North vs. South

[Muse]

I was looking at my map-of-the-world shower curtain a couple of days ago and thought to myself "well, don't those people who live in the southern hemisphere maybe feel a little bit ignored?" Seems like the north gets all the attention. Is there any reason whatsoever why planet earth couldn't be represented flipped on its head, i.e. with Antarctica on top and Australia in your face, the Arctic and Greenland at the bottom, the USA, Russia and Europe on the world's ass?

 

[Exterous]

Most of the worlds population lives north of the equator so we get to decide how to display the world any damn way we please and those 'southies' can just deal with it

 

[sonambulo]

Put a Dymaxion projection on your wall.

 

[Jaskalas]

North has America, Europe, Russia, China, India on its side.... even the Middle East with its religious fundies and gobs of world controlling oil.

South has... Australia with points of awesomeness for New Zealand but really, no world powers. Just the ill fate of hemispheres that the north has all the landmass (frozen wastelands not included) that connect and represented the historical evolution of mankind.

I'm sure some century later South America and Africa can get their acts together... South America more than Africa....

 

[feralkid]

Has more to do with "Magnetic North" as the baseline for cartography.

When the poles shift, we'll talk.

 

[bigrash]

Cause the north rules.

 

[Muse]

Has more to do with "Magnetic North" as the baseline for cartography.

When the poles shift, we'll talk.

Well, couldn't that just be flipped to Magnetic South? The South shall rise again (well, maybe not...). I still see no reason why the globe can't be flipped other than the politics of "We northern hemisphere folks are more important than you in the southern hemisphere."

Electrons flow one way, but AFAIK a magnet has a north and south pole and there is perfect symmetry. North is attracted to south, south to north. North repelled by north, south repelled by south. Is not the designation even of one and the other interchangeable? It's been a long time since I studied physics.

 

[Newbian]

Well, couldn't that just be flipped to Magnetic South? The South shall rise again (well, maybe not...). I still see no reason why the globe can't be flipped other than the politics of "We northern hemisphere folks are more important than you in the southern hemisphere."

Then everyone will be upside down.

 

[Muse]

Put a Dymaxion projection on your wall.

From Wikipedia:

Fuller argued that in the universe there is no "up" and "down", or "north" and "south": only "in" and "out".[4] Gravitational forces of the stars and planets created "in", meaning 'towards the gravitational center', and "out", meaning "away from the gravitational center". He attributed the north-up-superior/south-down-inferior presentation of most other world maps to cultural bias.
- - - -

So, one could produce a globe (certainly better than any projection conceivable!) with all *printing* flipped and the south pole at the top. Or, just have a globe with no printing at all and suspend it upside down, just for the right-thinking advantages. A nice contrarian touch for your study!

 

[Zeze]

This assumes both lands have same mass.

They don't.

Most of the land on the earth is in the northern hemisphere.
Of the 7 continents, 3 are entirely in the Northern hemisphere and 2 more have significant portions north of the equator.

Go look at it in google maps.

 

[DrPizza]

Has more to do with "Magnetic North" as the baseline for cartography.

When the poles shift, we'll talk.

Sure, we call it "magnetic North", but you realize that the North Pole is really a south magnetic pole, right?

 

[JJ650]

THE SOUTH WILL RISE....nevermind.

 

[Leros]

There are tons of maps with the South on top.

http://flourish.org/upsidedownmap/

 

[Gibsons]

darn you Leros!

 

[Lifted]

North Earth is Best Earth.

 

[Exterous]

There are tons of maps with the South on top.

What silliness is this?

 

[Muse]

Delightful! But instead of calling it the Kiwi Upside Down World Map they should have called it the Kiwi Right Side Up World Map!

 

[JulesMaximus]

This assumes both lands have same mass.

They don't.

Most of the land on the earth is in the northern hemisphere.
Of the 7 continents, 3 are entirely in the Northern hemisphere and 2 more have significant portions north of the equator.

Go look at it in google maps.

This was my first thought as well. One look at a globe will illustrate this point quite clearly. Most of the southern hemisphere of this planet is ocean.

 

[PsiStar]

What is pondered in the throne room, should be left in the throne room.

 

[Muse]

Jimmy Cliff's new album has a song that's pretty spot on for this thread. Love this song, recorded it off the radio in MP3, give it a listen:

World Upside Down

 

[Muse]

Bump for the Cliff

 

[IronWing]

You could just open Google Earth and set the globe spinning, no particular axis, no per-conceived notions of orientation, just free spinning.