WASSUP!!

Wassup?! How many times have we asked this question to our chums? Many times, I suppose. Now what does the question actually mean? It is made up of three parts, right? "What is up?" Now, normally this question means to ask the receiver how things are going on in his life, how his life is treating him. But have you ever wondered what the question actually means?
Let us consider the question technically, in it's complete literal from. It asks us "What is UP?" Meaning, we are being asked the definition of UP. The meaning of these two letters. Let us try to define this word then.

More often that not, UP is something that is above our head. We we tilt out heads backwards, we are usually looking at what is universally accepted as UP. but if that is the case, then consider the case of our friendly, neighbourhood, Spiderman...
As we can see in the picture, what is above Spiderman's head, is what we will perceive as down. But to Spiderman, that is UP. That arrow points to above his head, so he will consider that as UP. ask him "wassup?" and his technically correct answer would be, "the ground".
Lets us move ahead.






Now let us consider our earth.
As we can observe, to a person on the northern hemisphere, areas towards the north pole are considered as UP. When asked what is UP?, he will answer towards the said direction.

Ask a person in the southern hemisphere the same question and he will describe locations towards the south pole as UP.

The figure alongside helps us understand their answers very well. Still wondering which is right, which is wrong? Well, they both are right in their answers as they are based on their perspective. To an alien outside earth, the southern person is wrong, because to him, that is DOWN. Very confusing. Let us move forward.





Let us consider our solar system.
If we were to take a trip outside of our solar system, this is the sort of visual we would see. From this vantage, we can observe what feels UP and what feels DOWN. But when we are inside the solar system, our perceptions were a little different. We couldn't discern what is UP and DOWN with our sense of perspective. Now, outside that gigantic space
, we realise that something
is UP and DOWN. Still not convinced
. I see, let's move ahead.



Now consider our galaxy.
Right now, the ideas of UP and DOWN as they were right outside the solar system, have gone flying out of the window!! This is what would be perceived as UP and DOWN from out here. We can't even try and think as to what was UP on the earth or outside the solar system, those ideas are so small...


We would now like to go higher up and think about the question. Let us consider our Universe.


The Universe as we know it.

Where would our galaxy be over here? Absolutely no idea. Plus, we have never been outside the universe to even fathom what is considered as UP or DOWN, the scale being so grand!! Try it yourself, tell me what is UP over here... I'm waiting for a reply...

So, the next time you ask a friend, "wassup?', think again. You may never get the right answer because nobody knows...