Does the earth spin clockwise or anticlockwise? Please help my wife!?

Question

She asked me this once and I replied "depends if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere." We have even spun a globe around to illustrate my answer but I cant seem to explain properly! Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The answer is neither. Clockwise and counterclockwise is a
2-dimenstional description of motion. We can describe things like clocks in 2 dimenstions because of the limitiations of the 3 dimensions by such forces as garvity and such. In space there is no up or down left or right. So you can see it spiining one way while in space, get flipped around and it will be spinning the other way.

Answer 2

The earth spins to the east (that's why the sun moves westward). As for clockwise and anticlockwise, that depends on if you are facing north or south. North = anticlockwise, South = clockwise.

Answer 3

You have received both answers and some are right and some are wrong.Which is right. the sun comes up in the east and sets in the west. That is for sure. So looking NORTH, the earth appears to rotate clockwise. It does not matter if you are looking north or south, the earth always rotates toward the east. Water in a bath tub does not help answer this question. Bottom line the earth rotates towards the EAST, Clockwise.

Answer 4

Well one would expect to take the top of the earth as the reference point.
Then move on to times:
USA = behind GMT(5-8 hours)
UK = GMT
Austrailia = Ahead of GMT (I forget by what)
since the sun stays in place, and austrailia gets light first, imagina a light on austrailia. Uk gets it next, then USA, which way do you turn the globe to do this? Left to right.= Counter Clockwise.
I suppose It could be clockwise if you are taking the bottom of earth to be the standard, but I would Imagine most use the top. After all you need standards, you wouldn't take a glass clock and put it on the wall the wrong way nd argue it was rotating counter clockwise... would you?

Answer 5

The earth rotates once every 24 hours. This daily 360 degree rotation is the reason that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and why we have day and night. The earth rotates about its axis which is an imaginary straight line that extends from the geographic North Pole in the north through the center of the earth to the geographic South Pole in the south. The geographic poles are defined by this axis of rotation and are the points that a globe spins on.

The map you will be spinning represents a pretty large object. The continent of Antarctica has 17,968 km of coastline. It is approximately 14 million square kilometers in area. That is a little less than 1.5 times the size of the United States. 98% of Antarctica is covered by an enormous thick ice sheet. This ice is on average about 2 km thick, and is up to 4.3 km thick. It totals about 30,000,000 cubic kilometers of ice, that's 23 million trillion kilograms, which is 90% of the world's ice and 70% of the world's fresh water, or 1/5 of all the world's water. Each year the amount of ice that flows off the continent alone is a staggering quantity, the glaciers discharge 900 trillion kilograms of ice a year. First of all, the Earth spins at about 460 m/s at the equator. Not 30 Km/s. Simply too slow to notice if you were looking at the Earth from the moon for example. Secondly, since the early 70's the highest astronauts have flown is under 1000Km above the Earth. (I'm pretty certain of this). Generally they stay at about 250-350Km above the Earth. At this altitude, they orbit the planet once every 90 minutes, or at about 7.5 Km/s. When watching video of the space shuttle in orbit, for instance, if you look at the Earth, you'll notice it zipping by pretty quickly.

Answer 6

This question requires a reference point. You must always specify the position of the observer. Suppose our observer is on Polaris, the north star. He or she looks back at our solar system with a magic telescope and sees earth spinning counterclockwise, and all the planets orbiting the sun counterclockwise. If the observer were on some other star almost overhead the earth's south pole, that observer would say "clockwise". When the two observers talk to each other, and find out that they disagree, they would say "Of course, the earth is in the middle and we are facing opposite directions. Left for you is right for me. No problem."

Answer 7

It depends on your "point of perception". You are right, ,, if ur are standing on the north pole,, it is spinning counter clockwise or to your left, and vice-versa, standing on south pole, earth spins clockwise or to your right. Anticlockwise? Actually you cannot define the earths rotation accurately using clockwise or counterclockwise, it rotates to the east. Anyway, hope this sheds a little light on it.

Answer 8

The earth always spins toward the West whether you are in the southern or northern hemisphere. This is why the Sun rises in the East and sets in the west. If you are looking at the earth from the top (Arctic Circle) then it would be clock-wise

The answer is Clockwise

Answer 9

If you look down to the surface from above the North Pole, it is spinning anti-clockwise. If you look down to the surface from above the South Pole, clockwise.

Answer 10

Think of it in terms of the sun. The time difference between New York and California is 4 hours. That means the sun is above California 4 hours after it is above New York. So. look at a map, look at New York, which way does the earth have to move while your eyes stay fixed order to get California within your eyesight?