Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

An alternative way to rotate or in this case rolltate

+1
−1

As far as we know Earth and every other planet in the solar system rotate around their axes. Whether it be Uranus which rotates on its side or Mercury which rotates perfectly straight, all planets spin the same way. However, what if the planets rotated up and down? To explain this imagine if Canada slowly moved northward towards the north pole and once crossed started going south into the southern hemisphere and once it reached the south pole it started going north, Tl.dr the planet rotates longitudinally instead of latitudally. Is it possible?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/176860. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

0 comment threads

2 answers

You are accessing this answer with a direct link, so it's being shown above all other answers regardless of its score. You can return to the normal view.

+2
−0

Yes, for a given definition of 'North Pole'.

You see, there are three different 'North Pole's

  • Geographic North Pole, which is defined as 'the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface' (ignoring precession).
  • Magnetic North Pole, defined as 'the point on the surface of Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which the planet's magnetic field points vertically downwards'. This is what your compass points at.
  • Geomagnetic North Pole: the Magnetic North Pole and Magnetic South Pole are not actually directly opposite each other. This is the closest approximation to 'but, what if they actually were?'

As should (hopefully) be pretty obvious, the first definition is completely incompatible with your question: as soon as you move the axis of rotation, the Geographic North Pole moves with it. Canada cannot, by definition, rotate through the Geographic North Pole, and on down to the Geographic South Pole.

However, the Magnetic and Geomagnetic North Poles move. They are also largely independent of the Axis of Rotation. In the 1850s / 1860s, they actually got all the way down to King William Island in Canada - that's a quarter of the way to the equator! And, sometimes, Magnetic North is in the Geographic South.

So, you could (theoretically) have a situation where Magnetic North was pretty much on the equator. Countries could then rotate 'North' (Magnetically) past the Pole, and continue 'South'. However, they are still rotating around the planet's axis: For Magnetic North to be roughly where Geographic North currently is, and Canada to rotate through it, you would need the Geographic North Pole (or the Geographic South Pole) - and the Earth's Axis - to be somewhere around Cape Town

It should be noted, of course, that this would make Canada nice and warm, while Hawaii would be covered in ice.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/176944. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

0 comment threads

+1
−0

No. The way we define latitude and longitude is based on the planet's axis of rotation. You can certainly (AFAIK) have a planet with a 90° axial inclination, or (probably) a planet that is identical to Earth except with all the land masses rotated 90°, but unless you completely change the definition of "pole", the poles will, by definition, be stationary w.r.t. the planet's rotation.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »