Dance, my little firebrand! Dance!

Do you know that whole thing about left-brained and right-brained people, about the former being logical and the latter being intuitive and all that? If you don’t, and if you can’t draw, it’s well worth getting your hands on Betty Edward’s brilliant Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Seriously.

Anyway, have you seen this left brain/right brain test?

It troubles me. For ages I watched the dancer, thinking she’s clearing spinning clockwise, pivoting on her left leg. So I’m right-brained, apparently, which may come as a surprise to those poor unfortunates who’ve experienced me in strategist mode, cautious, painstaking, and with an eye for every detail.

And I showed it to a physicist friend, who was even more surprised to see the dancer spinning clockwise. How can she be right-brained, for heaven’s sake? She’s a physicist!

And then I showed it to Neil, who saw her turning anti-clockwise. This astounded me. How could this be? I could well believe that my comrade-in-arms is thoroughly left-brained, but not that he’s mad.

She’s blatantly turning clockwise!

And then I read the lists of characteristics again, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her turning anticlockwise, spinning on her right leg.

And now she does whatever I tell her to, the saucy minx.

Neil says that it’s a sinusoidal projection, whatever that is, and that both directions are valid. I have no idea what that means, but I’m sure he’ll explain it on his blog. I certainly hope so.

There’s a comment below the dancer which says ‘Her breasts are very perky…I’m mesmerized. Been watching her for 2 hours now.’

That’s all. He’s happy just to watch her – admittedly – perky breasts. But which way does she turn for him? Can he make her turn at will?

Now that’s the challenge.

It’s like poledancing for nerds.