4 ms·

I wonder if people in the southern hemisphere think of it as rotating clockwise?

• dylan604 4y ago
  east is east and west is west, even if you're standing on your head
  • jobigoud 4y ago
    If you are in space and you look at the Earth from below it's rotating clockwise in space. It's only counter-clockwise when you look from above.
• seanhunter 4y ago
  Tldr: No they don't. (Speaking as someone who grew up in the Southern hemisphere and now lives in the Northern). Long version: I mean, there might be some who do but that's true of any deliberately perverse opinion[1]. I expect that generally people think of the Earth's direction of rotation as being from East to West and if they were trying to get to clockwise/anticlockwise they would specify which pole they were standing at. [1] You can make a clock that rotates counterclockwise[2] but that doesn't prove that words have no meaning, just that you're a curmudgeon. Most people would concede they know what you mean when you ask whether the earth rotates clockwise or anticlockwise and that wouldn't vary between Southern and Northern hemisphere dwellers I think. [2] which is an interesting philosophical/linguistic conundrum because isn't the direction of rotation of a clock by definition "clockwise" whichever direction it rotates? It is a clock after all.