The Bible seems to teach that the earth is flat, and for many thousands of years, perhaps since he the very Creation itself, all of humanity understood as much.

And then only 500 years ago a new understanding of reality was introduced and with it the wholesale disruption of what was previously believed in favor of this radical Copernican model.

We famously saw the way a sailing ship would decrease in size first with the hull and then progressively with the mast of the ship proving to our own eyes the fact of the curvature. (See first example in the video below)

Now in our time everyone understands the concept of a solar system as fact. Flat earther Christians have long accepted the idea that the earth is a sphere and is not the center of the universe, as the Bible seems to teach, but rather part of a vast solar system revolving around our local sun.

We now understand that the earth spins at approximately 1000 mph at the equator, orbiting the sun at approximately 67,000 mph with the entire solar system itself spiraling around the galaxy at an astonishing 490,000 mph!

After all our breathtaking deep space photography, the Gallilean concept of relativity, color shift in stars, and man’s trip to the moon and beyond has proven the facts to be so without a doubt.

Or have they?

The earth has been shown to be a sphere with a radius of 7500 miles and a circumference of about 45,000 miles. This gives us a formula for determining the relative curvature of the earth. Approximately 8 inches per mile, but the figure becomes exponential over distance, so for instance, 1 mile of curvature yields 8 inches of drop, but 100 miles yields 6600 feet of drop! And 200 miles yields 26,000 feet of drop!

So now, with the advent of powerful telescopes and photography is there a way to test that formula practically? How far can a person see across the globe horizon before the “ship travels beyond sight”?

Guiness book of world records holds the longest photograph of a visible line of sight has been recorded at an astonishing 275 miles. From a mountain in Spain to another mountain in France.

In the image we can see the photographer has clearly taken an image of the French mountain range some 275 miles away. We recognize the prominence of a mountain called Barre d Ecrins in the French Alps, with an elevation of 12,400 feet above sea level.

As you can see the prominence of d Ecrins is visible. Prominence in terms of geography relates to the amount of altitude visible above the local surface level. And in this case there is roughly half or 6,700 feet of prominence visible at d Ecrins.

Now in the photograph can we determine how much is visible? I would guess maybe 4000 to as much as 6000, giving us enough to clearly recognize the peak.

Now if we take the altitude of the photographer (at Pic Finatrelles in Spain) and add that to the altitude of the d Ecrins peak (at Pic d Ecrins), we should have an idea of the amount of curvature that we should be able to “see over” in this case, that would be roughly 23,000 feet.

But the interesting fact is that if you calculate the amount of curvature which is in play over that distance, according to the accepted formula, we would expect it to be approximately 28,000 to 32,000 feet!

Now, in the most generous of figuring, this means that the photographer on the mountain is Spain, if we assume him to be taking this photo from the 11,700 foot pinnacle of Finestrelles, then he should only be able to see the very tippy top of Mt Ecrins, at 12,700, and it should not be much of the “prominence”, of course not enough to be recognizable. And yet we see nearly 4000 to 6000 feet of recognizable prominence.

If the earth curvature formula is accurate the man the pinnacle of Mt Ecrins should be hidden below nearly 8000 to 12,000 feet of earth curvature!

Someone is lying to us about the formula for the curvature, and if that is the case, could they be lying to us about more than that?

😉

PS – Enjoy the related video below, and see as they use another mountain about 243 miles away and give their figures for the curvature.