Tuesday, March 19, 2013

"If you turn a left-handed glove inside out, it fits..."

This blog exists solely for the purpose of illustrating what happens when you turn a left-handed glove inside-out.  Here are a few pictures.
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To begin with, above is a pair of gloves.  On the left is the left-handed glove.

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Now, the left-handed glove has been inverted.  Luckily for us, there is a tear in the palm of the glove just below the pinky finger, which you can use to compare these images and follow what has gone where during the inversion.




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For comparison, the inverted glove has been rolled over.  The tear is not visible, which illustrates an important point.  A glove that has "handedness" has a distinct palm side and a distinct backhand side.  Common single-use rubber gloves which are used for example in clinical, laboratory, and food-prep settings are not like the gloves shown above: they fit either hand, and if they are inverted they still fit either hand.  Such gloves are not chiral.  That is, they are neither right- nor left-handed gloves.

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I hope this has been illustrative.