Flat Earth Conceptual Model Review

A scientific critical review of the Conceptual Flat Earth Model by Alan Space Audits — a three.js-based interactive flat-earth cosmology with bundled JPL DE405 ephemeris, real airline flight tracks (QF27/28), and a "two-vault" projection scheme. Every load-bearing claim checked against the model's own source code.

• Subject site: alanspaceaudits.github.io/conceptual_flat_earth_model
• Subject repo: github.com/AlanSpaceAudits/conceptual_flat_earth_model
• This review (live): funwithscience.net/flat-earth-model-review/
• Live demonstrations: funwithscience.net/flat-earth-model-review/live/ — three live demos that re-run the subject's own functions on his bundled data. Equal-arc-but-unequal-disc (ratios 2.70× and 3.30×), QF27/28 in mph, and one-geometry-under-twenty-skins.

The subject is an interactive sandbox, not a predictor — so this is not a predictions audit. It is a critique of how the sandbox is built: where its physics comes from, where its internal commitments contradict each other, and where it misrepresents what the spherical-earth model actually predicts.

Tabs

1. The Model — what the author built, charitably described; the core trick stated once.
2. Globe Physics in a Disc Costume — every load-bearing cheat in one place: the hard-coded north-pole AE under all the projection skins, the MI_PER_DEG = 69.0936 constant that converts mph through Earth circumference and is then relabeled "central-angle deg/h", the great-circle SLERP that interpolates flight paths on a sphere, the spherical RA/Dec → Az/El identity used for every observer altitude, the headroom = 0.12 constant tuned to make north/south arc reversal appear.
3. AI Stacking — the placeholder FE eclipse predictor, the GeoC pipeline that silently falls back to DE405, volume-as-credibility, the system-prompt voice leaking into source comments.
4. Co-opted Demo — points to the live demonstrations page, which re-runs the subject's own published functions on his bundled data to show the equal-arc-unequal-disc ratio (2.70×–3.30×), QF27/28 mph values that his model has but won't display, and the same flight route through four projection skins all driven by identical lat/lon coordinates.

---

Build

npm install
npm run build      # compiles raw-text/*.md into docs/index.html
npm run serve      # local preview
npm test           # claim-verification monitor (see monitor/)

Layout

raw-text/        markdown source, one file per tab
docs/            built site (GitHub Pages root)
data/            machine-readable claim ledger + verification fixtures
downloads/       PDF export + audit
monitor/         claim-checker — runs the assertions in raw-text/
build-scripts/   helpers

License

CC BY-SA 4.0 for prose; MIT for build/test code.