Talk:3293: Handedness

explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Latest comment: 4 September by Lordpishky
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How do I add this to a category again? Xkdvd (talk) 21:30, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

If in doubt, and you know of a page with the category you want to appear here, go there, edit it (just to see the page-source) and have a look at the bottom for the category tag (it'll be [[Category:...something or other...]], of course), copy it and then come back to the page you want it in and similarly paste it at the bottom.
If you're asking how to create a new category, then I suggest you don't. If you have to ask, better to suggest your idea. State which comics (more than just one!) apply, suggest the "...something or other..." name that you're thinking of, and maybe someone who isn't quite so raw at this will agree and make it so. Hopefully also make it so in a consistent manner with the rest of the categories here, if you hadn't got the idea quite right, but that's not guaranteed. 81.179.200.82 22:16, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Would a 'left-handed specialist' be known as a 'levo-physicist'? BorQhue del Sol (talk) 21:59, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

They're all pretty sinister.Lordpishky (talk) 17:48, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm sure this is common knowledge here but what do you MEAN the weak force cares about fucking PARTICLE SPIN??? That feels horrifying to me and I can't explain why but just what. Since when can fundamental forces do that, just ignore based on particle spin?? I guess at least since 10E-36 to 10E-32 seconds after the big bang, when the electroweak force got split up, but still this feels weird, that particle spin determines whether the force can interact with the particle entirely. Not how it interacts, not what direction results get launched, just. whether it happens. Existentially horrifying to me IllegallyNamed (talk) 22:25, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

the weak force actually cares about the chirality of the particle, which is a more fundamental characteristic of a particle than spin. i think the confusion here comes from the fact that for highly relativistic particles chirality is the same thing as helicity, which is the projection of spin on the direction of motion.
as far as we know, every lepton is chiral left-handed, so it turns out that the weak interaction doesn’t discriminate in nature. 2601:840:8782:3D70:7D31:F094:60BA:97BD 11:49, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Just to be a bit fussy: "every lepton is chiral left-handed" is true but every anti-lepton is right-handed. It depends on if you are using "lepton" as a class to include the anti-particles. Also, I believe that if the weak force itself doesn't discriminate then right-handed leptons and left-handed anti lepton could (and therefore would) be pair produced. Lordpishky (talk) 01:21, 4 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I want to think he used bosons because his local baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, can be called BoSox. so a ball thrown by a Red Sox pitcher could be a boson. probably not intended but I like working one more pun into this. Student Driver (talk) 02:45, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

"I'm the batter. I have a sacred mission to fulfill. I must purify the world." - Cueball

what does the article mean in saying helicity is unrelated to handedness? isn't right handed spin clockwise and left handed spin counter-clockwise, based on how your fingers wrap around your hands? (paigefile) (talk) 05:48, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Human handedness refers to the preferred hand one uses for writing or throwing a baseball, not any rotation. Though I do suspect that there is a different preferred direction of spin on a baseball thrown by a left or right handed pitcher. And a pitcher does turn slightly during when pitching. Lordpishky (talk) 17:58, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Reminds me of cricket spin-bowling... Well, it fairly obviously has some similarities, and may or may not be just as complex. 81.179.200.82 19:46, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure about the claim that particle handedness is named after human handedness. I've been told that handedness comes from "chiral" after the Greek term for "hand" because our hands are mirror images. If that's true then that's a different naming path from handedness in reference to dexterity, even if they ended up with the same word in the end. So I'd like some clarification about the term's origin. 82.174.125.87 20:40, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply