"Tom Potter" wrote in message ...

"Sam Wormley" wrote in message
...
David Moran wrote:

Hi,

I am a physics student with a physical disability that limits my
motor
skills. I am wondering if there are any alternatives to the right hand
rule.
I understand the the principle, but my motor skills make it difficult to
carry out. Any help would be appreciated..

Too bad you can't just visualize the right hand rule outcome with your
brain...
Too bad, indeed! Reminds me of space**** and tj...

I had my suspicions about this post too. A motor disabled physics
student should be able to find some work-around -- if he/she has any
hope of using physics in the first place. Of course the chance that
the question is sincere places a large negative weight on voicing this
horrible suspicion of being put upon.

One thinks of the modified "right arm rule", requiring less fine motor
skills: one rotates one's right arm from a position outstretched at
one's side to one's front, and one's head points in the desired
direction. Actually, anytime I -- infrequently -- find myself
actually trying to check the sign in some calculation involving cross
products, I do find myself muttering and contorting my right hand in
strange configuration and orientations: it's important for the process
that one's hand be oriented in space the same way as the visualized
vectors.

It appears that "Sam Wormley" does not know
that brain mapping shows that
the tongue, the eyes, and the hands
consume much (most?) of the resources of the brain,
and that the interplay between these elements
is critical to learning and thinking.

Hmm... I also find that, ahem, moving my tongue (vulgarly called
"talking to oneself), is a great aid in solving complex problems. In
fact, for the very hardest problems, one must both walk around,
gesticulate, and mutter to engage the full brain faculties. I guess
that's what that possibly apocryphal Einstein quote was about: lack of
privacy and inhibition prevent the gesticulation and muttering
approach to most problems, hence inhibit full brain function.
....

It is no accident that finger counting is an almost universal stage in the
child's learning of arithmetic
(though it is unclear where one ancient New Guinea culture fits in -
it has a 33 base system, which includes toes, testicles and penis, said Prof
Butterworth)."

ROTFL, even if you made that up! Imagine the embarassment when first
doing business with this culture, and your contact begins counting on
his genitals. Can women count too in this society?

Then there is the peculiar idiom "to count coup", which I think
basically means to beat: that's counting on somebody else's head --
perhaps also the origin of the expression "thinking makes my head
hurt".