Puzzling

[joannaardway]

Here's one for you:

You are talking to an alien in a spacecraft via radio.

By following your instructions, they have successfully made a pair of gloves.

Now, you tell them to pick up the right hand glove. But there's a problem - the alien doesn't know which direction you call left and which you call right. You can explain up and down quite easily, but explaining left and right is much harder.

You don't know anything about the alien's anatomy (i.e. which side vital organs lie on, etc.), the contents of it's spacecraft, or how which way they write. (And other things like that).

Neither do they know anything like that about you.

How do you successfully explain it so that they are guaranteed to get the right glove?

[beebs111]

its something to do with the radio.......... maybe which side the dial is on.........

[mark.f]

Tell them to land, follow the setting sun in the evening, and then turn towards the arctic sea.

[MrCrowley]

Tell them to draw an arrow on a piece of paper going up,then tell them to turn the paper 90* clockwise and tell them the arrow is now facing right,if they turn it 180* the arrow will be facing left.

[Scope]

tell them put on the glove... and if it doesnt fit there hand... then thats the left hand... DUH

[beebs111]

the glove could be upside down, so there is not really even a right glove.

[pyromanic13]

you tell them to put any glove on because all the hands are right hands! (no left hands)

[MrCrowley]

tell them put on the glove... and if it doesnt fit there hand... then thats the left hand... DUH

but what if they put the left glove on there right hand...thats not the left hand....

[Scope]

If they put the left glove on there right hand it wont fit right... you trying putting a righty glove on ur left hand

[MrCrowley]

yeah but how do you tell them what hand to put the glove on?

If you said "Put a glove on your hand" and it doesnt fit...how do you know...
1:What glove they chose left or right
2:What hand they chose left or right.


So what do you get from that?

My way works best so far with the arrow thing.....

Edit:Come on mods...have a go

[joannaardway]

Tell them to land, follow the setting sun in the evening, and then turn towards the arctic sea.

Now you're into discussions about how you can tell which way up the planet is. The universe has no up...

Tell them to draw an arrow on a piece of paper going up,then tell them to turn the paper 90* clockwise and tell them the arrow is now facing right,if they turn it 180* the arrow will be facing left.

Ok, how do you explain clockwise then?

tell them put on the glove... and if it doesnt fit there hand... then thats the left hand... DUH

You don't know that the alien's hands match ours. They could have 7 fingers and 2 thumbs for all you know.

Besides, even if they do have hands exactly like ours, all that really tells them is that they have put the wrong glove on the wrong hand.

As MrCrowley said, they could just as easily have put the right glove on the left hand as vice versa, and that's not going to tell them which is left and which is right.

[Brian the brain]

So you were able to describe how to make two gloves, a right one and a left one, but you are not able to explain wich is right and wich is left?!?!?!?


imagine this wasn't hypothetical...

[MrCrowley]

@Joanna "Ok, how do you explain clockwise then?"

Who said anything about explaining clockwise?

Do these aliens have a watch? Or a clock? If they do tell them the clock always goes fowards and this is called clockwise.

EDIT: Do they know how to play cricket? If they do tell them to take their stance with a bat like they are batting and tell them the 'On' side is always the side your feet are on the the 'off' side is the side you bat is on, Then tell them the 'on' side is left and the 'off' side is right.

And for you Americans who don't know wtf im talking about:
http://www.cricinfo.com/link_to_databas ... RICAN.html

[medievalman]

do they know behind and forward? if so, the glove should be on the right side when the opening is facing backwards, the fingers are facing forwards, the palm is facing the person, and the thumb is pointing up. the thumb will also kind of point towards the person.

[benstern]

Tell them to look look at north america from their viewports.

The part with the concave side is the right side. (east coast)
The part with the convex side is the left side. (west coast)