Why do we say "the sun rises" or "the sun sets" while it's been the earth that orbits the sun?

Question

"the sun rise / set" shows a kind of focus we gave that it's the sun that moves around the earth.

what are the reasons you think it would be?

Answer 1

This all boils down to the question of 'what is up?'.  After all, you don't rise downward, do you?  Only up.

So in that sense, it doesn't really matter at all what spins around what.  Just which direction up happens to be.

For us, down is usually with gravity and up is against it.  Thus, the sun really IS up at noon and it really IS down at midnight... at least to you.

The problem isn't that the sun is moving or not... it's that UP is moving.  So it goes.

Answer 2

Probably because in early times, people thought that the sun orbited the earth. The saying just never changed I guess. Good question though...

Answer 3

just depends on your reference point. referring from an observer on earth, it appears the sun set and rises.

the earth revolves around the sun is an easy way to look at the orbits. however, the sun move around earth in a awkward fashion is still valid answer. just because the sun doesn't go in a nice circle around earth doesn't mean it's inaccurate.

Answer 4

The fact that the earth orbits the sun really does not have anything to do with the question.

In ancient times, people believed the earth to be flat.

They could see that the sun came up from the horizon in the morning, and went down in the evening. Hence, the sun 'rises' and 'sets'.