Wednesday, September 7, 2011

More Lefty fun facts

Did you know that Pythagoras was left-handed? So reports Catriona Byrne in Math Intelligencer. She also writes that left-handers are more represented among mathematicians than amoung a random population sample.

I have previously mentioned how most of my room-mates have been left handed (well over 60%) and how I notice a higher percentage of left-handers in risk/reliability analysis.  So there is something to hand-dominance and thought.  I also remember reading that there is a part of the brain that controls conformity with another part that controls rebellious (sorry, I feel like there is a better word, but I am at a loss). Further that recent studies left-handers have more activity in the rebellious area and less in conformity area.  Is it possible we are wired to our reactions to new ideas and we evolved as a race to have a majority of people who conform to maintain a status-quo with a small percentage of people wired to always move against the flow and try new things.  I believe it is.  Given how many problems we face as a race and the majority of the reason things are is "that's the way we have always done them" from our perspectives within our life time.  Actually, we have experience more change in the last 100 years than in the last 10,000.  And that rate of change is increasing.  I just hope we are will to change fast enough before a collapse forces us to change.