2006-07-15 13:50:35 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Before there were clocks, there was a direction called deiseil - the direction that the Sun moves in the Northern Hemisphere. When clocks were made, the hands went deiseil because that's the way a sundial runs. So more accurate to say clocks rotate worldwise.
If you're asking what determines our planet's direction of spin, we inherited it from the disk of dust and gas that the planets formed from. That's why most of the bodies in the solar system spin the same way. Those that don't are explained by gravitational effects, collisions, or in the case of some of the smaller moons, extra-solar origin.
2006-07-15 16:53:51 · answer #1 · answered by injanier 7 · 22⤊ 4⤋
The "mathematician" got it right. If you are looking down on the North Pole, the Earth would appear to be rotating counter-clockwise. For the Earth to appear rotating clockwise you would have to be looking "down" on the South Pole.
2006-07-15 17:10:11 · answer #2 · answered by Shank 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because prople who developed clocks lived in the northern hemisphere and described the rotation of the earth as if they were viewing it from above the north pole.
If they had lived in the southern hemisphere and viewed the rotation from above the south pole, either clocks would have had to run counter clockwise to what we see, or else we would say that the world ran counter clockwise.
It is all in the perspective... and how you make clocks.
2006-07-15 14:47:37 · answer #3 · answered by Alan Turing 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Earth rotates from East to West approximately at 1000 MPH at the Equator, that is I believe clock-counterwise, translation around the Sun is clockwise, but it all depends from what point in space you look at it.
2006-07-15 14:05:14 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually , "Clockwise" is designed after the rotation of the earth.
2006-07-15 13:55:17 · answer #5 · answered by Fee 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because it doesn't rotate counter-clockwise!!
2006-07-15 15:11:50 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
actually this term was named, and clocks first designed, from the apparent movement of the sun. It was not known at the time that it was, in fact, the earth revolving.
2006-07-15 14:27:11 · answer #7 · answered by the prof 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it rotates in any direction depending on where you are looking from
2006-07-15 13:54:05 · answer #8 · answered by Ivanhoe Fats 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because you are looking at it from the South pole?
2006-07-15 13:54:24 · answer #9 · answered by mathematician 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Who says it does?
It all depends upon your prospective.
2006-07-15 14:26:02 · answer #10 · answered by carl l 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋