Perspective and the Lake Pontchartrain Transmission Line

The Lake Pontchartrain power transmission pylons demonstrate Earth’s curvature. Flat-Earthers invented various excuses to dismiss the observation, including the excuse that it was just a perspective effect.

If it were just a perspective effect, the same parts of the pylons would line up in a straight line, converging into a distant point. In reality, they do not line up in a straight line but are visibly curving downward due to the curvature of the Earth.

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Forced Perspective

The Sun & the Moon are about the same apparent size, but they are not the same size. They only appear the same size because the Sun is 400× larger and also 400× farther away. To illustrate this, we can use forced perspective in photos.

Flat-Earthers insist that the Sun & Moon are the exact sizes just because they appear the same size. By the same ‘logic,’ we can say the girl above is the same size as the Eiffel Tower.

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Perspective Compression: Determining If a Curvature Exists

By utilizing perspective compression, it will be easier for us to observe the curvature of an object if the object is curved.

Flat-Earthers like to deliberately choose a vantage point where it is difficult to see Earth’s curvature, and they use it to “prove” the curvature does not exist. In reality, they only make it more difficult to see the curvature. It does not mean the curve is not there.

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True Horizon and Linear Perspective

In graphical, linear perspective, the horizon is the horizontal line where the vanishing points for level objects lie. However, as the Earth is a sphere, the horizon of linear perspective is not the same as the true horizon, which is the line that we observe separating Earth from the sky.

Flat-Earthers claim that the observed horizon is produced by the law of perspective. In reality, from a high vantage point, we can try extending level and parallel lines to find their vanishing points. In many cases, they will end up above the true horizon.

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Shadows in Photographs Taken on the Moon

Flat-Earthers and other conspiracy theorists incorrectly claim that the shadows in photos taken on the Moon in the Apollo missions are inconsistent. In reality, it is just due to their confirmation biases, and we can easily explain how the shadows were formed.

The perspective effect can cause parallel shadows to appear angled to each other and converge to a distant point. Conspiracy theorists incorrectly claim that non-parallel shadows can only be caused by a nearby light source.

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Flerspective

Many natural phenomena cannot be explained if Earth were flat, including the observation that the bottom part of a distant object appears clipped. To “explain” it as if it can occur on a flat Earth, flat-Earthers invented the “explanation” that it is due to what they call “perspective.”

This supposed “perspective” that flat Earthers invented is different from the actual law of perspective. To distinguish it from the actual, real-world law of perspective, many people call it “flerspective,” a combination of the words flerf and perspective.

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Pictures of Earth’s Surface from the UAE Astronaut Hazza Al-Mansouri

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The United Arab Emirates astronaut, Hazza Al Mansouri, took pictures of Earth’s features like the Nile and the Persian Gulf during his visit to the ISS. Flat-Earthers claim the pictures are fake because the various objects appear very large compared to the size of the Earth in the picture. The reason is that they do not understand that the ISS is only about 400 km above Earth’s surface, and only a very small amount of the Earth’s surface is visible from the ISS

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Line of Sight: Determining if an Object is Straight or Flat

Light travels in a practically straight line over a short distance. We often use this property of light to determine if an object is flat or straight from visual observation.

Some flat-Earthers start with the wrong assumption that a specific object is flat, then attempt to redefine how our vision works from that. They are wrong. From visual observation, we can determine if an object is flat, not the other way around.

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Flat-Earth “Perspective” is not Real-World Perspective

To an observer, the law of perspective will cause objects moving away in a straight line to:

  1. appear to approach the vanishing point but never quite reach it,
  2. never appear to go across the vanishing point,
  3. appear to shrink in size,
  4. never appear to be cut in half unless when it is obstructed by another object.

If the Earth were flat, sunsets, sunrises, and other general phenomena where objects are not visible due to Earth’s curvature should not occur. To “fix the problem,” flat-Earthers invented the explanation that the apparent obstruction of a distant object can occur on a flat Earth due to “perspective.” Their “perspective” is simply a baseless ad-hoc explanation that does not resemble how the real-world perspective works.

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The Varying Earth-Moon Proportions in Different Pictures

How an object appears in a photograph depends on perspective —the position of the camera relative to the object—, and field of view of the camera. The farther the object, the smaller the object will appear in the resulting image; and conversely, the closer the object, the larger it will appear. The narrower the field of view, the larger the object will appear in the image; and conversely the wider the field of view, the smaller the object will appear.

Flat-Earthers take the varying proportions of the Earth & Moon in different pictures as a glaring inconsistency. They are wrong. The pictures were simply taken from a different perspective and field of view.

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Ships Disappearing Over the Horizon and the Various “Explanations” Invented by Flat-Earthers

Due to Earth’s curvature, ships traveling over an ocean disappear from the bottom up. This fact is one of the first evidence to confirm the Earth is a sphere, and one of the first facts of which flat-Earthers had to invent various “explanations” for.

Some of the popular “explanations” are: refraction, perspective, zooming reveal distant ships and visibility limitations. None can explain away the fact.

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Geometry of Perspective

Perspective is a relationship between the size of an object, its distance, and its apparent/angular size. The angular size is larger if the object is closer or larger.

Often, flat-Earthers would claim that we cannot see a distant object is not the result of Earth’s curvature, but because of perspective. In a way, it is correct to say that perspective might result in an object having angular size too small to be seen by our eyes. However, perspective alone cannot ‘hide’ a portion of an object, while revealing the rest of it.

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Football Field and ‘Flat-Earth Convergence Experiments’

A properly designed football field does not lie perfectly flat. Its middle portion is slightly raised to promote runoff of excess water. Without it, the field can become muddy & uncomfortable.

Some flat-Earthers conducted the perspective convergence ‘experiment’. They put a camera on the surface of a football field, and record a person walking away across the field. The person started to disappear from his feet first. Because they felt the football field is flat, they took the wrong conclusion that the person disappeared due to ‘perspective’. They were wrong. The field is, in fact, not perfectly flat. If it is perfectly flat, the person would appear fully at the end of the field.

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Atmospheric Refraction and the Position of the Sun in the Flat-Earth Model

If the Earth is flat, then the Sun would have been visible from the entire Earth, but that’s not the reality. So, to rescue the concept of the flat-Earth from being falsified, they invented an ad-hoc hypothesis that the Sun appears to set because of perspective and refraction.

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Lake Pontchartrain Power Transmission Lines: Evidence of Earth’s Curvature

Lake Pontchartrain is a lake in Louisiana, United States. There are power transmission lines about 24.27 km (15 mi) across this lake. They are practically straight, and each tower is uniform and has the same height, making these towers ideal for observing the curvature of the Earth.

They were first popularized by Soundly who presented evidence of Earth’s curvature using a series of photos and videos of the power lines in June 2017. As of now, the towers and other objects on the lake are probably the most popular Earth curvature tourism spot in the world.

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Crepuscular Rays

Some flat-Earthers consider crepuscular rays as evidence that the Sun is not far. In their mind, the Sun is only about ±5000 km circling above us. In reality, the actual distance of the Sun is ±150 million km.

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