Another stupid question comes to mind

Okay, so I'm retired and have too much time on my hands. But I was sitting
looking at a nice globe I have, made from gemstones, and got wondering, who
decided on how we perceive earths orientation. I mean, with the "north pole" at
the top. Obviously from space, we could very easily see it "upside down". Who
decides these things? Like I said, a stupid question, but I had to ask.

On 18/12/2016 07:15, wrote:

Okay, so I'm retired and have too much time on my hands. But I was sitting
looking at a nice globe I have, made from gemstones, and got wondering, who
decided on how we perceive earths orientation. I mean, with the "north pole" at
the top. Obviously from space, we could very easily see it "upside down". Who
decides these things? Like I said, a stupid question, but I had to ask.

Apparently Homer is considered the founding father of geography, but
other Greeks studied it too. Greek astronomy had established that the
Earth was a sphere by the 3rd century BC, and terrestrial globes
first appeared at that time. Aristarchus was a significant Greek
astronomer.

From :
Okay, so I'm retired and have too much time on my hands. But I was sitting
looking at a nice globe I have, made from gemstones, and got wondering, who
decided on how we perceive earths orientation. I mean, with the "north pole" at
the top. Obviously from space, we could very easily see it "upside down". Who
decides these things? Like I said, a stupid question, but I had to ask.

These are hardly stupid questions.
And this one has a very simple answer.

Just do a GoogleImage search on [world population map].
Those maps don't typically show the equator. So you'd have to draw that in yourself. After doing this step, it becomes perfectly clear how the vast majority of people live in the Northern Hemisphere.

Now that's not the full answer. Only a clue at this point.
Because the North-Up orientation was decided a very long time ago.

So now take a blank map, and then start circling the regions where human civilization started to flourish. Now draw that equator in again.

Here you see that without exception, all of the major influential civilizations happened in the Northern Hemisphere. The only one voting for South Up was Larry Wilmore, and he came along in 2015.

For future posts like this here, you might want to consider flagging as 'OT'. Not for Operating Thetan, but rather to let folk know that your post is off the topic of space.history.

But then there are usually ways to tie things back to space history. So we orient our globes North Up. It is serendipitous that Polaris happens to work in the Northern Hemisphere, yet there is no such star to navigate this simple way in the Southern Hemisphere.

One might take this as evidence that "God favors the Northern Hemisphere". Or somesuch design theory. Well you probably are well aware that astral navigation played a key role in the history of human spaceflight.
Jim Lovell, the lead navigator on Apollo 8, could be considered the Ferdinand Magellan of the 20th Century.



You had only asked about North Up. An even more fascinating story is to be told on the Prime Meridian! Why East-West? Why was the Orient called the Orient? Why is Japan called the Land of the Rising Sun? The Philippines called the Land of the Morning Sun? The Sun rises on all lands.

I hope you keep your posts coming.
Another convention that needs to be called into question is why we still refer to the year by the hyper-biased "2016".

~ CT

wrote in message ...

Okay, so I'm retired and have too much time on my hands. But I was sitting
looking at a nice globe I have, made from gemstones, and got wondering, who
decided on how we perceive earths orientation. I mean, with the "north
pole" at
the top. Obviously from space, we could very easily see it "upside down".
Who
decides these things? Like I said, a stupid question, but I had to ask.

Some good answers, but basically as others have said, most major populations
were north of the Equator and realized the Earth rotated.

In the meantime I recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY as a
cute, funny and actually interesting take on maps and how they influence us.


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net