Didn’t Middle Earth lore say the Earth was flat, but was made spherical later? Had that happened by then?
Comment on kawaiiiiiii
rljkeimig@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
The reason Legolas can see that far is because the curvature of Earth doesn’t exist for elves. It is the same reason they can sail off into the Undying Lands without circling back around.
frezik@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Revan343@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Yes, but it’s not spherical for the elves, just the other races, which is why elven boats can sail to the undying lands, but human boats can’t.
Isoprenoid@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Wait, is it the boat that ignores the spherical attribute or the entity that commands the boat?
Can an elf sail to the undying lands commanding a human built vessel?
Kellenved@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I think you have to be an elf building a ship and convince each plank individually that the world is flat
RedFrank24@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s neither, it’s the Will of Eru Illuvatar that determines whether you can travel the Straight Road or not. Ælfwine travelled the Straight Road and landed at Tol Eressëa in 869AD after fleeing the Danes, and he was a Man, not an Elf.
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Eru damn tangential elves flying off into space.
IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
This gives strong “Lovecraft describing things he doesn’t understand as noneuclidian” vibes.
huf@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
the world was flat until numenor made war on the undying lands. at that point, numenor sank and the world was made round and the undying lands were placed somehow outside them, so that elves could still sail west along the straight way and get there, but everyone else just sailed west around the globe.
later, tolkien changed his mind about a lot of this and played with it, trying to turn it into an always roundworld (scientifically accurate myth was his goal at this point) but couldnt really figure out how it’d work and he was old and then he died
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
so you’re saying flat earth killed tolkien?
huf@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
no, that’s not why. it’s because elves can just see better. it’s the same reason they can walk on top of snow. they are slightly outside the laws that apply to ordinary humans. even aragorn is a hair over the line.
Foofighter@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
You mean the curvature of middle earth, right? RIGHT?!
Revan343@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Middle Earth is canonically our Earth, in the past
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
How would that even work? Do time zones exist for everybody but elves? As the party travelled east, did Legolas start perceiving the sun to set later than it did for everybody else?
match@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
If I remember correctly, the sun is the light of Valinor, so the sun actually never sets for Legolas
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
I guess that means elves can’t go to space :(
T156@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why not? They can’t go across, but they can certainly go up.
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’re saying television would just lie to me?
BearGun@ttrpg.network 3 weeks ago
The sun was made from the last fruit of Laurelin (one of the two great trees) and is being shipped around the sky on a cart. Legolas has never seen the light of Valinor, i believe he was born after the trees died. It’s definitely not visible at all times to the elves, since even before the world was turned round it went below it out of sight at night-time. Presumably the elves still see the sun affect only parts of the world, they can just see beyond the horizon.
match@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
thanks!
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
the curvature of Earth doesn’t exist for elves
Doesn’t it? Haven’t come across anything in Tolkien’s works that says this.
hinterlufer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
even if you ignore curvature you have a resolution limit that depends on the aperture. Look up Rayleigh criterion for more info
rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
But does it consider magic?
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
That would fall under “nonvisual perception”
rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
What about magical visual perception?
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
Except that this problem doesn’t specify distance between horseman, so I think it’s a bit bogus — no.need to resolve an individual person to be able to tell that they’re there. And for hair color, if you make assumptions about the clothes being worn, you could perhaps infer color of hair, even if the hair isn’t resolvable (a person being a “single pixel” would have a different hue depending).
hinterlufer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So, a typical pupil is around 2 mm in diameter in bright conditions. With the Rayleigh limit that results in an angular resolution of 1.22 * 60010^-9 m / 210^-3 m = 3.66*10^-4 rad
At a distance of 5 x 3 mi = 15 mi = 24.1 km this corresponds to a point to point distance of
tan(a/2) = (d/2)/l
d = tan(a/2) * l * 2 = tan(3.66*10^-4) * 24100 * 2 = 8.8 m
So in conclusion, with regular, human-like eyes he could discern points that are at least 8.8 m apart in the best case scenario. Discerning hair color from the color of the clothes would need a much higher resolution, and the horsemen are probably not 10 m apart from each other either. And again, this is a theoretical limit, real-world resolution would probably be significantly lower.
match@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
which is why legolas has huge anime eyes
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The only way this would make sense is if the horsemen are all riding next to each other, which would allow him to estimate the count based on the average width of one riding horseman. As soon as one is even partially in front of another, the 105 number breaks.