How many oceans are on Earth? 🌍

Sandi Toksvig looked at oceans on this episode of QI in 2017, with the likes of Joe Lycett and David Mitchell stumped on this particular question!#QI #iPlayer #Ocean #Earth #Science #ScienceTok

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41 comments

  3. Historically, there are four named oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic. However, most countries – including the United States – now recognize the Southern (Antarctic) as the fifth ocean.

    Side note, as much as they may connect, the difference lies in their content, depth and the fact they don't actually mix, you can often see where two might meet but you can also see they don't mix.

  12. I love this question. In school I remember my geography teacher making jokes of "how many" there were. You have the main 4 but what are you going to count as an ocean? (Kind of a stupid question looking back (probably why he was joking around with it)), are you going to include any seas? If so you better include bays and straights! Anyhow we took a test on 20+ oceans, seas, and straights, (and even two canals [Panama & Suez])

  15. That's the equivalent of asking where is the ocean at its deepest. One person has the perfect response, with the most scientific answer to where you can find the exact spot via gps coordinates.

    Then you got some dip rod just saying, "the bottom" and they are correct and the other one is wrong.

  18. The only reason the Southern Ocean hasn’t been approved, is due to the inclusion of the contention name of the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The Japanese call it the Sea of Japan, whereas Korea and China call it the East Sea. If the proposal presented to the International Hydrographic Organisation only included the Southern Ocean, it would have been approved.

  21. I strongly disagree, that's only the answer based on that one source. This question is the same as "how many continents are there", which is how ever many we say there are because they have an arbitrary definition and changes depending on the source

  38. As an American I remember learning about the four oceans and then one year, there was suddenly a fifth and I was extremely confused as to where it came from

  39. To my understanding there are 2 oceans and both do not transgress one another, they not mix as one is salt water one is fresh. This fact was written in an ancient book around 1400 years ago. They called that person crazy, but scientists are revealing all to be true 1400 yesrs later.

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