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Original poster

Right. So my mother says the world is round. In that case,

65 replies

Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 11:56

why do the people on the bottom, not feel like the blood is rushing to their heads?

I need to explain this one to ds because me and mum ended up concluding that the earth is actually flat.

OP posts:
Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 11:57

Because actually they are upside down, aren;t they.

Aren't they?

OP posts:
TrinityLovesHerVampireRhino · 16/10/2008 11:59

no cause the world is spinning

and movin

oh I dont know

LadyOfWaffleIsScaryEnough · 16/10/2008 11:59

gravity... Nowhere is top or bottom...

Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:00

Yes you see I thought I knew this stuff./

I should really not have tried Home education.

OP posts:
onager · 16/10/2008 12:00

Because 'down' really means towards the center of the earth. Thinking of the earth as a magnet might help. It is tricky to imagine at first.

Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:00

No but if it is a big ball in space, of course it has a top and a bottom.

OP posts:
bran · 16/10/2008 12:00

Blimey, is it a full moon again?

Big heavy objects (like the earth) exert gravitational force which pulls towards the center of the big object. So everything on the surface feels the force pulling them towards the centre.

LadyOfWaffleIsScaryEnough · 16/10/2008 12:00

Bood rushes to your head when you are upside down because of gravity... everything heads basically towards the middle of the earth, not just up or down... if that makes any sense.

Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:01

Yes I know why we stay on. but someone must be underneath, right?

Does gravity pull your blood to the centre as well?

OP posts:
LadyOfWaffleIsScaryEnough · 16/10/2008 12:02

Yes, but how do you know what is top or bottom? Spacships may be going out upside down to take pics.

Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:02

oh I see.

Still not sure why you would think you were upright when in afct you were dnagling into the space below.

Then again I don't believe in aeroplanes either.

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Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:02

Stop it LOW!!!! you are confsuing me!!

OP posts:
Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:03

I don't know what is top or bottom, just that there is one of each.

Just look at a globe. it has got a top and a bootom. whichever way up it is.

OP posts:
LadyOfWaffleIsScaryEnough · 16/10/2008 12:03

Don't worry, I am confusing me too! Seriously though, I wonder how we know/think the north pole is the north and not the south...

onager · 16/10/2008 12:04

There is no up or down anywhere in the universe. There is just the attraction of gravity which we call down as a figure of speech.

Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:05

no I am not convinced.

OP posts:
LadyOfWaffleIsScaryEnough · 16/10/2008 12:06

I know what you mean, but gavitationally (totally made up word!) speaking it sort of doesn't. Ish. If you imagine the world (as if you were on the moon) and imagine someone dropping an apple right out to the side, from 'the top' it wouldn't fall downwards, it would fall inwards.

Original poster
Flightattendant2 · 16/10/2008 12:06

Maybe it goes upside down here when we're asleep so we don't notice.

OP posts:
bran · 16/10/2008 12:08

The top/bottom approach to North and South is just convention, because our brains are used to things having tops and bottoms. The cultures that first started to make maps were in the Northern hemisphere so they made that the top. If the dominant technological culture had arisen in Australia then the South pole would be at the top.

DownyEmerald · 16/10/2008 12:23

There's a fab episode of West Wing with this sort of stuff. CJ's face when someone turns the map upside down and says sthg like "most of the population is in southern hemisphere so this is what the world should really look". PMSL

bran · 16/10/2008 12:29

It's surprising how 'oriented' our brains are really. If my computer were to go mad and turn the screen upside down, I would no longer be able to read Mumsnet. The type would be the same but my brain simply can't process it unless it's turned the right way up. So even things that don't have a right way up, like the earth or the solar system, have to have a 'right' way allocated to them so that our brains can process the data we receive about it.

Bubbaluv · 16/10/2008 12:42

They used to think the world was flat and we where on top, so when they discovered it was round, they automatically called the southern hemisphere the bottom.
If you grew up in Australia and were told you were on the top, and globes were traditionally the other way up then you would think you were on top.
The concept of infinite space will be pretty hard for a child to grasp though.

Bubbaluv · 16/10/2008 12:44

Ladyofwaffle, North and South are just names we gave to the axies of the earth. If North had been called South and vice-versa, it would make no difference at all. We could just as easily have called them apple pole and pear pole.

AMumInScotland · 16/10/2008 12:49

Think of it like a peach - "down" is where the stone is, no matter where on the surface you are. You only feel the blood rushing to your head if your head is nearer the centre than your feet are.

AMumInScotland · 16/10/2008 12:54

Oh and gravity does pull your blood towards the centre - the veins in our legs have one-way valves in them to stop it from ending up all in our feet! (Well, to stop our hearts having to work quite as hard to get it up out of our feet)