Sorry to offer a semi-serious comment about what is clearly humor, but this is something I've wondered about. We do know that at times, the earth's magnetic field flips. When that happens, the N on magnets will point toward the south pole, and the S needle to the north pole! Not a big deal, though I suppose it will require some explaining by schoolteachers.

The question, then. Should we relabel the needles, or change the maps, or do neither?

In any case, even if N and S get switched, we don't need to relabel E and W, but rather change our way of thinking so that you have:

S
E W
N

In fact, we shouldn't change them, because in many languages (including English, etymologically), the word for "east" is related to "dawn" or "sunrise," and the word for "west" is related to "sinking".

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As above, so below

I do know a location where you can watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean, albeit you will not be facing magnetic west. A trip down to Panama will do it. No cheating involved but you can honestly say you saw the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean from North America.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

There are places in Alaska where it is also possible.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Its well done and dusted that this question has no possible chance of actually happening without a massive impact and the subsequent death of all life forms.
So here I sit with a golf ball in hand and looking at this and conceptualizing this question I came to this... If a force were applied to roll Earth over so as the south pole were where the north pole is then the sun would rise from a western hemisphere.. No reversal of rotation would be necessary. BUT ! No such force is available and if it were the gravity forces during this roll would sweep the oceans around in a very undignified manor. Chaos would ensue.. I am not convinced any force could be applied that could actually do this as the gyroscopic action nullifies any such attempt. Its a big fat. Not a chance. Forget it. Personally as 'Jpax2003' said, Just relabel them. There's a cleaver mind...

Neither! The "north magnetic pole" will finally be the same as the "magnetic north pole", and the point of the compass that points to the north pole of a magnet will be the one that that points to the north pole of the planet.

username24 last posted here in 2005.

I'm just sayin'.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

Perhaps a blackhole swinging through at just the right distance and angle could exert the gravitational force to pull the Earth into spinning in the opposite direction?

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"Most editorials are written by people that love to argue but got kicked off debate team for not making any sense." -Seanbaby

Maybe so, but the problem is that you would not be able to see the sun rise in the West. In fact, you would no longer be able to see anything, since you, and everybody else, would be dead.

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As above, so below

Not me, I've built myself a blackhole-proof exosuit for just such a situation.

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"Most editorials are written by people that love to argue but got kicked off debate team for not making any sense." -Seanbaby

The black hole's not the problem. The object would need to exert a lot of torque on Earth through tidal forces, and do it all as it makes a single pass. I suspect the crust and mantle would be a bit...scrambled.

Yes there are periodic planetary wobbles... the earth is currently tilted at about 13 degrees but this was not always the case. I think the liquid crust would be the last of the issues life on earth would face...lol... remember the last impact (according to the original theory) of this magnitude left the earth with the moon.... it was bigger than mars and it is now PART of earth... so as you could imagine it might allow east to be west... but nothing would be left alive on earth to enjoy the next day. However nobody said anything in the question about anyone having to survive to see it!

The next wobble is due in about 5 million years... assuming that the evidence for the last one and those before are correct...(68 million yrs ago) but of course its all supposition...

If you are a human living in, say, Egypt 20,000 years ago, you might mistake and later mythify a very large meteor rising up over your western horizon in the early morning, then perhaps skipping off the atmosphere.... It's not exactly like sunrise, but how are you going to tell the story if you have no idea what the heck it was?

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Herodotus tells of a time when the Egyptians told him the sun set in the east. If that be true, then it was rising on the other side of Earth in the west! Think about it. How much different is the time of sunset in winter to summer. If the earth is in winter season where you are, the sun had just set and a tilt in the axis of Earth occurred so that you were now in the summer inclination towards the sun, the sun would rise in the west. A close encounter with a large comet would do that through gravitational factors. There is archaeological and historical record of this in writings in the Orient about the 8th century BC. Water clocks have been found in Egypt that would only work if you moved them 20 degrees to the south indicating an axis shift from south to north or "winter to summer". Twenty degrees axis tilt would be enough to see the sun rise in the west at a part of the globe where the sun has just set. They appear to have been made around the 8th century. That would indicate that similar things have happened in the past and the earth and its people survived it. Of course in such a case, the sun would go on to set in the west a few hours later. The Talmud speaks of the day when Ahaz was buried and the sun set two hours after it had risen! I think that was retrograde motion to the east as result of axis tilt of the earth at which time people to the west of Jerusalem would see the sun rise in the west! mickelodian spoke of a complete pole shift. I doubt any humanity would survive that but he is on the right track.

No, it wouldn't. Read the whole thread. No comet is big enough to do this; and if the Earth had a close encounter with an object of a diferent kind which was big enough to reverse its spin, that encounter would turn the surface of the Earth into a chaos of kilometer-deep lava.

Unfortunately that would kill the entire population, so no one would live to see the sun rise in the East.

Herodotus, by the way, was not an astronomer.

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You know that the great pyramids are aligned with the physical north pole, right? So if what you're saying is true, then the Egyptians actually built the pyramids (long, long before the 8th century BC) 20 degrees off, and by coincidence the pyramids happen to be aligned with the pole today. Doesn't that sound odd to you?

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As above, so below

Wow! This thread is nearly half a decade old. I was like 15 at that time and , of course, I didn't know Bad Astronomy even existed.

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"Science is physics and astronomy." -Me
"There is absolutely no law in physics that prevents time travel." -Dr. Michio Kaku

Well the best answer would be to go to Venus. There the sun does rise in the west--no gimmicks, no cataclysm.