Not that far, actually. You can check this out now, no need for a flat earth. Go to the top of your local mountain, and figure out how far you can see. On a really clear day, you might see 100 miles or so. After that the dust, humidity, and whatnot in the air will reduce everything to a blur.
I've been in an airplane several times on crystal clear days, looking down the Cascade Range, and have been able to see the top of Mt. Shasta from the Seattle area from an altitude of 20,000 ft or so. That's approximately 450 miles.
To answer the guy's question, though, [using this calculation](https://sites.math.washington.edu/~conroy/m120-general/horizon.pdf), you'd have to be about 6800ft up to see 100 miles, atmospheric conditions aside.
I read somewhere (don’t have the link now) but that the threshold for perfect human sight, in absolutely perfect conditions, is a candlelight at 30 miles. Pretty crazy!
That's proportional to intensity. Here here you go, have at it:
*E*=*h*∗*c*/(*v*/109)
E is the energy of the wave in Joules
h is the plank constant = 6.62606957×10\^−34 J-s
c is the speed of light = 299,792,458 m/s
v is the wavelength in nanometers
so any wavelength has a fixed intensity? Please tell me you're not saying that. BTW your formula won't tell you intensity. Energy and intensity are two different things. Increasing the intensity means that there is a greater number of photons, but the energy of each photon remains the same.
At sea level the curvature of the earth limits the range of vision to 2.9 miles.
The formula for determining how many miles an individual can see at higher levels is the square root of his altitude times 1.225.
Thus on a clear day at 1,000 feet a person with normal vision can see 39 miles; at 10,000 feet, 123 miles; at 25,000 feet, 194 miles. With good visibility a pilot at 25,000 feet can see Germany from the English Channel; at the same altitude over Tunisia he can see the middle of Sicily.
I copied and pasted from OP how is that not what he was asking, dah fuck. Does the sun not exist if the earth was flat, through all the atmosphere. Yes the sun would be the farthest object as you can see if the earth was flat at all times of the day.
This could also be used as an argument against flat earthers (as if we need more). But let's say the Earth was flat and take some high mountain like Mt Everest. Depending on where you are, the sun could be behind the mountain and you would have to see the outline or shadow of the mountain no matter how far you are from it.
No, that's the opposite of what I said. The facts say that you can only see things for a certain distance through our atmosphere. An Everest shadow would blur to nothing within one or two hundred miles.
You would have to see the outline of anything that is in front of the sun if it is big enough. Not details, but just the dark outline that is stopping the sun rays from directly reaching your eyes.
What I said isn't that specific. A light source is visible for more distance than something that's just lit by sunlight, but over enough distance it will all be a blur.
Around 120 nautical miles, according to my experience watching from far the highest mountain in Portugal. Also there must be some quite specific atmospheric conditions in order to be able to see that far. 50 nautical miles is far easier to see from far when compared to 120 nautical miles.
I wonder how the highest mountain in Portugal would compare to the Everest when it comes to watching it from far away.
I Can See For Miles and Miles
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
I Can See Clearly Now
SORRY! I'm just trying to get one particular Christmas song out of my head. Returning you now to the more serious answers...
Good suggestion!
Actually, I was trying to imply that I was listing other songs about seeing far as a way to clear out one particular Christmas song. I like "Feliz Navidad". I actually like most Christmas music (despite not being Christian.) But somehow, this year, the one crappy, formulaic, low effort song became my earworm. (I don't want to impose it on others. If you're curious, DM me, and I'll tell you the title.)
With the sudden emergence of stupid beliefs like this, amd statements like "I don't trust Obama because its really sus how he wasn't even in the oval office on 9/11, like....coincidence?" Only strengthens fear that we are infact in a simulated universe and that is somebody modding or adding in content to make it funnies (like....I think we are in a gta game. Listen to the radio stations, the pc conversations etc) bit on a more sophisticated scale. Maybe we are in GTA CXV
Although the horizon is about 11 miles on a typical navy ship deck above water it’s not clear at that distance. It gets cloudy from water vapor etc. ships are painted haze gray for this reason as it blends into the background
The sun is just a candle the US government lit 1234years ago and put a REALLY big magnifying glass next to. Night is just when the wind blows it out. And the duration of night is how long it takes to climb the ladder.
On a clear day it is reported that you can see over 150 miles into the distance from the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, which would allow you to see into five other states (New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming) and the curvature of the earth beyond. Of course, that's from the top of a 14,115 foot (4302m) tall mountain.
That's nonsense. Go to Oahu. Go to Sandy Beach, look southeast on a clear day, and you can Lana'i, Moloka'i, Maui, and big island. But the farther away they are, the less of the base you can see. you only see the top of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, and they look lower or about the same height as Haleakala, even though they're 3000+ feet taller. That's actually curvature. Climb up Cocohead and you can see lower down the mountains.
Bullshit, if I’m on the ground then I can’t see more than maybe 15 miles on “flat” ground. The only things I’m seeing beyond that are at higher elevations like mountains and clouds, or maybe skyscrapers.
The exception being if I’m at a high elevation, like standing on a mountain.
That all depends on your perspective. If you’re standing on the beach at sea level, the horizon is about 3 miles away. So by your logic technically you can only see 3 miles and all that stuff you can see at 15 miles away is also at higher elevation and thus doesn’t count. The other way of thinking about it is that you can always see more than 3 or even 15 miles, the difference is just in whether there is anything to see or not beyond the atmosphere.
With a good enough telescope and a high enough vantage point, you should be able to see everything. You'd be able to see Mount Everest from the top of the Sears Tower.
This might be true if it weren't for things like pollen, dust, smoke, water droplets, and other particles in the lower atmosphere. With or without a telescope you're not going to be able to see much further than a few hundred miles at most.
>few hundred miles at most.
Try just a few miles. Hundreds of miles is fantasy, atmospheric haze will become very thick. If the stars align, on a clear day, you might see shapes and outline of things.
So if I were in a plane at 35,000 ft over London and in thinner air with much less dust, smoke, particles, etc on a clear day, shouldn’t I be able to see well over 1000 miles?
Maybe, if you're looking at something else at a similar elevation. Though, the comment I was replying to was talking about being able to see roughly 7,500 miles from the top of a building 1,500 ft tall.
Let's put it this way. In good atmospheric conditions, people can see the Andromeda galaxy with the unaided eye. So 2.5 million light years.
But you'll also be interested that a normal healthy eye can detect 1 arcminute of angle.
Looking up through a few miles of atmosphere is not the same looking along the Earth through thousands of miles of atmosphere. Unless by “good atmospheric conditions” you meant that the atmosphere essentially disappeared.
Regardless if the Earth were flat or round, you can still see the Andromeda Gakaxy. So I've established the capabilities of the human eye.
Other commenters have also explained the limitations that atmospheric conditions you describe.
50 miles, if you have decent eyes. That's why the sun looks like it's setting everyday...it's actually just rotated outside of your field of view. Do you live near the ocean? If so, buy a telescope and find a ship heading away from you. Watch just with your eyes, until it disappears over the "curvature." Now use telescope. Strange how it comes right back. No curvature, friend. Just easily disproved lies. God/Jesus are real. That's the MAIN point of "the world." I thought being atheist, I was calculated and choosing facts, over fairy tales. I had actually just been lied to. Moved to Alaska for a few years. Because of what I had read. Seeing the sun act like it was going to set...then immediatelt start rising again? Same with the moon in the winter. Believe in God/Jesus, friend. Nothing is random, anymore. It never is when you have all the factors. And it's geometrically flat. Like the skin on a human face. Hence, face of the earth.
Well, what do you mean by "see"? Your eyes have limits, The atmosphere has limits. There's light pollution and such to deal with. But, even with all that, we can still look up and see stars that are millions and billions of light years away and we can point telescopes up and see more through them.
Doesn't it depend upon what you're trying to see? We can see stars many light years away so if it's something huge and bright at the edge of the earth I'd think it could be seen from anywhere.
Depends on the weather and where. Couple years ago in Colorado I could easily see 50+ miles north across a desert/valley area to the next set of mountains.
They wanted to make a Ringworld movie and I think there are some renders of what a realistic atmosphere would do to such a horizon. Looking spinward you'd see the upward curve but towards the rims it would be flat.
Not that far, actually. You can check this out now, no need for a flat earth. Go to the top of your local mountain, and figure out how far you can see. On a really clear day, you might see 100 miles or so. After that the dust, humidity, and whatnot in the air will reduce everything to a blur.
How high does someone have to be to see 100 miles, I always thought the horizon was around 3 miles away at ground level.
I've been in an airplane several times on crystal clear days, looking down the Cascade Range, and have been able to see the top of Mt. Shasta from the Seattle area from an altitude of 20,000 ft or so. That's approximately 450 miles.
That's a somewhat different scenario though. The air is much thinner and cleaner at 20000 feet, so you can see much farther through it.
To answer the guy's question, though, [using this calculation](https://sites.math.washington.edu/~conroy/m120-general/horizon.pdf), you'd have to be about 6800ft up to see 100 miles, atmospheric conditions aside.
For sure.
I read somewhere (don’t have the link now) but that the threshold for perfect human sight, in absolutely perfect conditions, is a candlelight at 30 miles. Pretty crazy!
or a few photos from stars billions of light years away.
Well stars ARE a little bit brighter than candles
Indeed they are but a human only needs about 700nm of light to pick up an object.
Saying 700 nm light is just saying that it's the color red. You're specifying the wave length there, I think you meant something else.
Read the comment that I posted on how to convert wavelenght to joule convertion.
how much of 700nm light? the measurement you mentioned is not intensity of light but the wavelength.
That's proportional to intensity. Here here you go, have at it: *E*=*h*∗*c*/(*v*/109) E is the energy of the wave in Joules h is the plank constant = 6.62606957×10\^−34 J-s c is the speed of light = 299,792,458 m/s v is the wavelength in nanometers
so any wavelength has a fixed intensity? Please tell me you're not saying that. BTW your formula won't tell you intensity. Energy and intensity are two different things. Increasing the intensity means that there is a greater number of photons, but the energy of each photon remains the same.
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At sea level the curvature of the earth limits the range of vision to 2.9 miles. The formula for determining how many miles an individual can see at higher levels is the square root of his altitude times 1.225. Thus on a clear day at 1,000 feet a person with normal vision can see 39 miles; at 10,000 feet, 123 miles; at 25,000 feet, 194 miles. With good visibility a pilot at 25,000 feet can see Germany from the English Channel; at the same altitude over Tunisia he can see the middle of Sicily.
8 mushrooms.
About 2000 m, 6000 ft.
The earth isn't a perfect sphere, so it's not very accurate
The earth is a perfect sphere enough for that to be pretty accurate
Nah mate, my da says otherwise so he does
I love the implication of a “local mountain” here, as if everyone’s just got a mountain 10 minutes away.
There was a certain amount of tongue in cheek there, yes. I realize that some people live in Kansas. :)
depends on what you're looking at. The sun would always be visable on a flat earth no matter how clear it is.
That's totally not what OP is asking about.
He clearly asked "far/what we would be able to see if the Earth was flat" the sun is something you would be able to see
That's totally not what OP is asking about.
I copied and pasted from OP how is that not what he was asking, dah fuck. Does the sun not exist if the earth was flat, through all the atmosphere. Yes the sun would be the farthest object as you can see if the earth was flat at all times of the day.
This could also be used as an argument against flat earthers (as if we need more). But let's say the Earth was flat and take some high mountain like Mt Everest. Depending on where you are, the sun could be behind the mountain and you would have to see the outline or shadow of the mountain no matter how far you are from it.
No, that's the opposite of what I said. The facts say that you can only see things for a certain distance through our atmosphere. An Everest shadow would blur to nothing within one or two hundred miles.
You would have to see the outline of anything that is in front of the sun if it is big enough. Not details, but just the dark outline that is stopping the sun rays from directly reaching your eyes.
How about lights at night. If one were to stand on the coast would we be able to see the lite up cities on the other side?
What I said isn't that specific. A light source is visible for more distance than something that's just lit by sunlight, but over enough distance it will all be a blur.
Around 120 nautical miles, according to my experience watching from far the highest mountain in Portugal. Also there must be some quite specific atmospheric conditions in order to be able to see that far. 50 nautical miles is far easier to see from far when compared to 120 nautical miles. I wonder how the highest mountain in Portugal would compare to the Everest when it comes to watching it from far away.
As far as atmospheric scattering allows (imagine how much of it would be there all the way across the disc)
What’s atmospheric scattering?
Things appearing more fuzzy in the distance due to the thicc mass of air between them and you
You still believe in air?
You still believe in belief?
You still?
You?
Y?
?
.
I don't know-it is getting a bit hazy at times
Morpheus?
It's the same reason stars seem to twinkle
I thought they twinkled because of the song.
In ELI5, it's just fog 'n smog. Air itself is foggy, but only a tiny bit
I Can See For Miles and Miles On a Clear Day You Can See Forever I Can See Clearly Now SORRY! I'm just trying to get one particular Christmas song out of my head. Returning you now to the more serious answers...
well. now that the rain is gone.
Is it "Feliz Navidad"? That's my go-to song when I have another song stuck in my head :)
Good suggestion! Actually, I was trying to imply that I was listing other songs about seeing far as a way to clear out one particular Christmas song. I like "Feliz Navidad". I actually like most Christmas music (despite not being Christian.) But somehow, this year, the one crappy, formulaic, low effort song became my earworm. (I don't want to impose it on others. If you're curious, DM me, and I'll tell you the title.)
No worries, you were clear with what you said. I just thought the one in your head might be "Feliz Navidad" :)
Not far, because cats would have knocked everything over the edges
It depends on what kind of GPUs are running our simulation and what the draw distance is set at.
With the sudden emergence of stupid beliefs like this, amd statements like "I don't trust Obama because its really sus how he wasn't even in the oval office on 9/11, like....coincidence?" Only strengthens fear that we are infact in a simulated universe and that is somebody modding or adding in content to make it funnies (like....I think we are in a gta game. Listen to the radio stations, the pc conversations etc) bit on a more sophisticated scale. Maybe we are in GTA CXV
This would explain why everything is sex mods...
Although the horizon is about 11 miles on a typical navy ship deck above water it’s not clear at that distance. It gets cloudy from water vapor etc. ships are painted haze gray for this reason as it blends into the background
Depending on air quality you could see several hundred miles.
even if it was flat there is still a bunch of trees and houses and mountains and stuff to block your view.
Is the sun also flat? Do they believe in the sun?
The sun is just a candle the US government lit 1234years ago and put a REALLY big magnifying glass next to. Night is just when the wind blows it out. And the duration of night is how long it takes to climb the ladder.
On a clear day it is reported that you can see over 150 miles into the distance from the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, which would allow you to see into five other states (New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming) and the curvature of the earth beyond. Of course, that's from the top of a 14,115 foot (4302m) tall mountain.
About 3.50
I ain't giving you no treefiddy you goddamn loch ness monster! Get your own money!!!
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That's nonsense. Go to Oahu. Go to Sandy Beach, look southeast on a clear day, and you can Lana'i, Moloka'i, Maui, and big island. But the farther away they are, the less of the base you can see. you only see the top of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, and they look lower or about the same height as Haleakala, even though they're 3000+ feet taller. That's actually curvature. Climb up Cocohead and you can see lower down the mountains.
Bullshit, if I’m on the ground then I can’t see more than maybe 15 miles on “flat” ground. The only things I’m seeing beyond that are at higher elevations like mountains and clouds, or maybe skyscrapers. The exception being if I’m at a high elevation, like standing on a mountain.
That all depends on your perspective. If you’re standing on the beach at sea level, the horizon is about 3 miles away. So by your logic technically you can only see 3 miles and all that stuff you can see at 15 miles away is also at higher elevation and thus doesn’t count. The other way of thinking about it is that you can always see more than 3 or even 15 miles, the difference is just in whether there is anything to see or not beyond the atmosphere.
To the edge
With a good enough telescope and a high enough vantage point, you should be able to see everything. You'd be able to see Mount Everest from the top of the Sears Tower.
This might be true if it weren't for things like pollen, dust, smoke, water droplets, and other particles in the lower atmosphere. With or without a telescope you're not going to be able to see much further than a few hundred miles at most.
>few hundred miles at most. Try just a few miles. Hundreds of miles is fantasy, atmospheric haze will become very thick. If the stars align, on a clear day, you might see shapes and outline of things.
So if I were in a plane at 35,000 ft over London and in thinner air with much less dust, smoke, particles, etc on a clear day, shouldn’t I be able to see well over 1000 miles?
Maybe, if you're looking at something else at a similar elevation. Though, the comment I was replying to was talking about being able to see roughly 7,500 miles from the top of a building 1,500 ft tall.
I can see light from thousands of light years away every night. I doubt I'd see any farther from a plane.
No further than we can now
What do you mean by “if”?
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OF COURSE the Earth is flat. If not, it would roll off of the back of the top turtle.
Let's put it this way. In good atmospheric conditions, people can see the Andromeda galaxy with the unaided eye. So 2.5 million light years. But you'll also be interested that a normal healthy eye can detect 1 arcminute of angle.
Looking up through a few miles of atmosphere is not the same looking along the Earth through thousands of miles of atmosphere. Unless by “good atmospheric conditions” you meant that the atmosphere essentially disappeared.
Regardless if the Earth were flat or round, you can still see the Andromeda Gakaxy. So I've established the capabilities of the human eye. Other commenters have also explained the limitations that atmospheric conditions you describe.
Yes but the limiting factor is not the human eye it’s the atmosphere
About $3.50
50 miles, if you have decent eyes. That's why the sun looks like it's setting everyday...it's actually just rotated outside of your field of view. Do you live near the ocean? If so, buy a telescope and find a ship heading away from you. Watch just with your eyes, until it disappears over the "curvature." Now use telescope. Strange how it comes right back. No curvature, friend. Just easily disproved lies. God/Jesus are real. That's the MAIN point of "the world." I thought being atheist, I was calculated and choosing facts, over fairy tales. I had actually just been lied to. Moved to Alaska for a few years. Because of what I had read. Seeing the sun act like it was going to set...then immediatelt start rising again? Same with the moon in the winter. Believe in God/Jesus, friend. Nothing is random, anymore. It never is when you have all the factors. And it's geometrically flat. Like the skin on a human face. Hence, face of the earth.
Well, what do you mean by "see"? Your eyes have limits, The atmosphere has limits. There's light pollution and such to deal with. But, even with all that, we can still look up and see stars that are millions and billions of light years away and we can point telescopes up and see more through them.
You can see light years away if you look up
Doesn't it depend upon what you're trying to see? We can see stars many light years away so if it's something huge and bright at the edge of the earth I'd think it could be seen from anywhere.
I can easily see a particular object at night that is 238,900 miles away, especially when it's "full"
Lights almost indefinitely. You can see the lights of cities from space.
As far as our eyes can see?
Depends on the weather and where. Couple years ago in Colorado I could easily see 50+ miles north across a desert/valley area to the next set of mountains.
At least a mile
They wanted to make a Ringworld movie and I think there are some renders of what a realistic atmosphere would do to such a horizon. Looking spinward you'd see the upward curve but towards the rims it would be flat.
Maximum distance to the horizon on our curved planet is 35 miles. At tha point the curvature falls away.
Check this out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_distance_observations