What evidence is there that the earth rotates left to right instead of right to left?

ogicu8abruok

You can't use words like "left" in this context unless you say that the north pole is "up" (you can't use clockwise/counterclockwise either), though you can say east/west. Apr 01 05, 3:57 PM

Flynn_17

And you can't reall call it the North Pole, because soon, what we regard as the North Pole will become the South Pole. This happens every 10,000 years or so. Apr 01 05, 4:11 PM

ogicu8abruok

Only if you're talking in terms of magnetism. There will be no reason to change the name of the geographic north pole. Apr 01 05, 4:19 PM

Baloo55th

Except for all the magnetic compasses pointing the wrong way - but the gyroscopic ones won't... Apr 01 05, 4:48 PM

peasypod

Of course they all point the wrong way anyway...the north pole is actually a "south pole" in terms of the definitions of magnetism. A flip of the earth's magnetic field would thus be very beneficial.... Apr 01 05, 5:13 PM

gmackematix

I'll just contact an influential friend of mine and get the Universe turned upside down. There, is that better? With regard to the question, wherever you pick left and right to be, some parts will be moving right to left and some from right to left. This is the nature of rotation. If you mean, how do we know that looking from directly over what we now call the North Pole, we know that the Earth is rotating anticlockwise and not clockwise, then we know because the sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west. Apr 01 05, 7:06 PM