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Which way is this bus traveling?

Category: Other
Posted on: November 25, 2007 9:29 PM, by Greg Laden

You probably got it wrong. Answer is here.

Find more posts in: Physical Science

Comments

I am ashamed to admit that I got it wrong, too. Do you think it may be due to the fact that we have a bias of reading left to right, so absent any other clues (other than what a preschooler would pick up on, of course) we assume motion from left to right?

Just a thought.

Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | November 25, 2007 10:28 PM

I live in the UK you insensitive clod!

Posted by: Anonymous Coward | November 25, 2007 11:48 PM

It is travelling left to right
and the door is on the far side and to the right (front). Oh, and there's a door in the middle too, to get out of.

:-)

Stephenk
(Australia)

Posted by: stephenk | November 26, 2007 1:32 AM

Vehicles in Malaysia have doors on the left, so technically speaking, the bus is travelling to the right.

Still, the pre-schoolers won. I wouldn't have thought of that reasoning! :D

Posted by: pelf | November 26, 2007 4:43 AM

The 'bus' has no windshield, so the correct answer is that the bus cannot be moved, so says the Motor Vehicle Code. Obviously the maker of this test is dumber than a high school junior.

Posted by: Three-Fitty | November 26, 2007 7:22 AM

All we need to do is to substitute "left" the preschoolers' formula to "the side you get out on depending on what country you live in." (i.e., correct side or opposite side)

Posted by: Greg Laden | November 26, 2007 7:42 AM

It's not traveling at all; it just sits there on my monitor, immobile.

Posted by: Virgil Samms | November 26, 2007 7:52 AM

my answer was "you can't tell" because, like three-fitty my first thought was "there is no windshield." which also made me think that the opposite side of the bus would look identical (just three windows and no door).

i'm not sure what that says about me.

Posted by: catswym | November 26, 2007 7:52 AM

Now wait a second. How do we know the bus isn't going backwards? Maybe the bus driver turned the wrong way down a one-way street and is frantically backing up.

Posted by: Jocelyn | November 26, 2007 9:52 AM

What if the bus is not going left or right but moving in a direction that is into/out of the screen?

Posted by: Who Cares | November 26, 2007 10:06 AM

I thought we were seeing the back of the bus, and it was moving into the page/screen.

I accept the preschooler's answer for that interpretation of the graphic, but claim that that interpretation is not the only acceptable one due to the high level of abstraction.

Posted by: Jay | November 28, 2007 4:15 PM

With all due respect to these smart preschoolers, it's clear that their answer (which is brilliant in its simplicity) is aided by the fact that they cannot conceive of confounding aspects to the scenario.

To use the visibility of the door as a clue to the direction of the bus overlooks the fact that if you are standing on the 'other' side of the street (or, by analog, living in a country where the directions for the left and right lanes are reversed), you would come up with the direct opposite conclusion.

So this is both a good thing and a bad thing. A preschooler can at least come up with a simple answer (which has a 50% probability of being right). An adult will come up with a hedged response, which covers 100% of the possibilities, but suffers a dramatic loss of simplicity.

Posted by: Bing Halvorson | November 29, 2007 10:03 AM