The names of magicians from the past linger in my mind and thoughts.

They influence me to this day.

Names such as Grant, Lambie, Gardner and Hummer.


Bob Hummer had a particular genius all his own.


He thought quite deeply,


One thing he wondered was how a person might explain the directionality of telling right from left.


There is a simple way of doing it, one when used in conjunction with the rising and setting of the sun, will provide you with your own body compass.

N-S-E-W a bit more complicated to deduce than Right from Left, but not impossible

Is this of interest to any one, or should I not have bothered posting it?

Kotah

Hummer loved word- play as well,

He might have viewed the word Mentalist a being seen as MIND-TELL- IST,

At least that is my spin on it.



Kotah

Very little interest in this conundrum; how to explain left from right to someone who does not know. You must explain only. You cannot physically point to a given hand or direction.

Louis thanks for the 'like',

Louis,PM me for the solution if you'd care to

KOtah

That is hard and would be a wonderful problem for a speech class! I would be interested in how you would propose to explain it in words only.

Opus, thank you for your interest,

A PM has been sent

Kotah

Opus, thank you for your interest,

A PM has been sent

Kotah

I am interested. I was trying to think if a unilateral bodily landmark might be on assistance, but the heart is fairly central despite rumours to the contrary.

Bryn,


A PM has been posted to you as well my friend


Kotah

I have been pondering this overnight (my 2-year-old daughter ensured none of us got any sleep last night) and am still no closer to any sort of answer. But knowing Bob Hummer's thinking (from the three-cup test mainly) his solution is likely to be brilliant.

Would love to know more.

Mat, I agree, Hummers' three cup test is indeed brilliant.

He did not give a solution to the left and right problem, but the fact that he pondered it stuck with me all these years.

Last week a possible solution came to me out of the blue.


Your sleepless night prompts me to send it to you in an email


Enjoy


KOtah

Two persuasive arguments lead to the same conclusion: directionality is an illusion. From a physicist's point of view and from the perspective of the Jewish philosopher there is no preferred direction, hence, no right, left, up, down, forward, or backward. The two viewpoints differ as to what populates 'that which is all around us', however in both perspectives, one must realise that humans experience only the local world around them, rarely taking into account the (nearly) infinite size of the universe. When one overlooks the local world, one sees that the universe is rather homogeneous on the large scale – if one probes a homogeneous space, all directions appear identical.

Some realities are harder to swallow than others. I'd wager that Bob Hummer's answer is more satisfying.

- Yitzhak

Yitzhak,

A most impressive and stimulating addition to this thread.


Hummer did not arrive at or offer a solution.


This solution is my own possibly flawed attempt to answer the question he posed.



My mind and education is not that of a physicist, but I can appreciate enormity and limitless boundaries of space and of how directionality becomes an almost moot point .


Thank you for raising the bar.

Kotah

To explain right from left, tell the person to hold their hands palm down in front of them with first finger and thumb of each hand extended straight.
The hand on which those two digits form the letter 'L' is left.

When facing the sunrise, you are looking East, North is to your left, South to your right and West is to your back.


When the North Star is visible you can confirm each direction.


Kotah

You guys think too hard...Hand the person a Pen and paper and ask them to make their mark. The hand they write with is one or the other and thus easily described as the one holding the pen. "You are writing with your left hand. Thus you are weird and must die."

Easy.