What if we're wrong about North?

[12string]

It's always up.  Not down, South is down.  

How do we know that?  We have all the pictures of the solar system, and relative to the sun and the orbit, North is up.  But what if the sun is upside down?  How do we know it's not?

[Kzoo]

ouch

[jsharr ★]

[Razors Edge ★]

24 minutes ago, 12string said:

What if we're wrong about North?

Why's it gotta be all about "North"?!?!!  Without South, there IS NO North!  A little consideration for the other folks might be in order, eh?

[jsharr ★]

30 minutes ago, 12string said:

It's always up.  Not down, South is down.  

How do we know that?  We have all the pictures of the solar system, and relative to the sun and the orbit, North is up.  But what if the sun is upside down?  How do we know it's not?

[Kirby]

So what you're really saying is that we don't know if we're standing on our heads or not?

[maddmaxx ★]

[JerrySTL ★]

Actually it's East.

[jdc2000]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

 

[Mr. Silly]

Is this better?

 

[Razors Edge ★]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Silly said:

Is this better?

 

That's a neat ride idea:

[Longjohn ★]

I thought this was going to be about Oliver.

[MickinMD ★]

1 hour ago, 12string said:

It's always up.  Not down, South is down.  

How do we know that?  We have all the pictures of the solar system, and relative to the sun and the orbit, North is up.  But what if the sun is upside down?  How do we know it's not?

Also complicating things is that the Earth flip-flops N-S poles - at least a dozen times in the last 780,000 years - so that the North Magnetic Pole is near the South Pole and the South Magnetic Pole is near the North Pole.  41,000 years ago, shortly after modern humans arrived in Europe, it slowly flipped over a 1000 year period, then flipped back in another 500 years to about where it is now - the north and south magnetic pole wander slightly.

If the people who first seriously investigated geography had lived in the southern hemisphere, we'd probably be calling South up and North down.

[jsharr ★]

40 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

Actually it's East.

 

[Zephyr]

1 hour ago, MickinMD said:

Also complicating things is that the Earth flip-flops N-S poles - at least a dozen times in the last 780,000 years - so that the North Magnetic Pole is near the South Pole and the South Magnetic Pole is near the North Pole.  41,000 years ago, shortly after modern humans arrived in Europe, it slowly flipped over a 1000 year period, then flipped back in another 500 years to about where it is now - the north and south magnetic pole wander slightly.

If the people who first seriously investigated geography had lived in the southern hemisphere, we'd probably be calling South up and North down.

One of the reasons it took so long to find the Franklin expedition boats was in Inuit culture, regardless of where you were, maps were always drawn with the drawers home at the top with no real reference to NSEW.  When I was up there, compasses are not used because they are not accurate and so in winter everything is done by dead reckoning.  If you cant see, you build camp, boil tea and wait until you can

[Zephyr]

2 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Without South, there IS NO North!  A little consideration for the other folks might be in order, eh?

No....., South is the red-headed step child of directions.

East is the sun rise, West is the sun set, North was known for 'Polaris' and was one of the earliest aids to navigation and South was just 'that other random place that probably has a purpose but no one knows what' 

[maddmaxx ★]

3 hours ago, Longjohn said:

I thought this was going to be about Oliver.

That's a twist.