Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Before there were clock faces I guess they don’t really talk about clockwise and anticlockwise? Did people just say spin left/right? I imagine there was rarely any need to talk about rotations on arbitrary axes before modernity. Wheels turned “forward” or “backward” and other rotators direction didn’t matter Spin asymmetry is really a modern notion. Even the earth’s spin on its axis, and the anticlockwise spin of the stars around the pole star or the direction of vortices would not have been of any particular interest. Balancing spins really only became a non-trivial technical concern with helicopter propellers. Screws are referenced to the human body. It’s leftie-loose-rightie-tight ie rather than clockie-tightie. We have right-hand/left-hand type rules. Weird how most situations have a natural up/front/forward, removing the need to talk about spin Rotations and angular momentum are fundamental to spatiality but we think of space primarily in terms of translation
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na
@na
also wind turbines and wake losses i guess
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