RinaseaofDs,
“Hull Down” is caused by perspective and the limit of sight.
Everything disappears at some distance due to perspective and limit of sight. Some sight is farther than other sight (optically enhanced, binoculars, telescope, etc.), but it all meets the same fate. The target shrinks to the point where it is no longer visible.
On the ocean, it is affected by chop and air/weather conditions, but it is not caused by curvature. If water does NOT curve over six (6) miles [Robotham Experiment], then it does not curve at all.
Again, stick to science.
Any optically enhanced system of observation can overcome ‘limit of sight’. Your visible horizon depends on your height of eye.
No, everything does not disappear at some distance, thanks to lasers. If you want to track something in terms of its position relative to a stationary point on Earth, you can do it as long as you have line of sight.
Water DOES curve over 6 miles. Water curves over 100 feet too. The Robotham Experiment is repeated thousands of times a day, and every time you can perceive a hull down condition depending on your height of eye and the sea condition.
Best place to do this is in the Arctic. I once transited the Chuckchi Sea, and it was so calm that it appeared we were entering a museum of ice sculptures (growlers) all presented on a floor that was polished such that it had no blemishes. Not a breath of wind. Not a single ripple. Not even disturbance caused by sea life surfacing.
I’ll never forget it. In that place, you could get your eye 1 inch above the water, and you could perceive hull down in a much shorter distance.
So many services and devices you take advantage of every day would simply not work if the world were not an oblate spheroid.
As for perspective, it DOES matter, but only in quantum physics. The speed of light is not dependent on perspective. It’s the constant. Time dilates.
It also matters in terms of wave/particle duality. When a molecule/atom/electron fired at two slits cut from cardboard, the pattern it creates on a backdrop changes depending on whether it is observed or not. All you have to do is observe it.
Experiment has been replicated thousands of times, same result. Einstein couldn’t explain it either.
If you still think ‘hull down’ is caused by perspective and limit of sight, then show it mathematically, or propose an experiment that isolates the absence of curvature in creating an effect that fools the observer into perceiving curvature.