GPS + Odometer + Speedometer + Cruise Control = Spherical Earth Affirmed (San Jose to Berkeley)
GPS+Odometer+Speedometer+CruiseControl=SphericalEarthAffirmed(SanJoseToBerkeley)
INTRODUCTION
I recently
got a very helpful suggestion from a person in Santiago, Chile, that expressing
my work in metric units would be helpful to the international community, so
this motivated me to travel metrically on a trip yesterday, as much as I was
able, and to report the experimental results metrically as well.
In a
nutshell, you track a car trip with your GPS and use cruise control to maintain
intervals of constant speed as much as you can during the trip, noting the
constant speeds you maintained as well as where on the trip you were able to do
so. Once you get the GPS data you can analyze it and show that a spherical
earth surface geometry interpretation of the data accurately gives the regions
of constant speed and the overall trip distance in agreement with the car’s
odometer and speedometer. On the other hand when you interpret the data
according to flat circular disk geometry the intervals of constant speed do not
show up as constant at all and the overall trip distance is much in error from
the distance measured by the car’s odometer. I can already hear flat earth
advocates saying something like the GPS data comes out right because it is
based on spherical geometry, and indeed I agree that it is so based, but the
car’s odometer and speedometer are independent of what theory of the earth’s
surface you hold. The car should give accurate speeds and distances traveled
whether you are on a flat earth or a spherical earth, or any other shape for
that matter. The fact that the GPS data agrees with the independent data from
the car’s odometer and speedometer is strong evidence that the spherical earth
model is correct. The fact that the GPS data when interpreted according to flat
circular disk geometry disagrees profoundly with the independent data from the
car’s odometer and speedometer is strong evidence that the flat earth model is
incorrect. I challenge all flat earth advocates and researchers to find a way
to interpret the trip GPS data so as to show that it conforms to flat earth
theory and also agrees with the independent data of the car’s odometer and
speedometer.
The beauty
of this experiment is that whenever someone does it they are going to get
unique results that cannot possibly be predicted or planned for in advance.
Where and at what speeds you are able to hold steady speeds with cruise control
will vary with the road and traffic conditions. The path of the trip used will
also impact the results in a unique way.
This type of
experiment can easily be performed for a vast variety of trips all over the
world and the data easily analyzed. I am going to share exactly how this can be
done by showing how I did it for a trip from San Jose to Berkeley CA yesterday.
All details are presented and the Excel files are made available to anyone
through my Scribd account so they can see how it was done and use the
spreadsheets to process the data from their own trips as well.
DETAILS FOR
TRIP FROM SAN JOSE TO BERKELEY
I used the
GPS in my smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S4. I used the App GPS Essentials, where
at the start of your trip you start tracking, and when you arrive at your
destination you stop tracking. The trip file can then be exported as a KML
file. From there you can process the data in various ways. I like to use the
website GPSVisualizer.com for some things and Excel spreadsheet for many other
things.
Car
speedometer and odometer
It was easy
to push a button to get my speedometer to read in km/h instead of mph, so that
way I could easily see what my speed was in km/h during the trip. I was not
sure how or if I could get the odometer to read in km, so I took the readings
in miles and converted to km.
Trip from
San Jose to Berkeley
91.1 km
(56.6 miles) by odometer
Duration by
my watch 1:10
Duration
Start to Stop GPS 1:09:28
90.6 km 78.3
km/h ave speed 131 km/h top speed reported directly by GPS
From my
smartphone I exported the trip KML file via email to my PC. The KML filename
was Track-171126-105544. I then went to the website GPSVisualizer.com, where I
uploaded the KML file and choose output format plain text table. I then clicked
the link to download this text file back to my PC. I accepted the default
filename 20171126171339-38065-data. I then opened the Excel spreadsheet
application. My version happens to be from 2010. From within the Excel
application, find the text file and open it. Either select to look at All Files
or just Text Files to make sure you can see the correct text file to open. Once
you open it, the Text Import Wizard comes up. The default settings are fine, so
just click on Next, Next, and then Finish. At this point I like to do a Save As
on the file, and save it as an Excel Workbook file, and give it a name that is
more meaningful to me. So I gave it the name 906783SanJoseToBerkeley. I got the
906 from 90.6 km for the trip and 783 from 78.3 ave speed for the trip in km/h
and added SanJoseToBerkeley to further help me identify this data. I will use
this name with additional things added to it as more files are produced based
on processing this data. I do not intend to make any further modifications to
the Excel Workbook file 906783SanJoseToBerkeley so this can be kept as a record
of this stage of the data processing procedure that could easily be returned to
as needed. So then I will again do a Save As to the file and give it the name
906783SanJoseToBerkeleySph. This will be the file where some modifications will
be made so it will do calculations according to spherical earth geometry. One
other change I like to make at this point is to rename the data tab. So go to
the lower left and right click on the data tab, that currently has the really
long name that came from the GPSVisualizer when it created the text file from
the KML file, and select rename. I like to rename it 906783-data. Once you do
this be sure to save the file again. And then do another Save As and save it
with the name 906783SanJoseToBerkeleyFlt. This will be the file where some
modifications will be made so it will do calculations according to flat
circular disk shaped earth geometry.
So let’s
start by working on the 906783SanJoseToBerkeleyFlt file. If you have followed
the directions exactly as above that file should already be open. If not, open
it now. Also open the Excel file FltGeomMetricUnitsTemplate. This is the file
where we are going to copy the section with the equations for calculation and
paste them into file 906783SanJoseToBerkeleyFlt.
In the
906783SanJoseToBerkeleyFlt file select across from Column E to Column J, so
that Columns E, F, G, H, I, and J are all selected. Be sure to select across
the column headings so that the entire columns will end up being selected. Then
Right-Click anywhere inside the selection and choose Insert. This then creates
6 empty columns from E to J, and moves the other stuff to the right so nothing
is lost. In these 6 columns is where we are going to do some calculations on
the data. So we are now going to get the equations from the
FltGeomMetricUnitsTemplate file and copy and then paste into the new
spreadsheet. So from FltGeomMetricUnitsTemplate select from E1 upper left to
J12 lower right so that a rectangle of 12 cells down and 6 cells across are
selected. Then Copy (Ctrl-C). Then go to the 906783SanJoseToBerkeleyFlt
spreadsheet file and select cell E1 to define the upper left of where to Paste.
Then Paste (Ctrl-V). At this point the equations need to be filled down to the
extent of the data. Select cell E12 which defines the upper left. Scroll down
to the very bottom of the data, in this case row 3416. Shift-Click on cell
J3416. This will result in all cells bounded by E12 on the upper left to J3416
on the lower right to be selected. Then do a Fill Down (Ctrl-D). This then results
in the equations being pasted all the way down so we get the calculations done
that we wanted for the entire extent of the data. Two values can be read off of
the spreadsheet at this point. If you go to cell G3416 the total distance of
the trip according to flat earth interpretation is 96.2 km and to cell I3416
the average speed is 83.1 km/h also according to flat earth theory. Next we
will create a plot of speed versus time. Column J is speed smoothed over
several data points and is what I will use because it minimizes the natural
scatter in the data for a better looking plot. If you want to use the point to
point speed just use column H for speed instead. So select from cell B12 to
B3416. The way I like to do this is first select cell B12, then scroll all the
way down and shift-click on cell B3416. Next we want to add to the selection
cells J12 to J3416. The way I like to do this is first Ctrl-click on cell J12
and then scroll down and shift-click on cell J3416. Now that we have selected
two separate columns, one defined by cells B12 to B3416, and the other defined
by cells J12 to J3416, we can create a plot of this speed versus time data. So
go to Insert, select Scatter, and then Scatter with straight lines is the one I
like. This puts the plot in front of the spreadsheet table. I like to make it
separate with its own tab. So right click in the right area of the plot and
chose Move. Then click the button and accept the default name of Chart1 or give
it your own name. I like to call it SpeedVsTimeSm, for speed versus time
smoothed. This then is the speed versus time plot based on the flat earth
interpretation of the data. This will eventually be compared with the
equivalent plot based on the spherical earth interpretation of the data. What
we will find is that the intervals where the speed was held constant with
cruise control show up clearly and distinctly constant on the spherical earth
interpretation, but with much variability on the flat earth interpretation.
So basically
to get the equivalent calculations for the spherical earth surface model,
repeat everything above, but instead using SphGeomMetricUnitsTemplate and
working on file 906783SanJoseToBerkeleySph.
Once you do
this you will get the results that I have summarized below.
Trip from
San Jose to Berkeley
91.1 km
(56.6 miles) by odometer
Duration by
watch 1:10
Duration
Start to Stop GPS 1:09:28
90.6 km 78.3
km/h ave speed 131 km/h top speed by GPS
90.67 km
78.32 km/h ave speed confirmed by calculations in Sph Excel spreadsheet
Speed versus
Time plot for spherical model shows clear agreement with speedometer data
Speed versus
Time plot for flat model shows large deviations from speedometer data
96.2 km 83.1
km/h ave speed by calculations in Flt Excel spreadsheet Inconsistent with
odometer data
Spherical
Earth model: Affirmed
Flat Earth
model: Large deviations from reality
If I am able
to display the Speed versus Time graphs I will show them here. If not they can
be seen at the Scribd links.
Speed versus
Time according to Flat theory
Speed versus
Time according to Spherical theory
I have made
these files available to the public through my Scribd account.
20171126171339-38065-data Text file
906783SanJoseToBerkeley Excel file
906783SanJoseToBerkeleyFlt Excel file
906783SanJoseToBerkeleySph Excel file
FltGeomMetricUnitsTemplate Excel file
SphGeomMetricUnitsTemplate Excel file
Anybody
should be able to see the files by just going to the links. The graphs of Speed
versus Time for both the spherical and flat cases should be able to be seen
this way. To download the files you need a Scribd account, and a regular
account should be free to set up.
I was not
able to make the KML file Track-171126-105544 available through Scribd because
it is not a supported file type.
I encourage
people all over the world to take their own data and process it in this manner
and report their results. Let me know if you have any questions. Comments are
welcome. Thank you.
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