this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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The world has a lot of different standards for a lot of things, but I have never heard of a place with the default screw thread direction being opposite.

So does each language have a fun mnemonic?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (21 children)

Clockwise and counter-clockwise makes sense.

But when you say β€œright” it’s not clear which side of the circle is being referenced. If the top of the circle is moving to the right, the bottom is moving left at the same time. So the saying only makes sense when you specify that you’re talking about the top of the circle.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

you have to have never seen a steering wheel to not understand which side of the circle is being referenced. it's always the top. who would even reference anything else and why.

"turn it right"

"which part???"

"the middle of course, you absolute alien"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Because people get confused when there is no space for the wrench at the top, and they put the handle at the bottom and try to move the wrench left or right, not referencing the top of bolt.

Because they aren't using the saying as a clokwise/counter clockwise reminder but as a flat out instruction.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think we can all understand how it functions but that doesn't make it "correct." It's spinning around a circle. Exactly half of its moving right as the other half moves left. That's why we have the terms clockwise and counter-clockwise. If left and right were actually reasonable for something spinning in a circle this wouldn't exist.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

yes it would. we always have redundancy, especially in speech. also we're not robots, technicality doesn't matter, how we communicate does. do you get confused when people say something like "that's all behind us now" meaning the past? do you literally turn around and argue that there's nothing really behind you and they should have said in the past instead?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago

I don't get confused by any of this. Stop pretending like everyone else is stupid. If you're looking at the hands of a clock, they aren't moving right when they're moving clockwise half of the time. The applies to everything moving around a circle. Left and right are only useful if you're looking at a specific segment of it. Clockwise is what we use for rotations everywhere else. For example, look at this wiki page that says this: "Rotation or rotational motion is the circular movement of an object around a central line, known as an axis of rotation. A plane figure can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise sense around a perpendicular axis intersecting anywhere inside or outside the figure at a center of rotation." Right is literally never even used in that page, and left is only used once. The terms don't make sense for rotations. We can make up rules for how they can be considered for rotations, but they fundamentally are not words used to describe rotations. Do you get confused when people say there are more useful words to describe a function?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, it's always the top side of the circle in this context, or you can think about how clock hands do go in a specific direction, because they're a radius, not a circumference. There, now it's cleared up for you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The clock hands move right when at the top but left when at the bottom.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

In Australia, it's the other way around and the clock will try to eat you or at least sting you to death.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Imagine it as if it were a track you were driving around, which way would you turn the wheel?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's getting so convoluted at this point just knowing clockwise/anticlockwise is infinitely easier.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yes! That concept makes way more sense.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So you're explaining rotation, in terms of a smaller imaginary rotation, which engages with imaginary traction wheels, which engage with the work to be turned?

If that works for you, great, but it is complicated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No im trying to illustrate the parallels between how you turn the wheel, how the car turns in response to that , and how they are all related. You turn left you will make the exact same rotational movement, with both the vehicle, and the steering wheel.

It's as simple as, "What direction do you turn the wheel to make the car go left?" I just stacked on top "and also it makes the car itself do that same exact circular movement" so you don't just dismiss this as some kind of arbitrary convention.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Oh, I see.

Car steering wheels work that way because of the convention. Change the side that the steering column's pinion meets the rack and the wheel would work the opposite way. From the mathematical perspective, there's two ways to continuously map an arc of the steering wheel to an arc of the wheels, and since they aren't in the same plane neither is "wrong".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

i know you can make the wheel work the opposite way, jesus christ. the circle motion the path of the car makes when you turn left is the same as when you turn the wheel to the conventional left. imagine, instead you steered "left" by a joystick. the car would still draw the same circular path the same fucking way, because turning left makes an anticlockwise circle, every time, in every situation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ah, so the car isn't even important. You're one of the people imagining standing on the screw. As long as you have a convention about which way is "up" on it, that does work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You have to have a convention about Up to usefully describe a rotational direction at all. I don't see how that's relevant. Left implies an Up.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, it's true, you do. Left doesn't really imply an up so much as it comes as a package with one, though. I'm not OP, but historically I had the same issue. I just didn't automatically jump to "in is down, and I'm on the rim", and instead was thinking about my actual physical left and right at that moment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

You don't really need to visualize yourself on the rim, either. Just turn left in any context and you will trace the path of an anticlockwise circle. It's really more about establishing why there's a link between left and anticlockwise. Picture and remember whatever works best for you, I'm just annoyed by the people stubbornly insisting the link between them doesn't make perfect sense.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

One of them is "wrong" and would kill many people

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