[math-fun] left vs. right
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa). Jim Propp
Yes, I have a weak sense of left/right and also the difficulty with 180 degree rotations on maps. Sunrise or sunset helps a lot, but foggy days are impossible. When I left California and went to college in the East, it seemed to me that the sun set on the wrong side. A friend of mine in a similar situation said that we had such a strong mental image of the Sierra Nevada in the east that we could not adjust to having the sun set behind it, even though we were thousands of miles away. I never came up with a better explanation. I'm a calendar boustrphedonist. When visualizing a weekend, I go from Saturday down to Sunday, then reverse direction for the following week. -> Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Tue Mon Sun <- This causes me endless confusion, but the adjacency of days is so firmly fixed in my mind that I cannot force a discontuity between Saturday and Sunday. Eiralih
From: James Propp <jpropp@cs.uml.edu> Subject: [math-fun] left vs. right Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:11:48 -0400
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
I've never had much trouble with left & right, nor, since I've hiked thousands of kilometres in all directions on very varied terrain, with maps. On the other hand, Louise has so much trouble with left & right that you can almost rely on taking the opposite of what she says. But when sailing, where such distinctions are needed to avoid disaster, she never made any mistake over port & starboard. R. On Mon, 30 Aug 2010, Hilarie Orman wrote:
Yes, I have a weak sense of left/right and also the difficulty with 180 degree rotations on maps. Sunrise or sunset helps a lot, but foggy days are impossible.
When I left California and went to college in the East, it seemed to me that the sun set on the wrong side. A friend of mine in a similar situation said that we had such a strong mental image of the Sierra Nevada in the east that we could not adjust to having the sun set behind it, even though we were thousands of miles away. I never came up with a better explanation.
I'm a calendar boustrphedonist. When visualizing a weekend, I go from Saturday down to Sunday, then reverse direction for the following week.
-> Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Tue Mon Sun <-
This causes me endless confusion, but the adjacency of days is so firmly fixed in my mind that I cannot force a discontuity between Saturday and Sunday.
Eiralih
From: James Propp <jpropp@cs.uml.edu> Subject: [math-fun] left vs. right Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:11:48 -0400
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Perhaps that is because "port" and "starboard" are words for the sides of *the boat*, not of *oneself*. On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Richard Guy <rkg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
I've never had much trouble with left & right, nor, since I've hiked thousands of kilometres in all directions on very varied terrain, with maps. On the other hand, Louise has so much trouble with left & right that you can almost rely on taking the opposite of what she says. But when sailing, where such distinctions are needed to avoid disaster, she never made any mistake over port & starboard. R.
On Mon, 30 Aug 2010, Hilarie Orman wrote:
Yes, I have a weak sense of left/right and also the difficulty with
180 degree rotations on maps. Sunrise or sunset helps a lot, but foggy days are impossible.
When I left California and went to college in the East, it seemed to me that the sun set on the wrong side. A friend of mine in a similar situation said that we had such a strong mental image of the Sierra Nevada in the east that we could not adjust to having the sun set behind it, even though we were thousands of miles away. I never came up with a better explanation.
I'm a calendar boustrphedonist. When visualizing a weekend, I go from Saturday down to Sunday, then reverse direction for the following week.
-> Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Tue Mon Sun <-
This causes me endless confusion, but the adjacency of days is so firmly fixed in my mind that I cannot force a discontuity between Saturday and Sunday.
Eiralih
From: James Propp <jpropp@cs.uml.edu>
Subject: [math-fun] left vs. right Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:11:48 -0400
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time
I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters
have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time
I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters
have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Hilarie Orman <hilarie@purplestreak.com> wrote:
I'm a calendar boustrphedonist. When visualizing a weekend, I go from Saturday down to Sunday, then reverse direction for the following week.
-> Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Tue Mon Sun <-
This causes me endless confusion, but the adjacency of days is so firmly fixed in my mind that I cannot force a discontinuity between Saturday and Sunday.
Can't you just make it into a helix? -- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com
I lived on the East Coast for 36 years. When I moved to L.A. I realized that my sense of direction depended on which way the ocean was. It was actually quite difficult to adjust to the ocean being on the west. Then I visited Orlando, where the ocean is in both directions. Hopeless. Steve Gray On 8/30/2010 11:12 AM, Hilarie Orman wrote:
Yes, I have a weak sense of left/right and also the difficulty with 180 degree rotations on maps. Sunrise or sunset helps a lot, but foggy days are impossible.
When I left California and went to college in the East, it seemed to me that the sun set on the wrong side. A friend of mine in a similar situation said that we had such a strong mental image of the Sierra Nevada in the east that we could not adjust to having the sun set behind it, even though we were thousands of miles away. I never came up with a better explanation.
I'm a calendar boustrphedonist. When visualizing a weekend, I go from Saturday down to Sunday, then reverse direction for the following week.
-> Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Tue Mon Sun<-
This causes me endless confusion, but the adjacency of days is so firmly fixed in my mind that I cannot force a discontuity between Saturday and Sunday.
Eiralih
From: James Propp<jpropp@cs.uml.edu> Subject: [math-fun] left vs. right Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:11:48 -0400
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
When I first visited England for an extended period, I kept stepping off the curb after looking the wrong way for traffic. After a while though, I adapted. I'm pretty sure I adapted by swapping left and right in the firmware somewhere. I've been confused ever since.
When I first visited England for an extended period, I kept stepping off the curb after looking the wrong way for traffic. After a while though, I adapted. I'm pretty sure I adapted by swapping left and right in the firmware somewhere. I've been confused ever since.
On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Stephen B. Gray <stevebg@roadrunner.com> wrote:
I lived on the East Coast for 36 years. When I moved to L.A. I realized that my sense of direction depended on which way the ocean was. It was actually quite difficult to adjust to the ocean being on the west. Then I visited Orlando, where the ocean is in both directions. Hopeless.
When I first moved to Cambridge, the primary landmarks I referred everything to were Mass Ave and the Charles River, two parallel lines. At least in the Harvard Square area, my usual haunts. The first my travels took me to MIT, I was completely disoriented; my two parallel lines met there, at right angles! Some people may claim that the Charles curves. I prefer to think of Cambridge as a surface of positive curvature, balanced by the negative curvature of Boston on the other side of the river. You don't believe Boston has negative curvature? Try driving around the common, with its 5 right-angled-corners! Andy
Quoting Andy Latto <andy.latto@pobox.com>:
When I first moved to Cambridge, the primary landmarks I referred everything to were Mass Ave and the Charles River, two parallel lines. At least in the Harvard Square area, my usual haunts. The first my travels took me to MIT, I was completely disoriented; my two parallel lines met there, at right angles! ..... You don't believe Boston has negative curvature? Try driving around the common, with its 5 right-angled-corners!
And then, there was that "Subway Named Möbius." -hvm ------------------------------------------------- www.correo.unam.mx UNAMonos Comunicándonos
Here in Santa Barbara, the entire street grid is rotated almost exactly 45 degrees: when we say "East", we really mean "North-East", etc. Santa Barbara is really confused: it has one of the few East-West mountain ranges, but then chose as the place for the wharf one of the few beaches at a 45 degree angle to the mountains, and then positioned its street grid parallel/perpendicular to that beach. There is one prominent church in town that is positioned correctly with its main axis East-West, thereby putting it at a 45 degree angle with the street grid. Santa Barbara isn't named after a saint (who hasn't even been a saint since 1969), but merely a date from the Catholic calendar: December 4th. For some strange reason I can't fathom, Santa Barbara is the patron saint of mathematicians. At 12:00 PM 8/30/2010, Stephen B. Gray wrote:
I lived on the East Coast for 36 years. When I moved to L.A. I realized that my sense of direction depended on which way the ocean was. It was actually quite difficult to adjust to the ocean being on the west. Then I visited Orlando, where the ocean is in both directions. Hopeless.
Steve Gray
On 8/30/2010 11:12 AM, Hilarie Orman wrote:
Yes, I have a weak sense of left/right and also the difficulty with 180 degree rotations on maps. Sunrise or sunset helps a lot, but foggy days are impossible.
When I left California and went to college in the East, it seemed to me that the sun set on the wrong side. A friend of mine in a similar situation said that we had such a strong mental image of the Sierra Nevada in the east that we could not adjust to having the sun set behind it, even though we were thousands of miles away. I never came up with a better explanation.
I'm a calendar boustrphedonist. When visualizing a weekend, I go from Saturday down to Sunday, then reverse direction for the following week.
-> Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Tue Mon Sun<-
This causes me endless confusion, but the adjacency of days is so firmly fixed in my mind that I cannot force a discontuity between Saturday and Sunday.
Eiralih
From: James Propp<jpropp@cs.uml.edu> Subject: [math-fun] left vs. right Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:11:48 -0400
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp _______________________________________________
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
The cardinal directions in the Hawaiian language are mauka (toward the mountain) and makai (toward the ocean). - Scott
From: math-fun-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:math-fun- bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Stephen B. Gray Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 12:00 PM To: Hilarie Orman; math-fun Subject: Re: [math-fun] left vs. right
I lived on the East Coast for 36 years. When I moved to L.A. I realized that my sense of direction depended on which way the ocean was. It was actually quite difficult to adjust to the ocean being on the west. Then I visited Orlando, where the ocean is in both directions. Hopeless.
Steve Gray http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
I've often paused before supposedly helpful illustrations meant to indicate the sense in which a magnetic stripe card is to be inserted into an electronic card reader, pondering whether the illustration is truly ambiguous or whether I simply lack imagination For example, this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/thane/2243067955/ Tippy-tapped on my iPad On Aug 30, 2010, at 10:11 AM, James Propp <jpropp@cs.uml.edu> wrote:
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Thane Plambeck <tplambeck@gmail.com> wrote:
I've often paused before supposedly helpful illustrations meant to indicate the sense in which a magnetic stripe card is to be inserted into an electronic card reader, pondering whether the illustration is truly ambiguous or whether I simply lack imagination
Are you left-handed? I always used to have trouble with interpreting those illustrations, until I realized that they always illustrated a *right* hand inserting the card into the reader. I used to do the mirror image of what was illustrated, which wouldn't work. Once I realized I had to mirror the *hand*, but not mirror the *card*, I started getting it right, though I still have to think about it for a second. Andy
Interesting. I always assumed that people who had trouble with maps, cardinal directions, etc. were not math people. Perhaps it is because I was around maps since a child that I have always puzzled that some people have trouble with them. When heavy fog or overcast I get lost much easier than on clear sunny days, but I do not consciously think about the sun or shadows. Whereas visualizing geometric solids seems easy for me, this I assume is learned. Nonetheless, I am almost always confused by illustrations of how to insert cards in ATM machines, and have even resorted to first trying the opposite of what I think it says, my wife never has this problem. Also, she finds ambiguous directions that others give about how to get somewhere unambiguous, while I am weighing the odds of what interpretation to give. I guess people are just different. On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 12:11 PM, James Propp <jpropp@cs.uml.edu> wrote:
hvm writes:
I still have difficulty with left and right; for the longest time I had to stop and think about which hand I wrote with. Or ... .
While we're discussing such things, I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps: If I'm heading north, navigating is easy; if I'm heading east or west, I do the appropriate 90 degree rotation; but if I'm heading south, I can't do a 180 degree rotation, so I *pretend* I'm going north (travelling the reverse of the route I actually want to take), figure out what I need to do, and then reverse the instructions (so that left turns becomes right turns and vice versa).
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
="James Propp" <jpropp@cs.uml.edu> I wonder if other math-funsters have my peculiar sort of trouble with using maps
I don't know if it's the same, but I too have trouble with rotations. The moon jumps around the sky if I don't keep an eye on it when I make turns. To generate driving directions, I visualize a little car on the map, and then pretend I'm in it. Nowadays with GPS I just "fly on instruments". However even in my imagination I've never dared sailing in the fog on the surface of an ATM card with negative curvature...
participants (14)
-
Allan Wechsler -
Andy Latto -
Dave Dyer -
Henry Baker -
Hilarie Orman -
Huddleston, Scott -
James Buddenhagen -
James Propp -
Marc LeBrun -
mcintosh＠servidor.unam.mx -
Mike Stay -
Richard Guy -
Stephen B. Gray -
Thane Plambeck