Message from @raspberry
Discord ID: 605574027557470208
snell's law is for refraction at a boundary
nsintheta
but any rays that start slightly non-parallel (the thing we're testing with the wells)
will have their divergence affected by refraction
i mean of course...they start at a point and have to reach different wells
that are miles apart
so rays from a point will diverge across miles
if that were true then putting wells inches apart should give different angles
and on the way to each well, refraction will affect them differently
where do you get inches? i never gave any numbers
just an assumption
we should get shadows that are flipped
since divergent rays are at play
i'm confused, divergent rays are always at play
they have to be divergent in order to originate from a point sun and reach two wells
that little ms paint drawing you made
you only pretend they aren't when you pretend the sun's rays are entirely parallel
ye
that would cause divergent rays too
it would affect the divergence is more what i should say
also i couldd see your point that, if you can say they're roughly parallel
then you could say their divergence could be roughly unaffected at one point
that's fine, until the fact that the wells are separated
so it's different portions of atmosphere, each which can refract differently
so the result is still unpredictable
yeah, that link is pretending that the sun's rays are parallel
like, you can see from his diagrams that they aren't
but that, you know, close enough
but ye if we're being honest about the physics
the issue is that the rays will travel through 2 different parts of the atmosphere
so parallel or not, they'll get refracted differently just bc it's 2 separate bits of atmosphere
and that can affect divergence and everything else and put it all out of whack
i.e. in terms of the well, light above one well gets bent at another angle than at the other one. and experiment broken
ye eratosthenes was a good start, but now modern science and technology provide better and more accurate experiments to prove the earth is round
it's because of these points we don't use sticks to prove the earth is round
yeahh that makes sense
but the modern proofs have become so inaccessible
that it's actually possible to question if they're legitimate
butyeah we can agree on the sticks at least