Editor’s Note: Ask The Fiddler is a lifestyle advice column that aims to remedy more chaos and confusion than it creates. Questions may be submitted to us here at Art of the Prank, and good luck.
Dear Fiddler:
Aren”™t people in Australia afraid of falling off the Earth, seeing as they”™re upside down?
Arnold in Ypsilanti
Dear Arnold,
Yes. Worrying about that is why they drink so much beer. Australians are very grateful for gravity. According to a site designed for the education of young minds, gravity is the glue that holds everyone in place on Earth.
Gravity aside, is it a true fact that Australians are upside down? You probably don”™t think often about the meaninglessness of up and down in space terms. In space, which, surprise, is where Earth hangs out, those concepts have no meaning, nothing is up or down.
So, where are things in space? Who knows, maybe “over there“?
Well, all you have to do is look at a globe, it”™s plain as the nose on your face. People in Australia are upside down in relation to people in, say, New York City. If the Earth is a sphere, obviously Australians falling off would fall down, right?
But that has to be a mistake because to an Australian, up isn”™t down, the stars aren”™t down, they”™re up. So news reports of Australians falling off the Earth — based on observation of reliable witnesses — would have to say they fell up. To an Australian, as to intelligent people everywhere, there”™s nowhere to go but up.