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Message: <blockquote data-quote="orsal" data-source="post: 1778615" data-attributes="member: 16016">Right. But if you go east, you'll still be going east, and you'll come back to where you started while your direction will have remained east the whole time.On a torus, the north-south axis would behave this way too, as well as the east-west axis.I could go on for pages and get totally off-topic listing all the topological differences between a sphere and a torus, but here's the simplest one I can think of, just to convince you that they aren't the same. Cut through each one. Cut all the way around, and see what you get. If you started with a sphere, you'll now have two pieces. If you imagine any band (say, the equator) on the earth being impassable, there is no way to get from one hemisphere to the other. Do the same on a torus, and there's always another way around. One cut will leave the surface in one piece.</blockquote>