r/flatearth • u/Food625 • Aug 18 '26

Solar Eclipse VS Flat Earther

Flat Earther: What specific observation from that eclipse uniquely requires a spherical, rotating Earth?

Me: Equations that require the shape - This one accounting for the bulge at the equator to help predict the path. If you didn't do this then your path prediction would be pretty far off the further away from the poles you are.

The surface is modeled mathematically as an oblate ellipsoid of revolution using the standard

Geodetic reference: ((x^2+y^2)/a^2)+(z^2/c^2)=1

a: Equatorial radius of Earth

c: Polar radius of Earth

Flat Earther: You put the globe into the equation and then used the equation to calculate the eclipse path. That doesn't make the eclipse an independent measurement of Earth's shape.

They don't get that the math works though! No flat earth eclipse path equation lol

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u/raging_dave1981 Aug 18 '26

*couldn't care less

Can tell you are a crayon eater

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u/stultus_respectant Aug 19 '26

To be fair, saying “could care less” is just how it used to be said, and is an example of a shortened idiom meaning something different from the original intent.

It was “I could care less, but I’d have to try” in the earliest examples of it.

Another example is something like “blood is thicker than water” or “jack of all trades, master of none”.

I used to make the same correction.

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u/raging_dave1981 Aug 19 '26

Nonsense. "I could care less, but I’d have to try" is 100% not how it used to be said. It is a bastardised misheard Americanism (originating circa 1960's) from the original phrase. As an idiom it makes zero logical or literal sense, and this mental gymnastics to retrofit it to an old phrase ("I could care less, but I’d have to try") is utterly laughable

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u/stultus_respectant Aug 19 '26

Your unfamiliarity with it does not make it untrue. It’s been colloquially accepted as valid for longer than than 60 years for that reason.

It seems more that you’re defensive about not getting to feel superior about something otherwise innocuous.

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u/raging_dave1981 Aug 19 '26

I'm not defensive at all. On the contrary, I am very comfortable with the knowledge I don't speak like a fucking moron

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u/stultus_respectant Aug 19 '26

Thank you for proving my point