FE Meme
South on Every Side Again
#197: A compass rose with N in the center and S on every side shows globe directions are nonsense.
The Meme
Minimal black graphic: eight-point compass with central N and S labels on all four cardinal outer positions.
Why It Spreads
The compass rose puts S on every outer cardinal point while N sits in the center, which looks like a logical contradiction at thumbnail size. Viewers read the icon as proof that globe directions are nonsense without checking how bearings actually work on a sphere.
What It Gets Wrong
The eight-point compass sticker with central N and S stamped on every cardinal rim treats decorative azimuthal art like a single global bearing chart. On a sphere of radius R ≈ 6371 km, south at the equator is azimuth 180° along a meridian toward one South Pole, not four simultaneous souths radiating from a flat hub. Pilots file great-circle tracks on WGS84 where azimuth changes with latitude, and southern circumpolar stars wheel around a point below the horizon the sticker layout cannot place. TestTheGlobe's Compasses Prove Flat Earth and TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Explorer walk through the observations and predictions this image skips.
The Debunk
A designer compass sticker with N in the center and S on all four outer points is inconsistent with WGS84 bearings, where south is one meridian direction toward the South Pole at each location. On a sphere of radius ~6371 km, azimuth changes with latitude: at the equator south is 180° from north, while at the South Pole every horizontal bearing is north.
- The eight-point graphic is clip art, not a surveyed chart; real compasses read magnetic declination against local meridians, which TestTheGlobe's Compasses Prove Flat Earth explains do not radiate from a flat north hub.
- Pilots file great-circle tracks on WGS84; a Sydney to Santiago route bends south of the equator without orbiting a sticker's central N, as TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Explorer plots on the ellipsoid.
- TestTheGlobe's Down Is The Same Everywhere shows local down converging on Earth's center, so south is a surface direction, not a label you stamp on every rim of a disk icon.
- Azimuthal map projections can place pole-relative labels on a circular border for display; TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Does Not Matter separates that cartographic art from measured bearings in the field.