[oska]

> The Earth rotates around its axis from west to east, or, when seen from above, counter-clockwise.

North is not up.

When seen from above the South Pole, the Earth is rotating clockwise.

But really doesn't make much sense to talk about the rotation of a sphere by analogy to a 2D clockface. The Earth rotates from West to East; that's all that needed to be said here.

[mathgladiator]

Dont all maps have north 'up's? I'm curious if there are maps that invert this.

[kderbe]

An example of a south-is-up map: http://mapdesign.icaci.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/MapCar...

[oska]

We're not talking about a map here, we're talking about the real thing, the Earth, hanging in space.

(But yes, there are many maps that don't have north at the top).

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Your just using your preferred frame of reference.

It seems reasonable to call north up because that frame of reference is how maps usually look.

To subsume your frame of reference, we could say the Earth isn’t hanging in space, it’s in free fall around the sun.

There are other frames of reference at progressively larger scales.

Edit: Also, the word ‘hanging’ usually implies an ‘up’.

[oska]

> Your just using your preferred frame of reference.

No I am not. What I said was that they should have left it as just that the Earth rotates from West to East (no frame of reference). I only talked about how it would look like from above the South Pole to show that the described anti-clockwise direction of motion was relative to the frame of reference that was being, unnecessarily, assumed.

The Earth has two poles and they are equal, just like with any (approximate) sphere. If you are going to describe how the Earth's rotation looks from above one pole then you should also describe how it looks from above the other. But once you describe it from both poles it becomes obvious that you're not really imparting any useful information because, while it looks clockwise from above one pole it looks anti-clockwise from above the other. Better to not use any frame of reference at all. We know that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. With just a little thought it is then obvious that the Earth is rotating from West to East and that is all that needs to be said.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

> Better to not use any frame of reference at all.

Ok

> We know that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

You didn’t even try!

[oska]

Frankly, it's pathetic that you play games with the words I use - 'hanging', 'rises' - which everyone understands are not actual descriptions of reality and don't engage with the argument at all, which is about reality.