TEASER - 17
WHOSE SIDE IS IT ANY WAY
Every object such as, cars, houses, dogs, humans, planes, books, watches or TVs, have their own right, left, front and back sides.
When we refer left or right side of a book or a watch or a TV or a road, we refer left or right side in same way as it would be in case of a car or a plane or a dog or a human?
Similarly when we say clockwise or anticlockwise we refer to it from watch’s own side?
(a) Falls
(b) True
THE EXPLANATION:
When humans are driving cars, both car and driver face in same direction, hence left hand side of driver is also left hand side of the car.
CARS AND HUMANS FACE SAME DIRECTION WHEN DRIVING HENCE BOTH HAVE SAME SENSE OF RIGHT AND LEFT
When a woman looks into a mirror everything gets reversed. Her left hand becomes right hand of her image in mirror because both of them are facing each other and the image behaves as if she is an another person looking at her.
RIGHT IS LEFT (AND VICE VERSA) WHEN LOOKING INTO MIRROR
However, when a man is reading a book, even though both book and man are facing each other in same way as he would be facing his image in the mirror, the left and right side of book does not get reversed.
The left side of the man (reader) is also the left side of book and his right side is the right side of the book. Book itself does not have its own left or right side. Had it been so our right would have been left side of the book.
RIGHT IS RIGHT (NOT LEFT) WHEN REFERRING TO BOOKS
Similarly when we are facing a watch and referring to a direction called ‘clockwise’ or anticlockwise’ movement, we are explicitly referring to the direction from viewer / user point of view.
The circularity of clockwise movement would be from top to right, (in same way as car’s steering is moved when turning to right). The opposite sense of rotation would be ‘counterclockwise’ or ‘anticlockwise’.
CLOCKWISE MOVEMENT (GENERALLY LEFT TO RIGHT)
Assume that a watch has grown its own hands and legs and is behaving like a human being. What would be the ‘clockwise’ movement ?
WHAT IF CLOCKS HAD HANDS & LEGS AS WE HAVE (CLOCKWISE MOVEMENT WOULD BE REVERESED)
Clockwise movement would be, from TOP to LEFT (in same way as car’s steering is moved when turning to left) and not TOP to RIGHT as is normally considered. (Anticlockwise movement would be opposite to that):
In strictest sense, the “clockwise” movement is a misnomer because we never consider watch having left / right side like us, but we refer it from our own point of view. Hence it can be called ‘viewer-wise clock-movement”. The left or right side of an object is dependant on whether they face in same direction or opposite direction as that of humans (user) while in use.
User centric world view:
1. As the reader and the book or the TV or the photograph or the watch always face each other when in use, there was perhaps no need to assign left or side to them but was always referred from user’s point of view. On the other hand, cars, buildings, trains, animals etc face in same direction as humans while in use, they have left and right side similar to humans.
2. All man made materials or even natural ones are referenced from user (humans) point of view because we are the ones who use them and we are the ones who require communication in such languages which fundamentally is based on naming of each and every possible aspect perceived by humans.
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