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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by vatlark@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

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

[-] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 9 points 11 months ago

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

[-] 418_im_a_teapot@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Yes! That concept makes way more sense.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

If a steering wheel has you this perplexed then I beg you to never ever drive a vehicle.

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

If you're gripping the bottom of the wheel you move your hands left to make the car turn right. Which is kind of the whole problem here. Rotation around a centre doesn't happen right or left. That's the whole reason why the words "clockwise" and "anticlockwise" exist. Translation = right, left, up, down, forward, back. Rotation = clockwise, anticlockwise.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

If I ask you to turn the car left and you give me this speech I would eject from the car.

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Yes, and I would be devastated to see you go.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

At least until the next bend in the road where the sign indicating a left turn ahead is more than you can handle.

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Yes. I should imagine I would be quite happy that you were gone by then.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago
[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, same old. You?

[-] angrystego@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

It doesn't matter where you hold the wheel. When you're turning right, you're always doing the right movement for tightening a screw, no matter the hand position. That's the point.

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

A clockwise rotation turns a car to the right (in forward gear) and tightens a nut (right hand threaded). But this is not a rotation to the right. It's a clockwise rotation. You can't rotate "to the right". That's the point.

[-] angrystego@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I agree. But you can say turn to the right and people connect the clockwise movement of the wheel with the direction of the car, which makes it possible for people to understand each other's instructions intuitively even if they use right-left terminilogy instead of the precise clockwise-counterclockwise one.

[-] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

Am I going clockwise or anticlockwise round the track?

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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".

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 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.

[-] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 1 points 11 months ago

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

this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
467 points (100.0% liked)

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