[RC] Redefining the Eastern and Western Hemispheres

[Radical Rat]

North and South are defined by the Earth's magnetic field, with slight adjustment for geographic convenience, but for the most part it makes perfect sense. When you're above the equator, you're closest to the North Pole, and when you're below you're closest to the South Pole. Thus, the Northern/Southern hemispheres make perfect sense. No notes.

Eastern and Western though.... now that's a bit of a mess. East and West are physically derived directions from the magnetic field, absolutely, but... only as vectors. There's no "East Pole" or "West Pole," so the line we use to divide the Earth is entirely meaningless.

I propose we move the Prime (and Anti) Meridian to somewhere that makes more sense, with a proper standard derived from intrinsic physical properties. This thread is to debate on what this standard should be.

For my part, I propose that as the current most important person on the planet following the recent ascension, the Prime Meridian should be defined as the line between the North and South poles of Earth that passes through the center of AniX's body. If you're west of AniX, you're on the Western Hemisphere. If you're east of AniX, you're on the Eastern Hemisphere. If you're AniX, you get to be in both at all times.

[DeathRowKitty]

I think you're onto something here. If we define west to be the cross product of the vector that points north along the surface and the vector that points directly towards the Earth's center (this is physics so the Earth is a perfect sphere and we can find its center easily), east and west are worse than just vectors, they're pseudovectors! I don't know about you but I know I could use fewer pseudovectors in my life. Your approach doesn't fix that so I would like to propose a different solution.

I like your idea to define things in terms of AniX, but what if instead of defining a new meridian by AniX, we define a new pole. Perhaps the point on the equator on the same meridian as AniX can be the new AniX pole and the antiopdal point can be the AntiX pole. (really we should be abandoning north and south poles entirely in order to define a pole exactly at AniX's location but society isn't ready for that). Then define two additional poles to create prettier rotational symmetry and call those AniY and AntiY poles. Solves all sorts of issues of east/west issues and if you're an adventurer in need of directions your compass will still point towards the AniZ pole as it always has.

[Radical Rat]

Okay, fuck what I said, AniX, AniY, and AniZ poles is a brilliant solution.