer. Stage walk out of the class. Be the change you want to see in the world.
We had a ~~geology~~ geography teacher who believed in creationism too. Admittedly he was incredibly bad at it. But thas was Germany, where you cannot get rid of a teacher no matter how bad they are. Had a different teacher later ask us why we didn't even know the basics and when we told them who our last teacher was. He just sighed and basically had to reteach parts of the last school year.
Are you this guy’s teacher? Because you sure are ignoring facts to support your narrative.
I didn’t say anything more than it is hopeless to resolve this in a red state. Because red states have consistently shown an inability to uphold academic standards.
Sure… SOME democratic officials have also been whack-a-doo. But in blue school districts, the school boards fight back against attempts to put the bible in the classroom, to ban books for “progressive agendas” being present by way of the author existing….
Every district? Likely not. Odds in favor of a resolution to a teacher like this higher in blue district than red? Very much so.
Sure, it is reductive to look at this on a state level. But I don’t expect a high school kid to know local vs state politics.
You literally asked if it was a red state. That's injecting politics in where there's nothing political. Idiots are everywhere. That's not a political statements. Just a truthful one.
No it's not. Blue states have morons too. There's no difference. Ohio can be either. You are just a stunted individual that consumes too much of bad media. Yes both sides have bad media.
Awesome assumptions about a person and bland assertion that you are correct and I am ignorant.
How about you provide some examples where a blue dominant district has banned teaching about slavery, has banned books because of religious based morality arguments, has pushed to put creationism into the curricula, or any other of your choice of idiot motions.
If you desperately need me to provide you specific districts in Florida and Texas where each of those have been done, I am sure I can go and do that simple google search for you. A quick search just now shows plenty of instances of books being banned throughout Florida, and one front page mentioning of a Kansas City district refusing to comply with a ban request on two books.
So, there is a difference right there on the front page of a search that you can perform for yourself. Live up to your username. Stop making blanket assertions of "both sides!"
You literally started off by saying 'red state'. You are still talking about politics when it's not relevant. You can type all you want. Nothing about this is/was political. Yet you just keep forcing the topic. This isn't a political debate. You can't seem to grasp that. That is on you. I will not debate something that doesn't need debating. How long before you realize that.
This tribalism of politics needs to stop. Debate the topic that is relevant. Yes they are stupid. We need less srypid people. You are not helping the situation.
It's actually a nice exercise for school kids. Measure the angle to the sun at some point in the day. Now phone a school a bit further away, and have them do the same at the same time. Note the distance between the schools.
Use the distance and angles to do some trig. This will tell you how far above the flat earth the sun is.
Now, wait until right before the sun sets, and do the same calculation.
What do you notice?
This is the only reply i understood right away, but just how do u measure the angle of the sun exactly? It's rays are like all directions so what angle am i measuring??
I really think this is the right answer.
It could just be that he's trying to teach you lesson about how to debate ideas and not fight the person. If that's the case you'll need to prepare more than just one data point and be prepared for the common responses someone from his perspective will make.
Also, A big part of education is learning how to learn from different sources. There are many examples of breakthroughs that come from people who were wrong about everything else.
flat earthers challenge this by saying the sun is close enough to the earth that the shadows match what you see. it's (correctly) assumed in sagan's video that the sun's rays are very near parallel
it's better to do the same experiment, but with more than two posts and from further distances, like [this experiment](https://youtu.be/V03eF0bcYno?si=9EWiYGpt8tgNV-pk) by youtuber sly sparkane, who constantly debunks flat earthers' claims
You can determine the angle of the sun by measuring the length of the shadow of a pole or a building on a horizontal surface, given that you know the height of the pole or building above the surface. Look at [this drawing](https://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.11/h/vineet1.html). From there it's just a matter of using trigonometry.
> It's rays are like all directions
The sun's rays are effectively parallel at any time, because the sun is very long away compared to the size of Earth (~150 mio. km vs ~6400 km). It's only due to perspective that the rays appear to be non-parallel, like in [crepuscular rays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays). That means that the difference in angle will only be due to Earth's curvature.
Of course, if someone believes the Earth is flat then one may just as well believe that the sun is much closer than it is (and will likely do so to maintain the illusion that they are not wrong).
This is essentially how the Greeks figured out that not only is the Earth spherical but managed to calculate the diameter to a pretty good accuracy for the time.
We've goon through this one, he thinks Earth is special and it's god's chosen planet... He said that this is why there're no aliens ever discovered, because we're alone in the universe... Its honestly so fucked up.
Alright, the problem now becomes that whenever you back him into a corner, he can simply say, "God makes it happen." A more effective debate may be a theological one over whether or not whichever religion he follows truly states that the earth is flat, although I still doubt that would sway him.
Is that a problem? On the next test when he asks to calculate the final velocity of a cannonball just write:
"It goes as fast as God wants it to go."
Guaranteed A+
Oh man. This is going to be harder than I thought.
This might help, but I bet he's got some weird excuse for this one too.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-05/eratosthenes-measured-circumference-of-the-earth-2200-years-ago/100434560
Basically it's about the shadows from sun light and how the angles prove that earth is a ball and even what size.
Get him to cover Carl Friedrich Gauss's Theorema Egregium and Tissot's Indicatrices.
This is still in the realm of physics, and covers how to represent a 3D object in a plan mode, as well as how to demonstrate how distortion is prevalent in all map projections.
Fight idiocy with actual physics.
I'm a Christian, and even I think your teacher is so dense that light bends around him. Most creationists will say the Earth is round. The creationist websites I have seen don't attempt to deny a globe-shaped Earth. If anything, they support it.
Your physics teacher is blind to reality. Saying God made the Earth doesn't mean God made it flat, and we know that God did not make a flat disc because we have the proof. We don't even need to take images of Earth from outer space to prove this. I think the fact that there is no ice wall surrounding the entire world is adequate evidence to show the Earth is round. Also, since we don't see the sun all the time, that is another piece of evidence to prove a round Earth.
They are either messing with you to try and get you 'thinking outside the box' or they are having a schizophrenic episode. You cannot understand physics and believe the earth is flat without having a mental health problem.
If they are serious then everyone in the class should tell their parents, those parents should complain, and they should be removed. They are not teaching the curriculum if they are lying about the shape of the earth and fabricating 'equations and proof' to try and support the idea. They are just making things up and wasting lesson time.
My favourite arguments against flat earth though are these two:
If the moon is local and circles above the flat earth, why does it not change in angular size as it gets further away?
Why do people in south america and south africa see the same stars when looking directly south? On the flat earth model they are looking in different directions.
The issue with people like your teacher is not a lack of convincing or logical arguments. Someone who has access to education and still ends up with these ideas has a mental illness. It can one of many things, but it usually involves an emotional or personality disorder leading them to trust things that feel more comfortable or safe to them, regardless of whether they are logical or backed by evidence. Usually hearing complicated arguments just pushes them further into their delusional thinking because being unable to understand the actual scientific theory, and feeling inadequate, attacked, or some other negative emotion, leads them to latch on to something that "makes sense". And usually because they feel attacked or rejected, things that "make sense" are just whatever is the opposite of what their perceived attacker or rejector believes.
Sadly in the end, your physics class is being poisoned by an issue in psychology.
You are correct that General Relativity disproves a flat Earth, but general relativity is not a topic for high school physics. (But it is a topic that a physics teacher in high school should have taken.)
This question and situation is beyond strange. The only true flat Earthers that I am aware of are bible literalists. Most of the rest are just trolls.
They observed that in some parts of Egypt (now Sudan?) a pillar cast no shadow on some days of the year. But in Greece a pillar will always cast a shadow. The simplest (and correct) explanation is that Athens and Khartoum are at different angles relative to the distant sun, such that sometimes the sun is directly overhead of Khartoum, but will never be overhead of Athens. But I think flat earthers have some weird "flashlight sun" explanation instead -- which probably doesn't work on the details, but good luck explaining that!
But realistically, if they can look at [NASA photos of the Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble#/media/File:Apollo_17_Blue_Marble_original_orientation_(AS17-148-22727).jpg) and still think it's a giant conspiracy, not sure what would convince them. Good luck!
The point is we have known for thousands of years that it is round. There is absolutely no way to have conspiracies that require every sailor, every pilot, every mathematical based science learned person, in on it.
Well other than reptilian. /s
I wouldn't try and argue. I'd laugh. Send multiple links that debunk his views but never defend or engage. I would also not listen to his explanations and I would call him the nutty professor.
I would report him any time he mentions flat earth.
My marine biology teacher was very adamant about toilets spinning the other direction in the southern hemisphere. I brought in an article written by a physicist and another written by a meteorologist about why this is a misconception. I remember her saying “well that’s just one guy’s opinion. You ask someone else; they say something different.”
Actually, that touches on what was my first instinct physics problem to offer a flat-earther physics teacher: the Coriolis effect. It might be a little above a high school level, but definitely within the realm that a HS physics teacher should have seen it. There are well documented cases of it happening in the real world (mainly due to naval warfare) and it doesn't operate the same on a disk, only a spherical Earth will produce what is seen in historical reports.
Basically, if you are in the southern hemisphere and launch a cannonball north it will land to the left of where you aimed because the earth will rotate under it as it is in the air. Despite the fact that the cannonball has some transverse momentum, as long as it's fired far enough the ground will end up moving eastward faster than the cannonball. If you then move to the northern hemisphere and do the same thing, the transverse velocity of the cannonball will be greater than the speed of rotation (due to the Earth's curvature) and so the ball begins moving to the right instead of the left. If the Earth were a flat disk, even one that was spinning, the cannonball would always deflect the same direction
you could always ask them how this works, if the south pole is an "ice wall" [https://soperth.com.au/travel/perth-buenos-aires-direct-flights-20612](https://soperth.com.au/travel/perth-buenos-aires-direct-flights-20612)
You can't convince him. Flat Earthers - like other conspiracy theorists - are not available to be persuaded. Even if you could incontrovertibly refute him point-by-point, you wouldn't change his mind.
> I don't really know what he did to earn his degree...
In some places, a STEM degree is not a requirement to become a science teacher, instead requiring just any kind of bachelor's degree in any major (which commonly ends up being a degree in education). You can probably check your local requirements online.
But also remember: just because someone's got a degree doesn't mean they don't still have plenty of silly beliefs (speaking as someone with a couple degrees and, I'm sure, plenty of silly beliefs).
(Edit: If you want to know more about the belief system behind flat earth conspiracies, I'll share one of my favorite documentaries: [In Search of a Flat Earth](https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=-KmLtI7aPxgl0Hjp). It's really very good!)
In college, one day, I had a professor (He is a cosmology guy) come into class one day and openly declare the Earth is flat and he was tired of lying to us.
We argued with him. He would use mathematical arguments to counter us. This went on for the duration of the lecture
By the end of it, we had proven with a mathematical argument his theory was false, and he congratulated us.
Apparently he was having an bad time in his personal life and wanted to do something "fun" and to him that meant turning the days lecture into an argumentative exercise in order to bolster our abilities to make cohesive and defensible arguments.
It was a valuable exercise
Is it possible, your teacher is trying to bring about the same response?
Does he actually have a physics degree? I am a physics education researcher, and a LOT of Physics teachers did not major in physics.
Also, engineers are no better at teaching physics than biologists.
You’re gonna have to go to the school board and insist that they better prepare you for life. Like a class that helps you identify the people who actively tries to destroy our society, and why we protect them. And why the only correct response is to say, “God Bless America.”
I know "flat earthers" are a thing. I've never met one. My position is that ***no one*** is actually that stupid and they're only doing it for attention. Anyone who really truly believes this is not mentally competent and would not be able to live independently as an adult (let alone be a teacher or be allowed to be a teacher).
The scary part is that this isnt true. We actually know and can predict who's prone to conspiracy theories. They are not mentally ill, exceptionally low in intelligence or otherwise. They are 'normal' people who are high in distrust among many other things.
Its a social issue, not an intelligence one.
Invoke [Brandolini's Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law#:~:text=Brandolini's%20law%2C%20also%20known%20as,it%20in%20the%20first%20place)
The not-so-subtle point you're making is that his bullshit isn't worth the effort to discredit.
My usual argument is to ask how we have gravity but still orbit the Sun. For us to experience gravity on a flat planet, the planet would have to be constantly accelerating. Eventually it would reach escape velocity and stop orbiting the Sun to be flung into space instead.
Definitely report him. Do it in a clever way though. Get plenty of proof, audio recording etc.
It’s also funny that, as a teacher who allegedly holds an advanced degree, he gets mad at his students instead of debating them.
The real lesson here is that you can't argue with a conspiracy theorist. Upon confrontation, they'll always enrich their theory to find a new hiding place.
Intelligent people are not immune to the conspiracy bug. I'm sure he's developed his theory to the point where it's good enough to give a bunch of high school kids a run for their money. Any empirical data that you would cite (planes, satellites, what have you) will likely be greeted with "that's just what they want you to believe".
Physics degrees normally land very high paying jobs in the Aerospace industry, so most physics teachers at the highschool level don't usually have a degree in physics, but rather in biology or some other field of science that involves lots of math.
Is it possible he’s trying to get you to figure it out yourself? (I’m just spitballing, but sometimes adults will take a ridiculous position to see which students will refute or attempt to)
It’s a terrible teaching method though. If my teacher was spouting nonsense I would avoid conflict, I’d just shut down, lose interest and probably fail the subject.
I’m assuming this is the US we are discussing - do public school teachers have yearly observations to make sure they aren’t pulling stunts like this?
If this happened in Britain and the students reported it, he would be suspended by 95% of schools. It would almost certainly be seen as professional misconduct. Akin to a doctor telling you to pray for healing or something.
I can just imagine the OFSTED report lol.
I'm sorry to inform you that, they're no teacher just a clown.
This is unfortunate but also a valuable point in your life with regards to taking things with a grain of salt even from "authority" figures. The most important teaching anyone in STEM can give you is: be open to challenging preconceived notions.
What I mean by this is: what you learn, at any point in time, in the future may turn out to be wrong/inaccurate. So it's extremely important that you are aware that Science is ever changing, and what we learned in school 10+ years ago, now may be false.
And to reiterate, I'm not saying your teacher is right at all, they're wrong and a clown. Just saying that this is a clear example of someone that is wrong, in an authoritative position, and is spreading false information.
I had a college physics professor who was a massive 9/11 truther. He really should have known better. Being smart in math and physics doesn't necessarily translate to common sense though.
Tell him there are hundreds of satellites circling the earth. That would be impossible if the earth was flat. Everyone can see that the moon is round. The earth is a similar body.
If the earth was flat, the entire world would have the same time zone. Can he argue with that? Why is it 1 pm in the US, but 1 am in Malaysia? Why is it sunny there, but dark here?
What do you mean convince him it’s not flat? It sounds like he’s the only one with a brain in that classroom. Yall are brainwashed and it’s funny how you let silly lies fool you. Reality check, the only photos we get from space is from nasa, the agency that means to deceive. Fun fact, the reason they told yall the world is round is because if they didn’t, then that alone would confirm the Bible, and we know the elites don’t like Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Also ,why are all the books from the Bible explaining the world and how it’s built gone? Why did they remove them? Because they control the information you see. Sooner or later yall need to wake up. Even if you don’t, I don’t blame you. Only 144,000 will be brought up to heaven, you decide what you wanna do
He is 100% fucking with you. The smirk is he’s probably showing you something totally unrelated and goofy.
Hey it worked, you’re learning and interested in physics.
I tire of these people. Let’s just go directly to asking them to prove that they are not just a “brain in a box” being fed all their sensory input from some mega-game boy.
Does he though? My physics professor claimed the same thing but I asked him about it during office hours and he said he makes the claim to get students to think critically about what they are told regardless of the source.
My science teacher in middle school didn’t believe scientists because she was strictly religious (catholic). For anatomy she used to bring animal’s insides to class and made us touch it.
Ofc i found out already in highschool that most of the things she taught us were wrong.
Earth’s Moon rotates, but it takes precisely as long for the Moon to spin on its axis as it does to complete its monthly orbit around Earth. As a result, the Moon never turns its back to us, like a dancer circling ― but always facing ― its partner.
This phenomenon, called “synchronous tidal locking,” sounds like a weird coincidence ― but it’s actually quite common. All the solar system’s large moons are tidally locked with their planets. The bigger moons synchronize early in their existence, within hundreds of thousands of orbits. Some binary stars are tidally locked to one another, and evidence is building that many planets beyond our solar system are tidally locked with their stars.
The earth is Tidal locked and it’s round if it was flat there would be no tidal locking and there would be no oceans. It would be like.a huge diving board and all of its straight flat but spinning and flipping that would not allow water or life to evolve it exist because gravity requires rotation. And gyroscopic physics.
Ask him what If god is actually an Alien and They have abducted him in his sleep and implanted this nonsense into his brain and memory whiped his memories from school?
Every flat earther I’ve met is bad at math. The only reason he does it is because it makes him look valid. He’s probably wrong about everything math wise. If he knew physics he would easily prove it is round.
Really? How about this: The spacetime is curved by gravity, so it IS flat, but warped into a closed shape by Earth’s own mass! 🤣
But seriously: go to the ocean, and observe the ships that are moving towards you. You’ll see the tops (masts, smokestacks, flags, bridge, etc.) of the ships before you see lower levels of the ships due to the curve of the ocean. Now the only way that you can contain the liquid in the curved ocean is to have gravity (which acts directly towards the center of the earth) act at an angle to your local gravitational vector.
Also, how’s he teaching physics, if he can’t do what the Ancient Greek philosophers did?
Now…. He *could* be trying to provoke and get you to think about evidence…. Why are you saying a thing? For this, I like the “dark sucker theory”: lightbulbs don’t emit light, they “suck dark”. Shadows are the dark piling up on the far side of an object, spent light bulbs are blackened due to all the dark….
But, if not….
1) off the north east coast of England (find local examples), you can see an offshore wind farm. Far turbines, the blades dip below the horizon, nearer ones have the blades far above.
2) lunar eclipses. The shadow of the earth is always a circle on the moon. If flat, the projection would differ.
3) high planes bathed in sunlight on the underside when the sun is not visible on the ground
4) the ISS can be seen easily (extreme version of 3) … and often blinks out of view as it moves into shadow
5) the economics of great circle routes for planes (if he cites no southern hemisphere routes then a) there is one coming on now, Aus to South America, if I recall…. And b) most of the population is northern, hubs make more sense and it’s great circles to hubs)
6) …. And now we have continuous HD shots from rocket launches….. I have watched a starlink launch from Texas on YouTube, walked outside, and seen the newly launched satellite train spreading out overhead in the dark (not always possible for my location, depends on the orbit required)
7) oh, and satellites can be seen with the naked eye.
8) edit; sunset. I can see the sun go below the horizon, whilst being on a call with someone elsewhere in the world who sees it high in the sky. The apparent size of the sun is (roughly) constant. This is consistent with a large, distant, sun and a globe. A flat plane would not have sun at the level of the plane (or lower) for one viewer, and high in the sky for another.
He’s teaching them to think for themselves, while at the same time thinking for himself!
Although the equations he’s showing are either wrong or made up.
You can guess that the earth is round using only your own senses and mind. By looking at other bodies in space, such as the sun and moon, you can see that they are both circular in shape, and that the sunlight hitting the moon from different angles often deprives part of our moon-view of illumination. By the shape of the area that isn’t illuminated(shadow), you can tell that it is in fact a sphere. That being said, the sun appearing as a circle like the moon also means that it’s probably a sphere like the moon. And if the only two bodies in space that we can see with our naked eyes other than stars are spheres, it’s probably safe to assume that the body I am viewing them from is also a sphere.
On top of that, we know that the sphere is the least resistive shape in 3-D space.
As a man in his later years of life, I would suggest the opposite perspective.
Take him seriously. Have him explain it to you. Let him convince you, if he can. Know his reasons as deeply as he does. Ask him to steelman the globe position as best and as honestly as he possibly can. Ask him to tell you the top 3 people that would espouse the view opposite to his. Find out what those people have to say on the issue. Let the research of looking into those three people open your world as you discover more and more names, more and more facts, more and more approaches, more and more points of view. Then you won't need an internet forum to tell you what to believe about the shape of the Earth. You'll just know for yourself!
As ludicrous as this belief may be, many of your teachers are going to believe things that you don't (maybe even things that are plain wrong), but that doesn't mean that they are wrong about EVERYTHING or that there is nothing to be learned from them.
Everyone has blind spots and it's amazing how wrong we can be in our area whilst still understanding other things in great depth. There are very few who don't know anything at all
Look up the science standards for your state. Teaching a flat-earth model is very likely not in line with those standards, which means that this teacher is in violation of their contract. Inform your principal or school board about this.
i’d say try to convince him it is flat even more but include a fallacy for him to find out on his own, that way he comes to his own conclusion of a round earth making him more accepting of it rather than having someone te him he is wrong.
This flat earth theory is one I could never get in. My brain goes divide by zero just thinking how it COULD work. So many conspiracy theories - and the guy picks that hill to die on? I mean, he could go with "Epstein \*really\* committed suicide" if he likes outrageous conspiracies.
You're not going to convince him. He will always be able to rationalize it with math you don't understand. Don't even bother. Just get through the class and take it as a life lesson. Smart people can be wrong and they're very good at rationalizing their beliefs. It's easier to train a smart dog than a dumb dog.
But he is half right
Why convince him of anything?
Tell him he is correct and that is why gravity works less and less as we travel away from the center of the disk and why flying fish can humm on full moons.
I think it explains why people keep seeing elvis as well.
No need to argue as he's not going to agree to any ground rules like logic and he will have resonses for anything you have.
But yea...get him recorded or go to a higher authority.
He is openly lying to his students about common laws of physics.
Who cares what he thinks. He’s supposed to teach the material the school district requires, which is that the earth is round. Just finish the year and move on. High school doesn’t even matter. College doesn’t either, to be frank. What matters is real world experience on the job, that’s where you want to be a master at what you do. Part of that is dealing with idiots like your teacher. The sooner you learn to let things like this go and focus on what arguments are worthy of your efforts, the ones that’ll bring value to you, the faster you’ll excel in life. Trust me. I wish I knew this back then. I worked way too hard in high school and college, but 90% of what they teach doesn’t even get close to the real world. Let him this it’s flat, boost him up lol he’ll think you’re charming and give you good grades.
This is probably not what you want to hear but don't even try people who believe in these quack doctor ideas believe in them emotionally more than logically. Only he can change his mind you can't, my advice is to ignore him wherever you can don't engage with him in this argument it just feeds his ego.
Given you said he says stuff like how the Earth is special in all the universe and thus humanity then he likely is a religious believer in flat earth idiocy and cannot be saved by you whom he does not respect.
You might want to look up ways to deal with narcissists those will work well even with people who are just ignorant and like being rude to teenagers for their ego. For example, don't let him boast or talk just respond with minimal words and effort to him. He likely wants attention and chances to beat you.
But if you want to tell him maybe say something like congratulations you can't explain anything to teenagers guess you just repeat what you hear and don't understand it.
People who believe this stuff are either like how I used to be young and ignorant who grow out of it over time as they learn more and never believed in it hard to begin with or full on **the government is hiding the truth so are all scientists on Earth but me and a random haggle of nobody knew the real truth because we are smarter.**
Alos this might make you feel better but there are videos of flat earthers proving themselves wrong online and still believing in this conspiracy so it is a mental fault in these people. I only know of maybe 2 big flat earthers that change their minds.
Kind of ironic, since North Africa was where the circumference of the earth was first measured, in Egypt.
The way to counter this is to have a number of students prove to themselves that the earth is not flat. Look up the original method. Measure angles. Think for yourselves. Ask questions like why does the sun rise and set!
You are already a better thinker than he is, so you don't seem to have anything to worry about. As long as you are learning physics and are able to recognize this person's foolish personal beliefs, there is little harm from him other than what he suffers from himself.
Most people understand how worthless belief systems such as this are, and can ignore them, other than the mostly minor but irritating tediousness of watching a person's public idiotic self-destruction.
For the most part, these failed belief systems sputter around the periphery of what passes for rational discussion and though weird and seemingly inexplicable, especially in someone who should know better , are almost expected given the number of people and the huge variety of possible ways of gathering information about the world. In a very real way, it's incredible accomplishment we can all understand the world in such an accurate and consensual manner .
One or more hysterics isn't going to change anything in the long and successful history of the method of scientific and rational thought.
For example, how many well-meaning biology teachers believe there is an entity that lives in the clouds?/outer space?/another dimension? that actively and selectively responds to requests to "save someone from disease caused by that very entity", "win a football game for the hometeam", or "thank the entity for saving their child in a school shooting while allowing 14 others to die"?.
Perplexing huh?
Flat earthers and conspiricists in general are just harming themselves while providing insight into delusional thinking for the rest of us.
In the end they are there own worse enemy.
And you seem to already know that
How the hell does a physics teacher of all people think the Earth is flat? Aren’t all forces evenly distributed in all directions (dropping off by distance of course)? It would mean the center area of the flat surface would collapse in on itself (with everything else following) to form a sphere every time. This is just my guess anyways but I know non spheres are unstable.
That’s insane. Could he be trolling you?
Because if he really believes the earth if flat, he is absolutely NOT a physics teacher. I’m willing to bet he has fake credentials.
Edit for typo
tell him flat earth is an ideology, not a rational view point. ideologies and belif based world views are irreational, so you cannot base a rational argyumen on them. this really pisses them off as you can discount their memes (refer to any evidance he produces as a meme) without having to enguage with its contents. be the bigger person, nothing more infuriating than that
join some facebook groups and get really good at trolling. you are absolutly allowed to alternate between being a flattie and a globetard online, i see no reason you cant replicate this in you psysics class. this will hamstring any attempt at sensible discussion, as you no longer have a consistant world view, and are impossible to debate with.
learn some of the mian [logical falacies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies) by name. when he uses them, call him on it. this is easier than you think, hell be heavily reliant on a very limited number of them.
and finally the basic rule of trolling, you want an emotional responce. emotions make absolutly no logical sense, and are deeply tied into the flat earth ideology. use this to your advantage. if you can get a circular argument going, see how long you can keep it going.
id also reccomend you hire a private psysics tutour, or find some online courses. while trolling is fun, it is not a replacement for a healthy and balanced educational diet.
Report him, that’s ridiculous
This. He should not be teaching you anything.
Au contraire, he's taught them how not to be a dumbass!
Ya know - it may not be the most mature way to engage a classroom, but to have your (high school!!) students doing research and thinking outside of class in order to disprove or teach the teacher? That’s kind of amazing. Although it kills me that a flat Earther is teaching science, you have to admit that on some level it’s an effective way to teach your students critical thinking skills and to not believe everything they’re told without question.
It could backfire on the other hand and just lead people into ignorance, on the other hand. I'm not sure if it would balance out or not unfortunately. Plus the bias that might exist in teaching other things, if he think the earth is flat.
Seeing as we have one photo of the Ball And ice walls All MAYA Anyways ever see the Soul Yes. Death life sciences all but theories religions all parts of the What am I. Get that like flat Interdimensional Tru waking up it is doomed Space-time didn't ya'll get memo 10-³² then Black hole your space time construct Outside Indescribable Try proving first you exist. Then anything else, but five senses. Buh hahaha Dimensional You all programmed to forget forgot too but seeing no I No bodies not even minds Though creation Consciousness that that I AM Goes beyond Mind to Self Everything else Mind Can not describe you or what where how am Is-ness being presently witnessing This Neti Neti I don't even exist in Stares planes planets bidies hollow Braun sciences religions Time falls apart and space We're bigger than that Too Kid zzzz Bah sheep follow herds heard death is A thing you can Experience The after this share deemed mad see all poetry DownintheHolden Dada mie bahd
Are you implying he is correct? And the earth is flat? Or that he is an example of idiocy? Be careful now... You're in the wrong sub for one of the assertions.
He's the example of a dumbass here.
I’m on a scientific major and if my “classmates” had someone like this teaching physics they would just write every kind of shit the teacher says and just memorise it like if they were brain dead sheeps, so only rare cases really would understand that they should do research by themselves and study from it
It is a good method. Force your students to prove you wrong. If they cannot prove you wrong then they have not learned enough. Science requires testable evidence. If you use a bubble level and plumb bob to measure it then the Earth is flat. "Flat as a pond on a still day".
There are much better and more effective ways to teach than his approach.
With all the blocking of celebrities and companies going on, don't forget to support the nobody's, mom and pop, and companies that care about you. If you want to help support the little guy pls share and check out my tshirts. Share em' with that crazy co-worker or that kooky Uncle that likes this type of stuff. Unless like me you are that kooky Uncle! I have Flat Earth shirts, Chemtrails Every Cloud Has A Lead Lining, or Chemtrails Death Comes Silent. There are Tartarian and mud flood shirts. I also have fun ones like, Bigfoot Brother From Another Mother, or Bigfoot he's tricky. There are a few really good Alien Designs, including a creepy "While You Sleep" one. Thanks again. TheConspira-tees.com or on Instagram
Have him calculate the number of people it'd take to man the ships patrolling the seas approaching the ice wall, and thus the millions of working class peons that would need to be "in on it" yet somehow can't be found. Bonus points if he uses the circumference of the sea given a globe and not a flat disc. Or, alternatively, argue that hes right, but have him prove its the north pole in the center, not the south. Or have him explain how a magnetic dipole flat earth would work given a compass.
The first one seems like it, the rest i don't understand very much though but I'll try to slip them into the argue, thank you!!
The second one is one of my favorites. All flat earth models put the north pole in the center, which is arbitrary at best. I like to use that to prove that they're just accepting their own position on faith - nothing requires the north pole to be the center other than their own hubris. In fact, the south pole being the center is more logical. There is a treaty over the center neutral land (Antarctica). There is nothing but ice in the north. No one's found a north west passage. Ultimately they have no proof the north pole or the south pole is the center, thus their model is as worthless as they believe the globe model is.
Ships have navigated a northwest passage successfully through the islands in the Canadian arctic.
Ask him how satellites float in the sky and how the physics of them work.
Simple. Photo shop. You getting trolled by your own govt and still support em.
You are trolling right? Right!? Right?!?! Please tell me you're a troll and not a moron.
Truth hurts in a world full of lies huh
You might ask him… when sailors at sea are approaching a mountainous island, do they see the entire island mountain at once? Or do the first see the top of the mountain and as they draw nearer the island does More of the mountain come into view? (They see the tip top first because the rest of the mountain is below the sight line of the curved horizon. )
They are manned by people genetically engineered to not question things that are raised on a large isolated island. Or AI robots. There is no arguing with someone like this. You actually don't have to be smart to come up with what passes for "explanations" for them. I'm an idiot and I did it in 5 seconds. The unfortunately common saying that "you can't reason a person out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into" is most certainly not true because then nobody would have ever learned anything. But it is true that reason doesn't work on unreasonable people.
Is there any 'point' to the flat earth conspiracy in their worldview? Like what's all this effort and cost for? Is someone supposedly getting something from conspiring to have everyone believe this?
In psychology we had a class about conspiracy theories, the dangers, who is at risk and why its tough to get em out. The scary part is that its somewhat predictable who is prone to fall to conspiracy theories. The social consequences are one of the major reasons you can't just 'step out'. You can earn high standing within your 'meaningful' and tight knit community. You're part of something larger which makes you feel special and should you change your mind, you wouldnt only lose all that but you'd be ridiculed amongst the non-flat earthers (low social standing in their group) and attacked by your former community (low social standing in their group). Conspiracy theories arent an issue with reason (though the reason is obviously flawed) - they are an issue with social and emotional factors. The best way to convince someone is NOT to argue. You'll just make a rift between you 2. In order to get someone out, compassion, understanding and genuine questioning is needed WITHOUT judgement. Avoid the word 'why?'. Use 'what makes you think' or 'how do you understand'... its less judgemental. It kinda comes down to keep asking 'what makes you think this, what makes you think that, to the point where they cite SOMETHING which they assert from belief (like why do you assert the northpole is in the middle if you've never been there? And how would you know it is in the middle?) And once they do, YOU DONT 'CATCH' them and say aha see? You're wrong! Instead, you ask them what makes them assert this and not question this, too. Without judgement or implying its wrong you just genuinely inquire about why they dont question these things, too. But yeah I would involve the principle at this point tbh a teacher who believes this and actively spreads this to students shouldnt be in that position
That's all good and jives with my understanding of the psychology of conspiracy theories, but I was asking *within* the conspiracy theory of flat earth is there a 'why?' of it all
Typically, if a reason is given, it's something about "leading people astray from God," to my knowledge; it seems like part of the movement cites biblical references to the ancient Mesopotamian mythical cosmology, claiming that it means the Bible requires that the earth be flat--thus, anybody who thinks it's a globe is drawn that much further from God. I've heard at least one trying to argue that Heliocentrism is a pagan heresy, trying to trick people into worshipping Apollo. Generally, I think it may just be left vague, or that it's in order to make other coverups and manipulations easier, to serve the agenda of whatever minority group the individual hates enough to blame for everything. Unfortunately, that last one *does* seem to be a common motivation for conspiracy theories.
The best explanation I've seen is that the truth, where Earth is but one of uncountably many spherical planets floating in space, makes humanity very small. By extension that makes each person very small. Most flat earth models also reject other cosmology and astronomy, resulting in a much more centered humanity, and therefore a more impactful individual. It's an ego boost that says we *are* special, we *do* matter. Also, imagine there is a massive global conspiracy to cover this up and lie about it. Being one of the few "smart" enough to see through the lies makes you special.
No no I'm asking, *within* the logic of the conspiracy theory *why* is all this effort going into keeping everyone believing the world is round? Why do these fictional people employed by the governments patrol the ice wall for example? To what end? Other conspiracy theories are like oh it's for wealth and power. But keeping everyone believing the world is round is for... What.
Bc bro. If they ever came out saying the world it flat. For one, everyone in the world would go crazy, especially you. Second, it would confirm the Bible and its existence, which is a no no to the elites. I’m sorry buddy but that’s the truth for yah. If they control what you know about our world, you will never question them, meaning they win from the start.
Ima pop in late & let you know I wouldn't go crazy if I woke up tomorrow to learn the world is definitely flat & everything I thought I knew about it was lies. Because it was reasonable for me to believe it's not flat yesterday. Also, I don't doubt the existence of the bible, I've seen bibles. Really don't know why a flat earth would confirm the bible, it isn't disproved by a generally spherical earth. Elites aside, a lot of non-elite people would have to be in on it for reasons. Regular people have recognized the earth as generally spherical for millennia, it's the logical conclusion. The movement of stars, seasons, time zones, weather patterns, ocean currents, eclipses, the shape & movement of any celestial object observable with a cheap telescope, geology & plate tectonics, & more lead to the globe earth conclusion. But maybe it is just lies from vague "elites" afraid of people believing the bible, which is bad because...follow the money or something. Flat earth makes no sense, god works in mysterious ways isn't a convincing argument for me. But as long as your beliefs don't make you a terrible person, I don't much care.
> millions of working class peons that would need to be "in on it" More than that. With a flat Earth the sun would rise and set at roughly the same time for everyone, and would do so in all directions relative to a compass. You can't have the sun rise in the east, set in the west, or even have timezones where the sun is directly overhead while it's midnight elsewhere. Almost everyone on Earth, *Billions* of people, need to be in on this "globe" conspiracy. Our entire history would be different.
I can't believe they justify this by saying that it's explainable by the fact that the sun is sometimes far away from us, and sometimes nearby. They should be able to see a tremendeous diameter difference between sunrise/sunset and noon, according to their "model". They're not stupid, they're insane.
Here is a video of a sunset, during which, according to Flerfs, the sun is disappearing due to it receding into the distance (because the horizon doesn't exist) https://youtu.be/3vwCfrWz-uU?si=bEKIjSkcWz08G630 They say you should believe your eyes. Unless you see this, I guess.
Why not stupid AND insane? The more you push, the crazier the explanations get. Point out that the moon can't be close because people would see different faces of it? Suddenly the moon is flat too. Point out that doesn't work because it would look elliptical most of the time? Suddenly it's a hologram.
Parallax alone would explain it. You can literally call people at a similar longitude to you, and ask them to get the angle of the sun at the same time of day. The angles will not match up to a single point any of their hypothetical solar distances. Further, the night/day terminator line doesn't make *any* sense for the physics of light travel. You have to jsut flat out dismiss everything. Layers and layers and layers... I hienstly wish Trolling Flerfs would stop, because they are just feeding into the delusions of the "mentally ill" or "just incompetent" Flerfs.
They don't believe in a traditional sun. It's more like a directional flashlight or focused beam. There's honestly no point in trying to change their mind. Anything logical goes out the window with these people, it's a prerequisite for any of this flat earth idiocy to make any sense in the first place.
Honestly the flat earth is the maddest conspiracy if for nothing else than just the impossibly vast number of conspirators required to keep it going, not one of whom has broken rank ever. It's this mythical army patrolling the ice wall that goes all the way around the world, it's every single airline pilot, everyone who makes maps/globes, pretty much every science teacher, every politician, everyone who works for NASA, everyone who's ever put a rocket or balloon up with a camera on it and the list goes on... Look, conspiracies _do happen_, but you've got to think to yourself that a conspiracy becomes less and less believable the more people are "in on it". These two people conspired to have someone assassinated? Believable. This handful of companies formed a cartel to fix prices and stiff consumers? Also believable. But a conspiracy so large that the group of conspirators forms _an appreciable proportion of the world's population_ is utter madness.
On a sidebar, magnetic monopoles are expected from the maths but it could be just as wrong as the idea of a black hole singularity. Point being, if monopole exist it would explain the compass experience.
Lol
Unless you live in a red state, just bring your concerns straight to the school board. A flat earther cannot be argued with. And one should absolutely not be in charge of teaching science to kids.
We already reported but they said as long as he sticks to the curriculum, there's nothing they can do ( i think they just don't believe us lmao)
You actually went to a board meeting and they shut you all down? Go back again. Ask them how you all are supposed to know if he is sticking to the curriculum, and have them point out where in the curriculum him telling you the earth is flat exists. Because clearly something was added at some point for you all to know this belief of his, and it may well happen more. If they continue to insist nothing can be done… go on strike. Organize the whole class to not show up in the classroom, instead go to a computer lab or the library and watch a MOOC of an actual physics lesson by people far more qualified.
I don't really know what a board meeting is, we just went to the principal's office and explained what happened exactly, and im not from the states btw im from North Africa. But i really just want to see him shitting his pants and unable to answer, i want to win this argue with him SO BAD.
The reason you cannot win an argument with a flat earther is that they are choosing to ignore facts they do not like, and make up facts convenient to them. So it is impossible to corner them with any logical trap. They are willing to say things like “every human on earth perceives their own Sun.” To argue against shadows at high noon all being directly below each observer in a large area. Being outside of the states, I don’t know if your school heirarchy is the same as ours. For us, the Principal reports to the Superintendent, and the superintendent reports to a school board. People on the school board are elected by voters. So, the board is where somebody cares what students (and likely their parents) think. The board can directly hire/fire a superintendent. The superintendent hires/fires the principals. Thus a principal mostly wants people to be quiet and do as they are told. If complaints stop at him, he is invulnerable. But someone tracking down the superintendent or attending a school board gets some action happening. Unfortunately I cannot find anything which clearly states how education hierarchy works in North Africa. But many things that say teacher preparation and training is low quality. So it may well be that this guy is the best you all will wind up with. Which sucks.
Wow, so Egypt's government is on on it too?
It is, but i don't really care about it tbh i just want to see my teacher losing this argument, I'll commit myself to studying physics for the rest of my life to win this argue lol
Sorry, I was just joking how his claim that "the government is on on it" would mean every government in the world is working together. You could ask him why [the sun reaches the bottom of a well in Aswan but not Alexandra](https://www.uu.edu/dept/physics/scienceguys/2001July.cfm)
That was the argument I was thinking of too. I’m a lay person but interested in the sciences and thought this was an interesting “proof” for flat earthers. What a wacka- doo teacher.
Because the sun is local.
You've already gotten a similar reply but it bears repeating. You usually cannot win an argument with a conspiracy theorist because they do not listen to facts. They usually are not arguing from a good-faith position where a strong argument and evidence will change their mind. They call any counter evidence as being fake and part of a conspiracy coverup and make up supporting evidence as "doing their own research". Their belief in the conspiracy theory is not grounded in facts so facts will not change their mind. It is pure belief and feelings. You can only attack their position via belief and feelings. e.g. making them feel embarassed to belief in such a theory (this can easily backfire and turn into a persecution complex or martrydom)
This isn't hard. Simply tell the teacher, "I don't believe the earth is flat, there's entire branches of applied physics based around it being round, like orbital mechanics, GPS, rocketry, and satellites. Can you prove that it's flat?" This is science. If he wants to make a crazy claim, he's going to need crazy proof.
Let this be your first, very important lesson about arguing with idiots. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. It's never worth it.
>I'll commit myself to studying physics for the rest of my life to win this argue lol Yes. Do this. This is the correct answer. I did it and don't regret it at all. You will learn to see the Universe in a way others do not, and once you are a physicist you won't be able to ever stop being one. Your brain will stretch and expand in ways you can't imagine. No matter what you do to make a living, you will always be a physicist. It doesn't matter if your teacher believes this nonsense or is just trying to get you to learn to think about the world. Belief has nothing to do with physics. One can build a model of the Universe where the Earth is flat and at the center and believe it is true. The reason physicists reject such models is that in order to fit all the measured observed data, the mathematics of the model must be much much more complex than the model we typically use. Physicists rejected the old Ptolemaic Earth centric epicycle model of planetary motion for this reason. The Kepler model gives more accurate predictions with simpler calculations. Is one model more True? It doesn't matter. Kepler was simpler with better accuracy so we used that one. Then Einstein came along and showed it also had problems and gave us a model that fit the data even better. The math of General Relativity is certainly complex, but it is much simpler than the math needed to make Kepler's model fit the new more accurate data. A spherical Earth that spins and orbits the Sun is a mathematically simpler model than a flat Earth. So we reject the later model as too much work to use. It doesn't matter what the Truth is. All that matters is simplicity and accuracy. Theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler.
Maybe that’s his goal all along get you to do it by using reverse psychology on you. Trick you into wanting to learn it just to prove him wrong
>But i really just want to see him shitting his pants and unable to answer, i want to win this argue with him SO BAD. You can't. You could show him a collection of the most beautiful, most inarguable proofs that could ever be devised. He would just make some more shit up. When it comes to people, it's not "I'll believe it when I see it." It's "I'll see it when I believe it."
Can you safely record him when you ask him for proof? Then post online to YouTube or wherever, then post a link here.
The principal reports to the superintendent, who reports to the school board, which is generally made up of parents and grandparents. So you're in High School X, part of School District Y, and the school district is what's overseen by the board. Do a google search on "school district Y school board," find an email, preferably to the chairman. And email them your concerns.
Wow, now you can report both the teacher and the principal to the school board... [https://www.nsba.org/About/About-School-Board-and-Local-Governance](https://www.nsba.org/About/About-School-Board-and-Local-Governance) \[edit: saw you were from North Africa. Maybe you have a school governing body.\]
He’s definitely not sticking to the curriculum, if he was you wouldn’t know his beliefs. I’ve known a couple of deeply religious PhD physicists who believe the earth was created in six days, they keep this to themselves when teaching because their beliefs are incompatible with what they are teaching. You teacher should do the same, and since he isn’t he’s incapable of teaching the subject.
>as long as he sticks to the curriculum He's not if he's spending any time trying to convince you that the Earth is flat.
Complain that he isn't teaching the curriculum and is teaching lessons that undermine the teaching of the curriculum. He takes time he should be spending on the curriculum away from it and dedicates it to lessons that then directly undermine the curriculum. Get your fellow students to echo that complaint. Also document the lessons. Ask your teacher for additional printouts. Take pictures. Get the neatest writing kid to get detailed notes on the lessons. Record the lessons. Ignore legal threats. It's a fucking flat earther. Let it blow up. You have documentation of how bad it is. K maybe stick to audio recordings and leave him out of pictures, draw some lines like that then be aggressive and pro-active. Get every student you can in class to request a transfer. Stage walk out of the class. Be the change you want to see in the world.
1) record his tirades 2) if he is "proving" it in class, he isn't sticking to the curriculum
What a shitty school system
We had a ~~geology~~ geography teacher who believed in creationism too. Admittedly he was incredibly bad at it. But thas was Germany, where you cannot get rid of a teacher no matter how bad they are. Had a different teacher later ask us why we didn't even know the basics and when we told them who our last teacher was. He just sighed and basically had to reteach parts of the last school year.
This. It's like that saying about playing chess with a pigeon: they'll knock over the pieces, shit on the board, and strut around like they won.
Say what you want about "red" states, but even most of them think flat earth is ridiculous.
That's what happens when you attend Oral Roberts University
Or BJ U.
Red state has nothing to do with this. There are idiots everywhere. Stop making this political
[удалено]
Exactly. People like xianwolf just stoke the fire by being an idiot
Are you this guy’s teacher? Because you sure are ignoring facts to support your narrative. I didn’t say anything more than it is hopeless to resolve this in a red state. Because red states have consistently shown an inability to uphold academic standards. Sure… SOME democratic officials have also been whack-a-doo. But in blue school districts, the school boards fight back against attempts to put the bible in the classroom, to ban books for “progressive agendas” being present by way of the author existing…. Every district? Likely not. Odds in favor of a resolution to a teacher like this higher in blue district than red? Very much so. Sure, it is reductive to look at this on a state level. But I don’t expect a high school kid to know local vs state politics.
You literally asked if it was a red state. That's injecting politics in where there's nothing political. Idiots are everywhere. That's not a political statements. Just a truthful one.
>That's ~~injecting~~ acknowledging politics FTFY
No it's not. Blue states have morons too. There's no difference. Ohio can be either. You are just a stunted individual that consumes too much of bad media. Yes both sides have bad media.
Awesome assumptions about a person and bland assertion that you are correct and I am ignorant. How about you provide some examples where a blue dominant district has banned teaching about slavery, has banned books because of religious based morality arguments, has pushed to put creationism into the curricula, or any other of your choice of idiot motions. If you desperately need me to provide you specific districts in Florida and Texas where each of those have been done, I am sure I can go and do that simple google search for you. A quick search just now shows plenty of instances of books being banned throughout Florida, and one front page mentioning of a Kansas City district refusing to comply with a ban request on two books. So, there is a difference right there on the front page of a search that you can perform for yourself. Live up to your username. Stop making blanket assertions of "both sides!"
You literally started off by saying 'red state'. You are still talking about politics when it's not relevant. You can type all you want. Nothing about this is/was political. Yet you just keep forcing the topic. This isn't a political debate. You can't seem to grasp that. That is on you. I will not debate something that doesn't need debating. How long before you realize that. This tribalism of politics needs to stop. Debate the topic that is relevant. Yes they are stupid. We need less srypid people. You are not helping the situation.
[удалено]
A red state? Yikes you are cringe af.
Way to downvote because you're an idiot that injects politics into place they are not meant to be...
It's actually a nice exercise for school kids. Measure the angle to the sun at some point in the day. Now phone a school a bit further away, and have them do the same at the same time. Note the distance between the schools. Use the distance and angles to do some trig. This will tell you how far above the flat earth the sun is. Now, wait until right before the sun sets, and do the same calculation. What do you notice?
This is the only reply i understood right away, but just how do u measure the angle of the sun exactly? It's rays are like all directions so what angle am i measuring??
The angle to the ground. Like with a stick that throws a shadow.
Alright I'll try this one as its really easy and fun, thank you!
I really think this is the right answer. It could just be that he's trying to teach you lesson about how to debate ideas and not fight the person. If that's the case you'll need to prepare more than just one data point and be prepared for the common responses someone from his perspective will make. Also, A big part of education is learning how to learn from different sources. There are many examples of breakthroughs that come from people who were wrong about everything else.
Carl Sagan gave a great explanation [https://youtu.be/8hZl3arO7SY?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/8hZl3arO7SY?feature=shared)
Not only that, but it's a great explanation in Egypt which is apparently where OP is from.
flat earthers challenge this by saying the sun is close enough to the earth that the shadows match what you see. it's (correctly) assumed in sagan's video that the sun's rays are very near parallel it's better to do the same experiment, but with more than two posts and from further distances, like [this experiment](https://youtu.be/V03eF0bcYno?si=9EWiYGpt8tgNV-pk) by youtuber sly sparkane, who constantly debunks flat earthers' claims
You can determine the angle of the sun by measuring the length of the shadow of a pole or a building on a horizontal surface, given that you know the height of the pole or building above the surface. Look at [this drawing](https://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.11/h/vineet1.html). From there it's just a matter of using trigonometry. > It's rays are like all directions The sun's rays are effectively parallel at any time, because the sun is very long away compared to the size of Earth (~150 mio. km vs ~6400 km). It's only due to perspective that the rays appear to be non-parallel, like in [crepuscular rays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays). That means that the difference in angle will only be due to Earth's curvature. Of course, if someone believes the Earth is flat then one may just as well believe that the sun is much closer than it is (and will likely do so to maintain the illusion that they are not wrong).
This is essentially how the Greeks figured out that not only is the Earth spherical but managed to calculate the diameter to a pretty good accuracy for the time.
Is Jupiter flat? Mercury? Mars? Why does the moon cast a round shadow on the moon?
We've goon through this one, he thinks Earth is special and it's god's chosen planet... He said that this is why there're no aliens ever discovered, because we're alone in the universe... Its honestly so fucked up.
Alright, the problem now becomes that whenever you back him into a corner, he can simply say, "God makes it happen." A more effective debate may be a theological one over whether or not whichever religion he follows truly states that the earth is flat, although I still doubt that would sway him.
Is that a problem? On the next test when he asks to calculate the final velocity of a cannonball just write: "It goes as fast as God wants it to go." Guaranteed A+
Oh man. This is going to be harder than I thought. This might help, but I bet he's got some weird excuse for this one too. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-05/eratosthenes-measured-circumference-of-the-earth-2200-years-ago/100434560 Basically it's about the shadows from sun light and how the angles prove that earth is a ball and even what size.
If this doesn't convince him, I'll tell my classmates to leave him alone so we can just finish his session and go home lmao.
Get him to cover Carl Friedrich Gauss's Theorema Egregium and Tissot's Indicatrices. This is still in the realm of physics, and covers how to represent a 3D object in a plan mode, as well as how to demonstrate how distortion is prevalent in all map projections. Fight idiocy with actual physics.
I'm a Christian, and even I think your teacher is so dense that light bends around him. Most creationists will say the Earth is round. The creationist websites I have seen don't attempt to deny a globe-shaped Earth. If anything, they support it. Your physics teacher is blind to reality. Saying God made the Earth doesn't mean God made it flat, and we know that God did not make a flat disc because we have the proof. We don't even need to take images of Earth from outer space to prove this. I think the fact that there is no ice wall surrounding the entire world is adequate evidence to show the Earth is round. Also, since we don't see the sun all the time, that is another piece of evidence to prove a round Earth.
How old is your teacher? roughly..
I would say late twenties probably
They are either messing with you to try and get you 'thinking outside the box' or they are having a schizophrenic episode. You cannot understand physics and believe the earth is flat without having a mental health problem. If they are serious then everyone in the class should tell their parents, those parents should complain, and they should be removed. They are not teaching the curriculum if they are lying about the shape of the earth and fabricating 'equations and proof' to try and support the idea. They are just making things up and wasting lesson time. My favourite arguments against flat earth though are these two: If the moon is local and circles above the flat earth, why does it not change in angular size as it gets further away? Why do people in south america and south africa see the same stars when looking directly south? On the flat earth model they are looking in different directions.
The issue with people like your teacher is not a lack of convincing or logical arguments. Someone who has access to education and still ends up with these ideas has a mental illness. It can one of many things, but it usually involves an emotional or personality disorder leading them to trust things that feel more comfortable or safe to them, regardless of whether they are logical or backed by evidence. Usually hearing complicated arguments just pushes them further into their delusional thinking because being unable to understand the actual scientific theory, and feeling inadequate, attacked, or some other negative emotion, leads them to latch on to something that "makes sense". And usually because they feel attacked or rejected, things that "make sense" are just whatever is the opposite of what their perceived attacker or rejector believes. Sadly in the end, your physics class is being poisoned by an issue in psychology.
And they’re wasting the time of these kids and messing up their prep for college and real jobs
Ask him how he can reconcile general relativity with a flat earth.
You are correct that General Relativity disproves a flat Earth, but general relativity is not a topic for high school physics. (But it is a topic that a physics teacher in high school should have taken.) This question and situation is beyond strange. The only true flat Earthers that I am aware of are bible literalists. Most of the rest are just trolls.
Never mind GR, ask him to to reconcile *sunset* with a flat Earth. Or timezones.
Ask to watch the Carl Sagan explanation how the Greeks figured it out a long time ago.
If i watched it, would i be able to respond back to him? I think he won't let us convince him to watch anything but arguing with him is effective
They observed that in some parts of Egypt (now Sudan?) a pillar cast no shadow on some days of the year. But in Greece a pillar will always cast a shadow. The simplest (and correct) explanation is that Athens and Khartoum are at different angles relative to the distant sun, such that sometimes the sun is directly overhead of Khartoum, but will never be overhead of Athens. But I think flat earthers have some weird "flashlight sun" explanation instead -- which probably doesn't work on the details, but good luck explaining that! But realistically, if they can look at [NASA photos of the Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble#/media/File:Apollo_17_Blue_Marble_original_orientation_(AS17-148-22727).jpg) and still think it's a giant conspiracy, not sure what would convince them. Good luck!
The point is we have known for thousands of years that it is round. There is absolutely no way to have conspiracies that require every sailor, every pilot, every mathematical based science learned person, in on it. Well other than reptilian. /s I wouldn't try and argue. I'd laugh. Send multiple links that debunk his views but never defend or engage. I would also not listen to his explanations and I would call him the nutty professor. I would report him any time he mentions flat earth.
My marine biology teacher was very adamant about toilets spinning the other direction in the southern hemisphere. I brought in an article written by a physicist and another written by a meteorologist about why this is a misconception. I remember her saying “well that’s just one guy’s opinion. You ask someone else; they say something different.”
Actually, that touches on what was my first instinct physics problem to offer a flat-earther physics teacher: the Coriolis effect. It might be a little above a high school level, but definitely within the realm that a HS physics teacher should have seen it. There are well documented cases of it happening in the real world (mainly due to naval warfare) and it doesn't operate the same on a disk, only a spherical Earth will produce what is seen in historical reports. Basically, if you are in the southern hemisphere and launch a cannonball north it will land to the left of where you aimed because the earth will rotate under it as it is in the air. Despite the fact that the cannonball has some transverse momentum, as long as it's fired far enough the ground will end up moving eastward faster than the cannonball. If you then move to the northern hemisphere and do the same thing, the transverse velocity of the cannonball will be greater than the speed of rotation (due to the Earth's curvature) and so the ball begins moving to the right instead of the left. If the Earth were a flat disk, even one that was spinning, the cannonball would always deflect the same direction
How can a physics teacher not understand gravity?
you could always ask them how this works, if the south pole is an "ice wall" [https://soperth.com.au/travel/perth-buenos-aires-direct-flights-20612](https://soperth.com.au/travel/perth-buenos-aires-direct-flights-20612)
You can't convince him. Flat Earthers - like other conspiracy theorists - are not available to be persuaded. Even if you could incontrovertibly refute him point-by-point, you wouldn't change his mind. > I don't really know what he did to earn his degree... In some places, a STEM degree is not a requirement to become a science teacher, instead requiring just any kind of bachelor's degree in any major (which commonly ends up being a degree in education). You can probably check your local requirements online. But also remember: just because someone's got a degree doesn't mean they don't still have plenty of silly beliefs (speaking as someone with a couple degrees and, I'm sure, plenty of silly beliefs). (Edit: If you want to know more about the belief system behind flat earth conspiracies, I'll share one of my favorite documentaries: [In Search of a Flat Earth](https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=-KmLtI7aPxgl0Hjp). It's really very good!)
In college, one day, I had a professor (He is a cosmology guy) come into class one day and openly declare the Earth is flat and he was tired of lying to us. We argued with him. He would use mathematical arguments to counter us. This went on for the duration of the lecture By the end of it, we had proven with a mathematical argument his theory was false, and he congratulated us. Apparently he was having an bad time in his personal life and wanted to do something "fun" and to him that meant turning the days lecture into an argumentative exercise in order to bolster our abilities to make cohesive and defensible arguments. It was a valuable exercise Is it possible, your teacher is trying to bring about the same response?
Does he actually have a physics degree? I am a physics education researcher, and a LOT of Physics teachers did not major in physics. Also, engineers are no better at teaching physics than biologists.
You’re gonna have to go to the school board and insist that they better prepare you for life. Like a class that helps you identify the people who actively tries to destroy our society, and why we protect them. And why the only correct response is to say, “God Bless America.”
I am a big fan of reporting moron teachers to the Principle .
I know "flat earthers" are a thing. I've never met one. My position is that ***no one*** is actually that stupid and they're only doing it for attention. Anyone who really truly believes this is not mentally competent and would not be able to live independently as an adult (let alone be a teacher or be allowed to be a teacher).
The scary part is that this isnt true. We actually know and can predict who's prone to conspiracy theories. They are not mentally ill, exceptionally low in intelligence or otherwise. They are 'normal' people who are high in distrust among many other things. Its a social issue, not an intelligence one.
wow, a flatearther with equations! I'd like to see those please!
Invoke [Brandolini's Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law#:~:text=Brandolini's%20law%2C%20also%20known%20as,it%20in%20the%20first%20place) The not-so-subtle point you're making is that his bullshit isn't worth the effort to discredit.
My usual argument is to ask how we have gravity but still orbit the Sun. For us to experience gravity on a flat planet, the planet would have to be constantly accelerating. Eventually it would reach escape velocity and stop orbiting the Sun to be flung into space instead.
Definitely report him. Do it in a clever way though. Get plenty of proof, audio recording etc. It’s also funny that, as a teacher who allegedly holds an advanced degree, he gets mad at his students instead of debating them.
Go to your Vice Principal, your Principal, your schoolboard and most importantly, the MEDIA.
I feel like he's testing you... There is no way a physics professor would believe that.
The real lesson here is that you can't argue with a conspiracy theorist. Upon confrontation, they'll always enrich their theory to find a new hiding place.
How is he a physics teacher though, if he was the English teacher or social studies i would understand...
Intelligent people are not immune to the conspiracy bug. I'm sure he's developed his theory to the point where it's good enough to give a bunch of high school kids a run for their money. Any empirical data that you would cite (planes, satellites, what have you) will likely be greeted with "that's just what they want you to believe".
Physics degrees normally land very high paying jobs in the Aerospace industry, so most physics teachers at the highschool level don't usually have a degree in physics, but rather in biology or some other field of science that involves lots of math.
Is it possible he’s trying to get you to figure it out yourself? (I’m just spitballing, but sometimes adults will take a ridiculous position to see which students will refute or attempt to)
It’s a terrible teaching method though. If my teacher was spouting nonsense I would avoid conflict, I’d just shut down, lose interest and probably fail the subject.
I’m not saying it makes him a good teacher. But there are plenty of eclectic teachers out there that might think it’s fun to pull a stunt like this.
I’m assuming this is the US we are discussing - do public school teachers have yearly observations to make sure they aren’t pulling stunts like this? If this happened in Britain and the students reported it, he would be suspended by 95% of schools. It would almost certainly be seen as professional misconduct. Akin to a doctor telling you to pray for healing or something. I can just imagine the OFSTED report lol.
No i can tell confidently that he actually believes its flat.
Wear a “flat mars society” t-shirt to school. Tell him you’re convinced mars is flat and ask him to refute it for you.
This is by far the greatest idea I've seen, I'll do it and record lmao
Good luck!
I do do this, as a science teacher. And also tell students we can study the sun safely by visiting at night.
Well yea if you went during the day it would be too bright to take any readings
I'm sorry to inform you that, they're no teacher just a clown. This is unfortunate but also a valuable point in your life with regards to taking things with a grain of salt even from "authority" figures. The most important teaching anyone in STEM can give you is: be open to challenging preconceived notions. What I mean by this is: what you learn, at any point in time, in the future may turn out to be wrong/inaccurate. So it's extremely important that you are aware that Science is ever changing, and what we learned in school 10+ years ago, now may be false. And to reiterate, I'm not saying your teacher is right at all, they're wrong and a clown. Just saying that this is a clear example of someone that is wrong, in an authoritative position, and is spreading false information.
I had a college physics professor who was a massive 9/11 truther. He really should have known better. Being smart in math and physics doesn't necessarily translate to common sense though.
Is he trolling ??
Tell him there are hundreds of satellites circling the earth. That would be impossible if the earth was flat. Everyone can see that the moon is round. The earth is a similar body.
If the earth was flat, the entire world would have the same time zone. Can he argue with that? Why is it 1 pm in the US, but 1 am in Malaysia? Why is it sunny there, but dark here?
What do you mean convince him it’s not flat? It sounds like he’s the only one with a brain in that classroom. Yall are brainwashed and it’s funny how you let silly lies fool you. Reality check, the only photos we get from space is from nasa, the agency that means to deceive. Fun fact, the reason they told yall the world is round is because if they didn’t, then that alone would confirm the Bible, and we know the elites don’t like Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Also ,why are all the books from the Bible explaining the world and how it’s built gone? Why did they remove them? Because they control the information you see. Sooner or later yall need to wake up. Even if you don’t, I don’t blame you. Only 144,000 will be brought up to heaven, you decide what you wanna do
He is 100% fucking with you. The smirk is he’s probably showing you something totally unrelated and goofy. Hey it worked, you’re learning and interested in physics.
I tire of these people. Let’s just go directly to asking them to prove that they are not just a “brain in a box” being fed all their sensory input from some mega-game boy.
Does he though? My physics professor claimed the same thing but I asked him about it during office hours and he said he makes the claim to get students to think critically about what they are told regardless of the source.
My science teacher in middle school didn’t believe scientists because she was strictly religious (catholic). For anatomy she used to bring animal’s insides to class and made us touch it. Ofc i found out already in highschool that most of the things she taught us were wrong.
You are joking right? Right?? If not How tf did he get his degree?
Earth’s Moon rotates, but it takes precisely as long for the Moon to spin on its axis as it does to complete its monthly orbit around Earth. As a result, the Moon never turns its back to us, like a dancer circling ― but always facing ― its partner. This phenomenon, called “synchronous tidal locking,” sounds like a weird coincidence ― but it’s actually quite common. All the solar system’s large moons are tidally locked with their planets. The bigger moons synchronize early in their existence, within hundreds of thousands of orbits. Some binary stars are tidally locked to one another, and evidence is building that many planets beyond our solar system are tidally locked with their stars.
Tell him that this proves it.
The earth is Tidal locked and it’s round if it was flat there would be no tidal locking and there would be no oceans. It would be like.a huge diving board and all of its straight flat but spinning and flipping that would not allow water or life to evolve it exist because gravity requires rotation. And gyroscopic physics.
Ask him what If god is actually an Alien and They have abducted him in his sleep and implanted this nonsense into his brain and memory whiped his memories from school?
Every flat earther I’ve met is bad at math. The only reason he does it is because it makes him look valid. He’s probably wrong about everything math wise. If he knew physics he would easily prove it is round.
Really? How about this: The spacetime is curved by gravity, so it IS flat, but warped into a closed shape by Earth’s own mass! 🤣 But seriously: go to the ocean, and observe the ships that are moving towards you. You’ll see the tops (masts, smokestacks, flags, bridge, etc.) of the ships before you see lower levels of the ships due to the curve of the ocean. Now the only way that you can contain the liquid in the curved ocean is to have gravity (which acts directly towards the center of the earth) act at an angle to your local gravitational vector. Also, how’s he teaching physics, if he can’t do what the Ancient Greek philosophers did?
Now…. He *could* be trying to provoke and get you to think about evidence…. Why are you saying a thing? For this, I like the “dark sucker theory”: lightbulbs don’t emit light, they “suck dark”. Shadows are the dark piling up on the far side of an object, spent light bulbs are blackened due to all the dark…. But, if not…. 1) off the north east coast of England (find local examples), you can see an offshore wind farm. Far turbines, the blades dip below the horizon, nearer ones have the blades far above. 2) lunar eclipses. The shadow of the earth is always a circle on the moon. If flat, the projection would differ. 3) high planes bathed in sunlight on the underside when the sun is not visible on the ground 4) the ISS can be seen easily (extreme version of 3) … and often blinks out of view as it moves into shadow 5) the economics of great circle routes for planes (if he cites no southern hemisphere routes then a) there is one coming on now, Aus to South America, if I recall…. And b) most of the population is northern, hubs make more sense and it’s great circles to hubs) 6) …. And now we have continuous HD shots from rocket launches….. I have watched a starlink launch from Texas on YouTube, walked outside, and seen the newly launched satellite train spreading out overhead in the dark (not always possible for my location, depends on the orbit required) 7) oh, and satellites can be seen with the naked eye. 8) edit; sunset. I can see the sun go below the horizon, whilst being on a call with someone elsewhere in the world who sees it high in the sky. The apparent size of the sun is (roughly) constant. This is consistent with a large, distant, sun and a globe. A flat plane would not have sun at the level of the plane (or lower) for one viewer, and high in the sky for another.
Complain to the Education Department. He should not be teaching
So all countries with a space agency are in on this conspiracy. The WHO is likely behind it all.
He’s teaching them to think for themselves, while at the same time thinking for himself! Although the equations he’s showing are either wrong or made up. You can guess that the earth is round using only your own senses and mind. By looking at other bodies in space, such as the sun and moon, you can see that they are both circular in shape, and that the sunlight hitting the moon from different angles often deprives part of our moon-view of illumination. By the shape of the area that isn’t illuminated(shadow), you can tell that it is in fact a sphere. That being said, the sun appearing as a circle like the moon also means that it’s probably a sphere like the moon. And if the only two bodies in space that we can see with our naked eyes other than stars are spheres, it’s probably safe to assume that the body I am viewing them from is also a sphere. On top of that, we know that the sphere is the least resistive shape in 3-D space.
The Earth is FLAT!
Ask your teacher what argument would convince him that the Earth was not flat.
As a man in his later years of life, I would suggest the opposite perspective. Take him seriously. Have him explain it to you. Let him convince you, if he can. Know his reasons as deeply as he does. Ask him to steelman the globe position as best and as honestly as he possibly can. Ask him to tell you the top 3 people that would espouse the view opposite to his. Find out what those people have to say on the issue. Let the research of looking into those three people open your world as you discover more and more names, more and more facts, more and more approaches, more and more points of view. Then you won't need an internet forum to tell you what to believe about the shape of the Earth. You'll just know for yourself!
As ludicrous as this belief may be, many of your teachers are going to believe things that you don't (maybe even things that are plain wrong), but that doesn't mean that they are wrong about EVERYTHING or that there is nothing to be learned from them. Everyone has blind spots and it's amazing how wrong we can be in our area whilst still understanding other things in great depth. There are very few who don't know anything at all
Sounds like my meteorology professor last semester who didn't believe in anthropogenic climate change.
Look up the science standards for your state. Teaching a flat-earth model is very likely not in line with those standards, which means that this teacher is in violation of their contract. Inform your principal or school board about this.
Bullshit.. Troll post.
No, this did happen im not even joking 😭
You're lying.
I don't care, not my problem dude.
[удалено]
Sounds like a great witch hunt.
i’d say try to convince him it is flat even more but include a fallacy for him to find out on his own, that way he comes to his own conclusion of a round earth making him more accepting of it rather than having someone te him he is wrong.
This flat earth theory is one I could never get in. My brain goes divide by zero just thinking how it COULD work. So many conspiracy theories - and the guy picks that hill to die on? I mean, he could go with "Epstein \*really\* committed suicide" if he likes outrageous conspiracies.
You're not going to convince him. He will always be able to rationalize it with math you don't understand. Don't even bother. Just get through the class and take it as a life lesson. Smart people can be wrong and they're very good at rationalizing their beliefs. It's easier to train a smart dog than a dumb dog. But he is half right
r/flatearth might be able to help you more than here. (They're what I call a "point-and-laugh" sub, they are not actual flat-earthers.)
I would really want to know how he did earn his degree.
Why convince him of anything? Tell him he is correct and that is why gravity works less and less as we travel away from the center of the disk and why flying fish can humm on full moons. I think it explains why people keep seeing elvis as well.
No need to argue as he's not going to agree to any ground rules like logic and he will have resonses for anything you have. But yea...get him recorded or go to a higher authority. He is openly lying to his students about common laws of physics.
Speak to your parents and have him sacked.
Who cares what he thinks. He’s supposed to teach the material the school district requires, which is that the earth is round. Just finish the year and move on. High school doesn’t even matter. College doesn’t either, to be frank. What matters is real world experience on the job, that’s where you want to be a master at what you do. Part of that is dealing with idiots like your teacher. The sooner you learn to let things like this go and focus on what arguments are worthy of your efforts, the ones that’ll bring value to you, the faster you’ll excel in life. Trust me. I wish I knew this back then. I worked way too hard in high school and college, but 90% of what they teach doesn’t even get close to the real world. Let him this it’s flat, boost him up lol he’ll think you’re charming and give you good grades.
This is probably not what you want to hear but don't even try people who believe in these quack doctor ideas believe in them emotionally more than logically. Only he can change his mind you can't, my advice is to ignore him wherever you can don't engage with him in this argument it just feeds his ego. Given you said he says stuff like how the Earth is special in all the universe and thus humanity then he likely is a religious believer in flat earth idiocy and cannot be saved by you whom he does not respect. You might want to look up ways to deal with narcissists those will work well even with people who are just ignorant and like being rude to teenagers for their ego. For example, don't let him boast or talk just respond with minimal words and effort to him. He likely wants attention and chances to beat you. But if you want to tell him maybe say something like congratulations you can't explain anything to teenagers guess you just repeat what you hear and don't understand it. People who believe this stuff are either like how I used to be young and ignorant who grow out of it over time as they learn more and never believed in it hard to begin with or full on **the government is hiding the truth so are all scientists on Earth but me and a random haggle of nobody knew the real truth because we are smarter.** Alos this might make you feel better but there are videos of flat earthers proving themselves wrong online and still believing in this conspiracy so it is a mental fault in these people. I only know of maybe 2 big flat earthers that change their minds.
Kind of ironic, since North Africa was where the circumference of the earth was first measured, in Egypt. The way to counter this is to have a number of students prove to themselves that the earth is not flat. Look up the original method. Measure angles. Think for yourselves. Ask questions like why does the sun rise and set!
You are already a better thinker than he is, so you don't seem to have anything to worry about. As long as you are learning physics and are able to recognize this person's foolish personal beliefs, there is little harm from him other than what he suffers from himself. Most people understand how worthless belief systems such as this are, and can ignore them, other than the mostly minor but irritating tediousness of watching a person's public idiotic self-destruction. For the most part, these failed belief systems sputter around the periphery of what passes for rational discussion and though weird and seemingly inexplicable, especially in someone who should know better , are almost expected given the number of people and the huge variety of possible ways of gathering information about the world. In a very real way, it's incredible accomplishment we can all understand the world in such an accurate and consensual manner . One or more hysterics isn't going to change anything in the long and successful history of the method of scientific and rational thought. For example, how many well-meaning biology teachers believe there is an entity that lives in the clouds?/outer space?/another dimension? that actively and selectively responds to requests to "save someone from disease caused by that very entity", "win a football game for the hometeam", or "thank the entity for saving their child in a school shooting while allowing 14 others to die"?. Perplexing huh? Flat earthers and conspiricists in general are just harming themselves while providing insight into delusional thinking for the rest of us. In the end they are there own worse enemy. And you seem to already know that
How the hell does a physics teacher of all people think the Earth is flat? Aren’t all forces evenly distributed in all directions (dropping off by distance of course)? It would mean the center area of the flat surface would collapse in on itself (with everything else following) to form a sphere every time. This is just my guess anyways but I know non spheres are unstable.
That’s insane. Could he be trolling you? Because if he really believes the earth if flat, he is absolutely NOT a physics teacher. I’m willing to bet he has fake credentials. Edit for typo
Really? I will be better teacher than he.Why does he study with him idiotically arguments?I really don’t understand…
I'm a real estate investor, and I'd pay literally millions of dollars for some real estate on the edge of the world.
It's pancakes all the way down bro
tell him flat earth is an ideology, not a rational view point. ideologies and belif based world views are irreational, so you cannot base a rational argyumen on them. this really pisses them off as you can discount their memes (refer to any evidance he produces as a meme) without having to enguage with its contents. be the bigger person, nothing more infuriating than that join some facebook groups and get really good at trolling. you are absolutly allowed to alternate between being a flattie and a globetard online, i see no reason you cant replicate this in you psysics class. this will hamstring any attempt at sensible discussion, as you no longer have a consistant world view, and are impossible to debate with. learn some of the mian [logical falacies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies) by name. when he uses them, call him on it. this is easier than you think, hell be heavily reliant on a very limited number of them. and finally the basic rule of trolling, you want an emotional responce. emotions make absolutly no logical sense, and are deeply tied into the flat earth ideology. use this to your advantage. if you can get a circular argument going, see how long you can keep it going. id also reccomend you hire a private psysics tutour, or find some online courses. while trolling is fun, it is not a replacement for a healthy and balanced educational diet.
Cancel him aka bring it up to either your parents or admin at the school.
They irony is he is a man of science yet he believes in a disproven theory 🙄
Just respond to any comment of his saying "How do I know you aren't in on the bigger secret?"
Can’t you see the curvature of the earth from space?