http://xkcd.com/503/

:P

hehe

It's relative to ROME! haha well not really, but it sure seems that way doesn't it :)

Looking at asian maps of the world is fun. North America is "the east" and Europe is "the west"

On the other hand, how can you have and "eastern half" and a "western half" on a rotating sphere anyway...

What's always bugged me:

"<insert weather/geological event/other natural event> caught on camera/tape..."

For example:

"Storm chasers caught this tornado on camera as it ripped through a shopping mall..."



They say it like the tornado was "caught" with its hand in a cookie jar or something, acting surprised that someone would be watching it with a camera...

We always assign human traits to weather events...see you do believe in God!!!!!

its based on Germany and Berlin. the sides of the wall.

Eastern powers and Western powers.

Actually we personify nature due to cognitve heuristic errors. Speeds up processing at the cost of errors.

Bonus points for the SAT word: heuristic. Points subtracted for misspelling 'cognitive'.

I "Heart" trumper

WHAT ABOUT AUSTIN POWERS?!?!!!

Actually it predates that. :P

just face the truth.

i know it's hard to exist.

But Borat's town in glorious kazakhstan is the centre of the world.

Very niiice!

serious answer:

I was about to drop a HILARIOUs joke about the most important point in the world being the opposite side from martian blah blah blah..

then i realised the antipodean point from toronto.. is like the south pole....

So i'll just go with TAN being the most important bloke in the world and thus everything is named for his convenience... ALL HAIL QATAR!

ALL HAIL KATR!!!

I has to post....

Because geography, times zones, and the world as we know it were defined in 1884 by a bunch of European Imperialists at the request of US president Chester A. Arthur, who decided that Greenwich, England was the hub of the planet. Asia was east of the Imperialists.

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

actually it probably does originate closer to the eastern/western halves of the roman empire.... and the division in the christian church between the orthodox & catholic...

I believe it actually predates Roman times. Monoan and Cretian settlements gave rise to the Greek Society which is Probably the first true examples or "western" culture. So Greco-Roman era society is the first Western Societies.

As for who decided where East and West was i will say it is a toss up.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

KATR

Well the chinese considered (probably still consider) themselves to be "central" and everything else east/west because of them.

I think the initial concept of "west" and "east" in terms of european thought came with the schism of the roman empire. The boundary is somewhat subjective though. I don't think the Greeks themselves really thought of the world in terms of "west" and "east" (nor many of the predecessor civilizations nearby).

The greeks were a heavy influence on the romans and hence an inspiration for "western" culture but the Romans considered the greeks as part of "the east" for a time.

Like I said, on a rotating sphere it's kind of hard:P If the earth rotated in the other direction then we would be arguing north south. Actually we would have bigger problems in that case:P

Now thats just plain funny 8)

I believe that China is the middle kingdom in more a Tolkien way; above there are the gods, below the other mortals.

The greeks didn't really care much of east or west. They weren't much an empire, in fact a "marathon" runner could cross the country in a matter of a few days without sweating much. Such problems appeared with Roman empire, and the distances did indeed matter.

The east/west arbitrary but generally accepted division I believe originated during the renaissance. Anything east of Europe (that meaning the balkans) was east, anything west of british islands was west. The precise 0 longitude came much later (and the french lost)

If you mean if the earth rotated like Uranus does (virtually in ecliptic plane) then there were noone on earth worring about east/west/north/south and it would have been such a waste of good 4 weekly bonus points for posting on earth empire forums...