The earth is spherical and spinning

Rebuttals of my opponents argument: C 1.Not one photo or video of the entire earth from space In my previous links, there are innumerable images of the earth from space. My opponent seems to imply that a partial earth (due to being in low earth orbit) with viewable curvature is not sufficient; and instead the whole earth is required. My opponent"s position here makes no sense; he claims that all images are photo-shopped by a conspiracy, and yet for some reason they are willing to fake LEO pictures, but not distant pictures; why not? If such pictures are so important, why do they not pretend they have a high satellite and fake those pictures too? In reality, such pictures do indeed exist and require a large distance from the earth to take; good examples of such pictures are Apollo 8[1] and the EPIC camera[2]. Even so, the LEO pictures from multiple organizations clearly show the earth is spherical without showing the entire earth, and it is up to my opponent to explain why a clearly spherical, but not complete earth is not sufficient to show the earth is spherical. My opponent also suggests many of these pictures are faked. Merely asserting such fakery is not meeting his burden of proof. My opponent must provide a coherent argument for how and why they were faked, a motivation for all these different organizations to collude to fake them, together with a practical way these organizations prevent people like James May, astronauts, amateur astronomers, private organizations and indeed whistleblowers from exposing the lie. Without such burden of proof, my opponents" claim of conspiracy can be dismissed as merely contrived speculation and assertion. C2. Chicago Skyline. When light passes through areas with different refractive index, it changes direction very slightly. This is how magnification, refraction, and many other optical effects work.[3] In the atmosphere, such effects include inferior and superior mirages, mock mirages, looming and stooping[4][5]. These effects are ALL caused by a refraction of light through air layers, with the differences between them primarily being down to how much the light bends and at what position relative to the observer; inversion may or may not occur depending on how much and in what way the light is bent. This skyline is well explained in my source as a refractive effect; but it can be clearly discerned as such where, in different conditions, the same skyline appears inverted: easily explained simply by changing of refraction due to marginally different conditions.[6] Indeed, a time-lapse video [7] of this skyline can be compared; showing clear changes in magnification and buildings disappearing [8]; clearly indicating that this is an optical refraction, rather than a true image of Chicago. C3 Mauritius and Reunion islands can be seen from each other. To address this claim, we need to do some math, but to do so we need distances and heights. For this, I will focus on two individual images provided by my opponent [9][10]. One was taken on Piton de la Fournaise of Mauritius; the other taken from Mauritius of the mountains of Reunion. The distance is 140 miles[11]. The heights of all of these locations (in feet) are: Mauritius (highest elevation 2717)[12], Piton de la Fournaise (8635)[13], Roche Ecrite (7467)[14], Piton de Neiges (10,069) [15] Curvature calculations from where the first picture was taken show only 450 feet of Mauritius should be obscured [16]. Even if it was not taken at the top of the mountain, even at 4500 feet (about 2/3 up), much of the tip of Mauritius" highest point would still be visible; consistent with the photo [17]. The second photo contains annotation and clear view of mountains: Roch Ecrit is 75% the size of Piton de Neiges; but in the image is about 1/3 of the size[18]. If the true difference in their height is 2500 feet, it means only 1250 feet of Roche Ecrit is visible in this image; leaving 6250 feet obscured. To observe Reunion Island at 140 miles, with 6250ft of the island obscured, you need to be at a height of only 1243ft, which is more than possible on an island with a peak of 2717ft.[19] This indicates, despite my opponents claims, such views are perfectly reasonable on a spherical earth. C4 Images from a high altitude ballon does not show curvature. Taking your high altitude balloon video, you claim you can"t see curvature. If you look at a screen grab carefully, it"s very hard to discern where the horizon is to even draw a line to show it"s straight OR curved [20]; this is because of optical and image effects creating a blur that makes it difficult to tell the precise point at which the earth ends. However, there are several tricks you can use to make the boundary clear. The first is that you can change the contrast and color to make small changes in color more prominent [21], which starts to reveal the curvature. To increase the sharpness of the horizon even more, you can downgrade the image to 4 bit color[22]. This quantizes the very subtle changes in the colors in the blur between earth and space in the picture, and allows a very distinct cut off color change between them, clearly showing curvature hidden by the blur and color of the original image. The curvature is not optical distortion, as the top of the camera on the right hand side of the image is straight [22], IE: the camera is not distorting straight lines roughly level with the horizon out to at least 75% of the image width; as earths curvature is discernible in this region; this is genuine curvature. As for the second: estimating, the camera is around 1.5 meters away from the door, and the un-obscured part of the opening is about 50 cm. This yields a viewing angle from the camera of 18.4 degrees. A horizon 430 miles[23] away has a curvature of 6 degrees over a viewing angle of 60 degrees (1 degree per 69 miles, and approximately 430 miles of horizon at 60 degrees ); that means you would see about 2 degrees of curvature over the 18.4 degree field of view the camera has. The Horizon in the image is 212 pixels wide [24], and doing some more math indicates that the highest point in the curve should be 0.4% the width of the horizon in the image above the horizon. As the horizon in the image is about 212 pixels wide, the horizon in the image should bulge in the center by 1 pixel [25]. Applying the same color adjustments as before, the predicted curvature is exactly what we see! [26] C5 Reflection of the sun off water. The curvature of the earth is 8 inches per mile, or a curvature of 0.00013 (or 0.013%). To an observer to the ground, the earth is flat when measured up to 3 decimal places; so you have to be remarkably far away to see curvature effects. Your specular highlight source image, scaled up to the size of the earth and an observer, the highlights would be hundreds, if not thousands of miles and so therefore cannot be easily viewed while on earth. The linear sun in the reflections is caused because the sea is not flat, and variations in height caused by waves cause an elongated sun; it"s cause clearly seen here: [27]. When reflecting on a flat surface, this artifact disappears and the water simply becomes a reflective surface.[28] Moreover, from space, at a high enough distance, the reflection you expect on a spherical surface is observed.[29] C6 Planes fly level. This is explained by how plane controls work. The Yoke controls the orientation of the plane; with pitch being the angle between the plane and the horizon[30]. Moving the yoke causes the pitch to change. The amount you move the yoke corresponding to a given RATE of change in pitch[31]: If you move the yoke, the orientation to the horizon will change and keep changing until you return the yoke to the central position, or until not aerodynamically maintainable. The orientation with respect to the earth changes by 1 degree per 69 miles travelled. Even in a plane is travelling as fast as Mach 5+ this corresponds to 1 degree per minute change in orientation. Even at this extreme speed, the pilot need only push forward on the yoke a tiny, imperceptible amount to achieve a rate in change of the planes pitch to be 1 degree per minute in order to match that of the earth. To maintain level flight, the pilot puts the yoke in a position that maintains constant orientation with an imperceptible rate of change in pitch that maintains both orientation and altitude; and does not require constant adjustment. 6.) No motion detected. The earth spins at about 1000 miles an hour at the equator [32]; as the earth has a circumference of 25,000 miles; the relative motion experienced is the same as travelling at a speed of 4 miles per hour in a circle 96 miles wide. As we can"t feel the centripetal force of a circular, mile long walk; it should be expected that you wouldn"t be able to feel a force several orders of magnitude weaker. My opponent is focusing on the 1000 mph, forgetting the 25,000 miles that makes the perceived force so weak.[32] My opponent also cites failures of 3 experiments to show the earth is spinning; without explaining how, or why these experiments show this. In actuality, these three experiments were not concerning the absolute movement of the earth, but the movement of the earth and light relative to the movement of lumineferous aether. These experiments were brought about to prove the effects of this aether, and all failed because the Aether doesn"t exist [33]. Interestingly, there are many examples of measurements that show the earth is spinning using the basic principles of conservation of angular momentum. Pendulums change their orientation over time due to the spinning earth[34]; as do gyroscopes[35], and Sagnac interferometers[36]. So my opponents" claim that no measurement can show the earth is spinning is clearly wrong; as these basic observations all demonstrate the effect clearly.