Haha plaaynde's links took me here.

Ok i will try some in detail explanation with some links for anyone interested further.

Look here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrost...tatic_pressure

under atmospheric pressure section.

Basically its



because of statistical mechanics reasons.

For example see here the deeper connection that is universal for all systems;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partiti...l_mechanics%29

Those will allow one to see how the math takes you to the above equation and then a similar one for density as they are related with a near ideal gas law relationship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law.

The above can also be derived using hydrostatic pressure arguments. For example see also here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometric_formula


To qualitatively understand what is going on imagine this;

Pressure is the result of collisions of particles moving randomly and hitting eg walls (essentially the transfer rate of momentum through a surface). Keep in mind pressure is the force divided by the surface area this force is applied to. The striking of particles (that we cant see with our eyes but are all around us hitting our face all the time) say in the walls of a container is like balls of tennis hitting a wall. So imagine a wall hit by hundreds of tennis balls at the same time randomly from various directions. If you were on the other side of the wall (behind it) and measured the force felt you would see a fluctuating value as a result of the constant random strikes. The more particles per unit time strike you with higher speeds the higher the pressure felt. Imagine if the tennis balls were service strikes to the wall for example instead of casual volley strikes. Much more significant effective force felt on average behind the wall if the speeds are enormous. This analogue is similar to what the atoms or molecules are doing in a gas. The higher the temperature the higher the random speeds of these particles. Now those are billions of billions of particles felt on your face say over a few seconds rather than the example of a few dozen balls hitting a wall. This is why the relative fluctuation now with so many atoms/molecules is tiny to almost unobservable and giving the impression its a constant pressure rather than random fluctuating thing (which it is in reality but the width is supertiny left unnoticed). The volatile nature in the example of tennis balls is removed when you have trillions and trillions of particles hitting a wall every second. It becomes a smooth experience at the timescales humans can understand (ie 0.01-0.1 sec etc) .


Now those atoms or molecules moving around in the air collide with each other and change direction very frequently. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_free_path (eg ~100 nano meters ~10^-7m for air). So they cant escape the earth easily by moving say forever upwards without eventually colliding and changing direction back down again etc. They do have rather large speeds though between collisions. Imagine typical speeds of 400m/sec for example. They locally (for a given altitude) obey the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution law for their velocities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell...n_distribution and their number density is an exponentially decaying function of altitude as discussed above.

You can kind of understand why there is that decay with altitude. Gravity wants to keep particles down but because of their random thermal motion that is pretty significant they move around a lot and collide frequently but its more energetically favorable for them to be close to the surface of earth doing these collisions rather than higher with gravity being a permanent resistance to their tendency to go higher because of random motions. So you can imagine their effort to go higher is impeded by 2 things; The random frequent collisions that do not allow them to move up nonstop fast before changing again direction effectively doing random walks rather than straight up moves (and out of earth field) and the existence of gravity that attracts them down.

This is why the earth keeps its atmosphere and doesnt lose it rapidly to space. The fact we do have a magnetic field also helps shield from the solar wind that tends to take away some parts of the atmosphere in eg Mars and other systems that have tiny or no atmosphere left over time due in part to to this effect. If for example suddenly the gravity of earth got down by a factor of 100 we would lose a lot of our atmosphere to space.



As for OP's the earth being flat (joking or not) the proof my friend is in front of you but you are not willing to see and do not need to be told by others or to read books, just look at nature outside. You need only watch a lunar eclipse and you will see the curvature of earth on the moon's disk during the eclipse. You will be able to see in fact that way how much larger a disk earth has (kind of like a huge coin covering partially a small one) . Also why is still night in Hawaii/Tokyo right now and noon in east coast say (call someone) if all was flat?



http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html

Now we're cookin'!

Since the moon is a space ship it's not really hard for them to make it look like a lunar eclipse does that.

Strangely, the only reason we are being deceived is for a big troll. Puts DblBarrel's two years pretending to be a cop in perspective.

Not exactly, globe manufacturing is a multi-million dollar industry. Don't even get me started on Planet Fitness.

Mapping titan Jack Dangermond is worth 3 billion. This guy has been buying up huge swaths of southern California for years:


http://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-dangermond/

Except that the moon and sun have both been recorded above the horizon during eclipses so saying that you can see the earth is round by looking at the moon is specious.

You keep saying this. I have my doubts. Can you cite a source?

Happens. Due to refraction.

Really? Where? Joking? Show proof (marginally if that is so rarely possible as you need full moon and then the sun is on the other side it would still be visible what is going on with earth shadow). I just gave you proof with a picture by the way. All possible eclipses you will find will be consistent with all 3 objects being spheres. The further marginal position of both objects in the horizon (and the exact positions in fact) in some ultra extreme case imagined (which i haven seen ever ) further endorses the argument anyway as they are all 3 in the same line more or less possible roughly only at that time of the sunset and later and in the exact angles of sunset and moonrise detected.

Notice also that what i am describing with the shadow curvature argument happens when the eclipse is well under way eliminating any wild extreme issues imaginable (which are not true anyway just entertaining the ultra marginal situation horizon to horizon).




And keep in mind i am talking about umbra phase here.

Often, I ask a child a question when I already know the answer.

Refraction is a lie made up by the roundies.

OP, what are you reasons for not trying to go to the edges of the earth RIGHT NOW?

Refraction at sunset only buys you one solar diameter of time ie 2.3 min roughly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset

See here also under selenelion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse



Of course the argument i gave for the curvature measurement on the moon disk requires night to be visible properly.

The funny fact is that ancients even at 300-400BC had all they needed to know what was going on in the solar system.

The other clue they could use is this;



This even before photography they could record on some papyrus etc after many nights of observation, noticing the same star is moving during the night relative to eg some tree or architectural reference point. They would then start drawing many stars and magically notice they all have the same rotational period, which is unreasonable, as they are randomly placed in the sky hinting it is the earth that is rotating and it has an axis as one star appears fixed (eg the axis north star). Why would there be a special star and why would all the others rotate around it synchronously! If earth was at the center the stars would be rotating around earth not around the fixed star (ie the axis) which is not particularly prominent as star anyway. And of course they could recreate the feeling by looking at the stars and starting to rotate their body while continuing to look up noticing what happens if they picked a star directly above them as center confirming that it is their frame that is rotating with the period of a day (proved by the arcs vs total circle of the stars made during say 6 hours of night etc)!

This plus curvature experiments with shadows on the surface of earth in various locations and the 2 kinds of eclipses could give them everything basically over 2.5k years ago already. Using candles for experiments they could even measure roughly how far the sun is comparing its light with that of the moon and how bigger than all it is, further hinting that its more reasonable that the center is the biggest of all bodies (especially when proven so big). They could do all kinds of experiments using eg oranges and candles at home too eg inside dark rooms etc.

This is just priceless.

Masque is one of my favorite poker posters, well done.

Refraction isnt a lie but it is a panacea explanation for aspects of a RE that are actually unexplainable in their model.

How can you see both the sun and moon during an eclipse? Refraction
How can you see a lighthouse which should be far below the horizon? Refraction
How come the suns rays can be seen scattering in all directions from a location that looks much closer than 93million miles? Refraction

Here is a video of Corsica clearly visible 100 miles away from Genova. How? Oh refraction of course.

Lack of a personal boat or airplane and ability to captain either. Can you propose another way or is your question purely idiotic?

Masque, just because the stars rotate doesnt mean that it is because of the Earth's spin. Pretty big presumption there to make.

Oh, no... no... you would certainly need a boat or airplane. I see the impasse now. My mistake.

Anyone? Anyone of the hundreds of people reading this who are certain the Earth is round?

Scientists and travelers that go to Antarctica are obviously not going to the ice wall as that is too risky, so where are they taken?

What is the reason than RF, that the stars rotate?



I guess this is all photo shop too?

RF what would it take for your feeble mind to understand RE? What would it take? You can't put up stupid barriers when you have to prove RE wrong and FE true. Your FE proofs are horrible.

Why can't I see Mt Everest, the Rockies or the Alps from my Apartment in Philly if the Earth is flat? I'm trying to understand the limitations of your proofs.

Here's another stupefying question for the RE model.

The Earth spins at 67,000 MPH anticlockwise around the Sun while spinning at 1000 mph anticlockwise West to East. This creates a predicament. When the Earth is in nighttime facing away from the Sun it is going with the spin and during daytime 12 hours later it is working against the spin. This difference in speeds is never felt or acknowledged. How does gravity change every 12 hours on one side of the globe to perfectly counter what would be an increased centrifugal force?

So we move at 1000 mph + 67000 mph around the Sun + 500000 mph around the Milky Way + 670000000 mph away from the center of the Universe but not even the slightest effect can be felt.

What? No theyre on Antarctica. Hard to wander off away from camp in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

The stars could move for lots of reasons.

You can't see Mt everest for a variety of reasons, the air is dense, law of perspective, eyesight limitations. All clearly answered and explained already in this thread.