23.“  Ball-believers often claim “gravity” magically and inexplicably drags the entire lower-atmosphere of the Earth in perfect synchronization up to some undetermined height where this progressively faster spinning atmosphere gives way to the non-spinning, non-gravitized, non-atmosphere of infinite vacuum space. Such non-sensical theories are debunked, however, by rain, fireworks, birds, bugs, clouds, smoke, planes and projectiles all of which would behave very differently if both the ball-Earth and its atmosphere were constantly spinning Eastwards at 1000mph.”

It is a sure sign that Mr Dubay doesn’t understand something when he describes it as “magical”. You can bet that there is a perfectly good explanation, which Dubay  just doesn’t know.  Ignorance never dents his confidence, though. “Often wrong, never in doubt” as the saying goes.

Before we look at the main point, why would there have to be any “magic” involved when a spinning world makes its atmosphere spin, too? Does he deny that drag or friction exists , as well as gravity? If so, he will have a terribly hard time explaining the world we see around us.

Both air (and other gases) and liquids, such as water, will start to move if solid matter movies while it is in contact with them. Or does Mr Dubay think an electric fan is “magical”?

Here are two practical experiments you can try to confirm for yourself that Dubay is talking rubbish.

1. Glue or screw a ball to the end of a rod, and put the other end of the rod into an electric drill. Place the ball in a bowl of water. Turn the drill on (on a slow speed setting, or you will get wet!).

Watch what happens. Look – the rotating ball is transferring its rotary motion to the water. No “magic” involved – it is just drag, which is what we call the friction between a solid and a fluid (gases or liquids). This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has used a food mixer, either.

2.       For the second experiment, you need some visible vapour; smoke from an incense stick will do, or steam from a kettle. Simple hold your hand flat and move it rapidly through the steam or smoke, edge on. Notice what happens? The vapour moves, eddying round and following your hand. Again, drag has transferred energy from your hand to the gases, and made them move. Still no magic.

In fact, you didn’t really need the steam or smoke. If you just wave your hand, karate-chop style, you can feel the air against  it. But does your hand actually make the air move? Yes, it does – try making a chopping motion with one hand just above your other hand, also held flat. You will feel the draught of air that your movement drags the air across your hand.

Next, a thought experiment. Imagine a spherical world very like our own has just been created, rotating at the same rate. But in this world, the atmosphere is not spinning along with the world. The solid earth turns, but the air is stationary.

What would happen? Of course, there would instantly be huge winds of hundreds of miles an hour across most of the earth’s surface. But that would be a very unstable, short-lived situation. The earth would continue turning (it is very massive compared to the atmosphere), and so the solid earth’s rotation would be unaffected.  

But soon the effect of drag would start to pull the lowest layer of air along, everywhere over the surface. And that air would start to rotate, too, for the very obvious everyday reasons we have just seen. Soon, the movement of each lower layer would start to drag the next layer up along with it. And before long, we would have exactly the situation we see around us; a worlds and it’s atmosphere rotating together.

Why would the friction between the solid Earth’s surface and the surrounding gas NOT cause the air to follow the earth in spinning? What could possibly prevent it from doing so?

So in each of Mr Dubay’s examples , repeated ad nauseam,  what we see is precisely what we’d expect.  When a helicopter takes off, both the helicopter and the air that supports it are already rotating at the same speed as the ground below it. When a ball, or a raindrop or a firework falls, it falls inside a moving, rotating atmosphere. So all of Dubay’s repetitive examples are simply nonsense.

It’s the same case as the air inside a speeding train or aircraft. Here, we know for sure that both the vehicle and the air inside are moving at the same speed in the same direction. If you toss a ball across a train carriage, travelling at 70 mph, the ball doesn’t  fly to the back of the carriage at 70 mph, does it? Because it is already moving forward at the same speed as the train.

And what we see is that “birds, bugs, clouds (of steam from hot coffee), smoke… and projectiles” behave exactly as we see in the outside atmosphere. Case proved – the atmosphere moves with the Earth, and what we see is what we’d expect in that situation. And you have give absolute zero reasons to think otherwise.

·         A few final bits of silliness in this claim: 

The height of the atmosphere is in no way "undetermined".

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth.

1. There is no such thing as “gravitized” – that’s a word Mr Dubay has made up. Gravity is an intrinsic feature of all matter, in exact proportion to it’s mass, not something that is sometimes “magically” added to it. And this has been shown many times 

20), 21) and 22) are the same argument.

20)” If Earth were truly constantly spinning Eastwards at over 1000mph, vertically-fired cannonballs and other projectiles should fall significantly due west. In actual fact, however, whenever this has been tested, vertically-fired cannonballs shoot upwards an average of 14 seconds ascending, 14 seconds descending, and fall back to the ground no more than 2 feet away from the cannon, often directly back into the muzzle.”

21)” If the Earth were truly constantly spinning Eastwards at over 1000mph, helicopters and hot-air balloons should be able to simply hover over the surface of the Earth and wait for their destinations to come to them!”

22) “If Earth were truly constantly spinning Eastwards at over 1000mph, during the Red Bull stratosphere dive, Felix Baumgartner, spending 3 hours ascending over New Mexico, should have landed 2500 miles West into the Pacific Ocean but instead landed a few dozen miles East of the take-off point.”

Again, these three are really the same arguments stated in different ways. And each version as a silly and clearly testably wrong as the others.

The short answer is that  the cannonball and the helicopter and the parachutist are also rotating, along with the Earth and the surrounding atmosphere. They are motionless relative to the Earth, but still following the same path around the Earth. For instance, point 21 assumes that the somehow stops dead as son as it leaves the ground, when a moment earlier it was rotating on the earth’s surface! Which is, frankly, crazy!

If you don’t believe this, again, here is a way to test my argument and Mr Dubay’s:

Next time you and a friend are on a speeding train or bus, sit on opposite sides. Now try tossing a ball gently straight across the train for your friend to catch.

Now, if Mr Dubay is right, the ball should shoot backwards at a sharp angle, and your friend will miss it. After all, the train is moving much faster forward than the ball is flying sideways across the carriage? Well, try it.

If I’m right, the ball will sails straight across the carriage at right angles to the trains direction of motion. No flying backwards. And that is what happens , of course. Why? Because the ball (and the air in the train)  was already moving forward at 70 mph or whatever speed the train is doing. Just like you, your friend and the other passengers, you are stationary relative to the train around you, even though the whole thing is speeding along.

If you don’t have a friend with you, you can still do the experiment. Just stand sideways on and try jumping straight across the train; perhaps from a left hand door to the opposite right hand one. Do you fly backwards, as Mr Dubay implies you will? No, of course not. And it is the same with the cannonballs and helicopter and parachutists in his examples.

In fact, if Dubay was right, you couldn’t even pass a cup of coffee to your friend, without it slopping over the back of the cup.

Yet again, you don’t have to take my word, or ask one of those scientists that Mr Dubay says are all conspiring against us. Try it for yourself. 

And like the other test  I’ve already described, you will find that Dubay scores nil points.