Well, for starters, that depends on which way you’re looking at the earth.
OK well then by that logic it depends on which way your looking as a clock. A see-through clock would cause chaos by your logic.
The terms for “clockwise” and “Counterclockwise” originated long before clocks. Clockwise was originally called “Sunwise” and followed the movement of the shadow around a sundial.
Counterclockwise was “widdershins”, from a Middle Low German phrase meaning “against the way.”
We don’t use “earthwise” because from our perspective, the earth doesn’t rotate.
Thank you for an actual answer. I really do appreciate it.
You know after thinking about this for a while, it actually just makes me want to call it earthwise more.
And maybe I just have a diffent perspective, but I look up a lot and notice the stars moving while out on walk woth my dogs. Not in real time for anyone trying to start lol. But It’s continously in my mind that we’re on a spinning rock. And I’ve played enough NMS to realize that a planet can take perspective from space, but compasses go north and south. And if we’re going to debate on which way I would consider which to be right or wrong its moot, because whatever clockwise is earthwise will be opposite. So I just don’t get how I’m so wrong.
That’s eurocentric. For someone in the south hemisphere the earth actually rotates clockwise.
Yes and people in Australia live upside down
How many see-through clocks do you own? I own none.
Hey so, I just got back from a walk with my dogs and I remembered that I 100% own a see through clock. It also has Roman numerals so it would be extra confusing. It’s in storage but when I wake up tomorrow I’ll go grab it just to take a picture for this moment.
Behold! The Clock of Chaos
Edit: I held it the correct way so you idiots could realize it’s actually a clock
How many maps do you own that focus on the south pole? I own none.
How many maps do you own that focus on the north pole? I own none.
??
Literally every map. The north pole is the focus of the cardinal direction. Are you just being dumb now?
Edit: I meant compass rose. How dumb yall are being is dragging me down with you
he just owns no map mate
I genuinely didn’t think that way and just busted out laughing
It probably would actually. Imagine if Big Ben was a transparent circle with clock hands at the top.
Well yeah, but I was trying to get across that we have established rules for how we view the world and it’s pretty set in stone that the earth turns in a leftward direction just as much as a clock turns in a rightward one.
Because who the hell knows by heart which way the earth turns
I mean, anyone who hikes often or likes astronomy. It’s kind of important for navigation and orientation to know where the sun will rise and set.
Are you telling me you don’t ever imagine yourself on a huge ball spinning towards the sun in the morning?
I’m glad someone else at least understands how incredulous I am.
I mean it only took me like 3 weeks of hard studying to remember it so it wasn’t that bad
Why would I need to appease some rando who hates standard analog clocks and do like 3 weeks of hard studying just to dissociate rotation vectors from time measuring tools?
Good job. You sure showed that rando who’s boss.
Try wearing a watch
Try getting a sense of humor
Some of us say anticlockwise instead
At this point I’ll take it lol
Because in everyday life we can see the rotation of the clock hands but not the rotation of the earth.
You don’t see the sun move in the sky? Or do you think the sun is actually the one moving?
So you say I need to know my orientation and position on earth and their orientation and position on earth just to tell someone in which direction I need to rotate something?
The earth spins on a leftward direction on the same plane it orbits the sun. Is that so hard to grasp? More hard than to teach everyone that clocks HAVE to spin in one direction?
Whatever. Just tell the people to rotate something Earth-wise while the rest of the world using a clock as reference.
I was going to do it without your permission anyway
The word you want is “widdershins”.
Yeah, it is honestly
Sunwise and widdershins! Only heard the term when I met some witches. IRL witches! It’s a thing.
Because clocks are intuitive, the earth’s rotation is not. We’ve agreed long ago that clocks spin to the right, and that convention has continued to this day. Analog clocks are now a regular occurrence everywhere in modern society. Up is 12, down is 6, Clock spins to the right. Ezpz.
The earth’s rotation, while a constant, isn’t easy to intuit. Depending on your frame of reference the earth spins to the right, to the left, ahead of you or behind you, or some combination of these local cardinal directions. In addition, there is no objective “up” in space. The most common map projections only orient north as “up” because of eurocentric bias when choosing such an orientation.
So nah, earthwise makes no sense for angular velocity unless you also want to mandate north = up
So we agree clocks have to spin one way because that’s how its is but we can’t agree the earth spins one way because people are dumb? The earth spins in a leftwards direction as its spins around our star. That’s facts.
If you just want to call people dumb you are allowed to do that.
No, we agree you have difficulty reading an analog clock.
Yes, because I said clockwise was the wrong one.
When viewed from which direction?
From the same direction we’re making our clocks from
Thank you. That’s what this whole post is based on.
Why does Big Ben get to decide which arbitrary way I say left turning?
Clocks simply followed the direction of movement from the sundial (as seen in the Northern hemisphere).
Nothing to do with “Big Ben” [sic].
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Misjudged your intelligence
Some civility would be nice.
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My friend’s grandfather used to bet on horse racing all the time, and horses would go counterclockwise around the track no matter what track it was, so he’d say horsewise whenever he wanted to say counterclockwise.
That dude’s my hero
Because you then have anti-earthwise, which just sounds like a climate disaster, or humanity itself.
Or, we could still use clockwise. Which is what I was thinking.
Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe we should also say right and counterright. Tight and countertight. Open and counteropen.
Maybe we should say a lot of things in more logical ways. Unfortunately, language evolves naturally over time and that comes with these kind of oddities
My dude, I was joking. I’m trying to evolve the language I guess.
Here’s what’ll really bake your noodle. The north end of a magnet points north which means that the north magnetic pole is actually the South Pole of the Earth’s magnet.
