

Why is clockwise Clockwise? (2008) - tomkwok
http://homepages.sover.net/~donnl/Clockwise/clockwise.html

======
pluma
That's a lot of words for what can be summarized in a short sentence:
clockwise is clockwise because that's how a sundial moves in the Northern
Hemisphere.

~~~
collyw
That was my guess, but stopped reading after the third paragraph, as there was
no substance in the article by that point.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
Wow. I did not expect this from HN. It's an interesting, well written account
that covers a variety of things in human history that move in such a pattern,
yet here are these two belittling it for its lack of brevity.

~~~
drostie
I think part of it is that the article sounds incredibly speculative and "just
so". It doesn't, in other words, appear to be researched, and it is about
something (the _causality_ of our directional associations) which would be
really hard to know even if you were to stare at all the known historical
facts without uncertainty about them.

So if it's all conjecture, and you wipe the conjectures away, you really do
have "I think it's either because shadows in the Northern hemisphere go from
left to right when you're facing North, or because when you track the Sun
across the sky from that hemisphere, you have to face South and then the Sun
describes an arc from left to right."

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dghf
> the Semites---a people speaking similar languages, from which both Jews and
> Muslims descend

s/Muslims/Arabs/

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tomp
> It seems to be a peculiarity of our human nature that if we are watching the
> movement of a stick's shadow, that we face north to do so.

No, it just logic. If you're standing south of the stick (facing north), the
stick's shadow will move in (roughly) a half-circle throughout the day,
starting at the left of the stick, moving right and up (while contracting) to
vertical (pointing north), and then extending further to the right until it
reaches (almost) east. It will be shorter in the summer and longer in the
winter. You could also watch this "from above" (north of the stick, facing
south), but if you're south of the stick, looking at the movement of the
shadow in the half circle is quite similar to looking at the movement of the
sun in the sky (except in the opposite direction).

Most things are reversed if you're in the southern hemisphere.

~~~
ajarmst
Exactly. When I saw the title of the post, my immediate thought was that the
answer was simple: "because sundials were invented in the Northern
Hemisphere." (Or at least they spread primarily from and in the north).

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unwind
Is it just me, or does it make no sense to call clockwise "left to right?"

After all, when the (end of the) hand of a clock goes around the circle, it
goes just as much right to left as it goes left to right, while going
clockwise all the time ...

~~~
jere
I agree. It reminds me of the beltline around Raleigh. It's a circle.... I
always envision it and explain it using clockwise or counterclockwise.
However, when you get on at the eastern most point (3:00 on a clock), you are
given options to get on the west beltline or the east beltline. You're going
west either way. It's infuriating.

~~~
cc438
I wonder why they didn't decide to name the loops "Inner" and "Outer" like
they did for 485 in Charlotte. It makes a lot more sense.

NC has all sorts of crazy road names and designs though. My favorite is 240/26
in Asheville as you'll end up driving West and East simultaneously (26 East is
240 West and 240 East is 26 West).

That and the bridge over the French Broad which is I-240, I-26, Route 74,
Route 70, Route 19, Route 23, and Patton Avenue all at the same time across 4
lanes.

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joemaller1
Sundial. Northern hemisphere. Done.

~~~
shogun21
You could have written the same article in four words.

~~~
aswerty
And even at that a quarter of the words aren't needed.

~~~
mikeash
I think "sundial" alone is probably enough for most people to understand.

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scarhill
I assume the answer to his baseball question (why do baserunner go counter-
clockwise?) is that most players bat right-handed. When the idea of running
around the bases developed it made sense for batters to run to a base in front
of them, which for a right-handed better meant a counter-clockwise trip around
the bases.

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paulgerhardt
Regarding the questions at the bottom, much of this is believed to do with one
leg being more dominant than the other.

The stronger leg may take longer strides. This manifests in surprising
emergent phenomena. Grocery stores for instance tend to be laid out so you
enter on the right by the veggies and circle around the back to the meats and
dairies and come around the left to check out.

This isn't just limited to humans. Bees will spiral CCW when climbing. Wounded
deer tend to drift left after being shot.

Simone Kosig's conclusion is even more surprising: "The basic driver behind
this phenomenon seems to be the fact that all cells in nature are composed of
amino acids which have a left spin. Chemists can manufacture amino acids with
a right spin, yet we can't use them. Apparently both types of amino acids
existed in the primordial soup at the beginning of life hundreds of million
years ago. Yet life developed only from those with a left spin. The favorite
theory is that at that time - when the earth did not yet have the protective
ozone shield - radioactive rays from the cosmos did more harm to the amino
acids with a right spin. Yet why those with a left spin would be more
protected - if at all - is still a mystery."[1]

[1] [http://www.somatics.de/artikel/for-
professionals/2-article/2...](http://www.somatics.de/artikel/for-
professionals/2-article/29-the-dominant-leg)

~~~
peeters
I'm skeptical of the grocery store claim. Do you have anything to support the
claim that one layout is more common than the other (and that would further
suggest it's for this reason)?

If I think of all the grocery stores I've been in, I can think of many
examples of clockwise layouts. Much more so than counter-clockwise, but that's
likely because of my personal brand preferences. The factors in the layout
seem to be dominated by:

1\. The position of the entrance (if the store is part of a mall, the entrance
is often predetermined, and only one layout will be feasible).

2\. The brand of the store. Thinking of Canada (and in my experience) Loblaws
brand tend to be clockwise, and Sobey's counter-clockwise.

~~~
paulgerhardt
I don't think you're going to get a concrete answer here. I've heard anecdotes
justifying both layouts but in all major instances it's by design and not an
arbitrary choice. In theory, forcing people to walk in an unnatural direction
(clockwise) will make them go slower but be more on edge.

This[1] paper suggests clockwise layouts result in higher sales in _discount_
stores. If you want to put your customers at ease it may not be a good idea to
go with a clockwise layout. This[2] article interviews a few retail
strategists that describe their intent. This[3] article contends that 'legged-
ness' does not matter at all (albeit with a very small pool).

The science is soft enough that I wouldn't put too much weight in the grocery
store example specifically. As I recall the trend in the '80's was initially
pushing for CW stores to make customers browse slowly but shifted to CCW in
the late '90's to make them feel more comfortable. I've heard other stores
about shifting the grocery store layout from aisles to the "ring." This
roughly coincides with Target stores pre-95 that were competing with Kmart for
the blue collar and post '95 that focused on curated, upmarket design for the
middle class.

From personal experience, products on end caps absolutely do sell better by
30-60% than those in aisle.

[1]
[http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/eacr/vol8/eacr_vol8_153.pd...](http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/eacr/vol8/eacr_vol8_153.pdf)
[2]
[http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223808](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223808)
[3] [http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post/do-people-
really...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post/do-people-really-walk-
in-circles-2009-08-20/?id=do-people-really-walk-in-circles-2009-08-20) &
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1207918/Find-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1207918/Find-
walking-circles-Scientists-reveal-struggle-walk-straight-line.html)

~~~
peeters
I totally believe that the choice of layout can cause those symptoms. But for
me, I get them in a CCW layout, despite being right-footed. I think it has
more to do with disorientation because I'm simply used to a CW layout. That's
why I'm curious about if/how a study would eliminate that bias. Thanks for the
paper, I'll take a look.

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PeterWhittaker
It sounds like a really reasonable explanation.

Until you mount the sundial on the wall.

On a wall-mounted sundial, the shadow moves counter-clockwise (in the Northern
hemisphere, the hemisphere referred to throughout this article).

Yes, the idea of mapping the horizontal sundial to a vertically-oriented image
in our minds seems to hold a certain sense...

...but the question of the vertically mounted sundial should not be so quickly
dismissed.

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keehun
Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, but does anyone know what
generated that page? I really enjoyed the page separators and how that was
done to pace the reading, even if it is completely useless in a webpage-
format. Thank you.

~~~
icebraining
I expect they are not generated but hand written, like so many pages from the
90s. There are more examples with a similar but different format¹, and the
whole site structure looks antique.

I also enjoyed it, as well as the cleanliness of the whole page. And I found
that URW Palladio L is a quite pleasant font.

¹
[http://homepages.sover.net/~donnl/iiiivsiv.html](http://homepages.sover.net/~donnl/iiiivsiv.html)

~~~
keehun
Thank you for that link.

Upon further snooping in the directories, I found a HQX file which
decompressed to a file without any extensions. Looking up the first four bytes
of the file, I found that it is actually a WordPerfect file.

    
    
        FF 57 50 43

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colinbartlett
We had a book called "Why do clocks run clockwise?" when I was a kid that
answered this question and many others. It really helped develop curiosity in
me.

[http://www.amazon.com/Why-Clocks-Run-Clockwise-
Imponderables...](http://www.amazon.com/Why-Clocks-Run-Clockwise-
Imponderables/dp/0060740922)

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UhUhUhUh
This can also be seen as an expression of this fascinating "chirality"
problem, whereby things, from living things to particles seem to prefer one
direction over the other. Right, dextro-, or clock-wise: most sea-shells, most
plants, DNA. most atoms but not neutrinos(!?)

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fedeblock
Bolivia turns back the clock in bid to rediscover identity and 'southernness'

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/bolivia-
clocks-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/bolivia-clocks-time-
run-different)

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mahern
half the motion of the clock is right to left...the bottom half.

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dschiptsov
Movement of the Sun?

