I remember a magazine with a photo of "The Beatles" in the classroom when I was a distant school child. “Why is he holding the guitar backwards? someone asked about Paul McCartney. So for the first time we learned that one of the Beatles is left-handed.
And then, years later, I read that the drummer of the famous band Ringo Starr is also left-handed. Having become a journalist, I saw with my own eyes how the magnificent singer Mireille Mathieu signs an autograph for the readers of my newspaper with her left hand.
Lefty- a phenomenon rare and widespread at the same time. Wherever more than thirty people gathered, there is always a left-hander.
Linguists have found that in different languages the word "right" is consonant with the words "right" and "right", while "left" is similar to words such as "sinister" and "broken". Left-handed people have always been viewed as a deviation from the generally accepted norms: the English left-handed is translated not only as “left-handed”, but also as “clumsy”, “hypocritical”, and as “defective” and “deceitful”. But is it fair?
Video: Features of left-handed people (children) or who are left-handers
So far, it has not been possible to absolutely accurately establish the reason why a person becomes left-handed. According to scientists, in about half of the cases, violations in the genetic code are to blame. In the other half - the wrong course of interchangeable processes during the development of the fetus (this leads to a number of problems characteristic of left-handed people: early puberty, dyslexia, insomnia ...), or birth trauma.
In nature, leftism and rightism is a little studied phenomenon, although asymmetry is one of the fundamental properties of nature. How does it manifest itself at the level of organic substances and living organisms? It is known, for example, that a living cell is asymmetric in structure, while a dead cell is symmetrical. Louis Pasteur's observations in the 19th century were that many organic molecules can form two distinct shapes that are mirror images in the same way that a right hand glove is a mirror image of a left hand glove. Being chemically identical, such molecules differ morphologically, they are called stereoisomers.
Stranger still, living beings are capable of producing either one or the other stereoisomer, while laboratory chemistry always yields an equal mixture of the two. Take for example a lemon and an orange - two fruits with a characteristic aroma for each, which, although similar, are somewhat different. Now, these two distinct odors come from the same chemical, limonin. However, the atoms in its two molecules are arranged differently: the limonin produced in a lemon is a mirror image of the same chemical found in an orange.
“From the observations of naturalists it is known that in nature the movement goes from right to left. All luminaries and their satellites describe circular paths from east to west. In humans, the right hand is better developed than the left ... The curls of the shell, with rare exceptions, are wrapped from right to left. And if a shell comes across - lefty, connoisseurs value it worth its weight in gold, ”wrote Jules Verne.
Most people consider leftism to be anomalous, but life itself is predominantly morphologically leftist.
Are left-handers a genetic anomaly?
The helix of the DNA molecule is invariably twisted to the left. And although all people outwardly look symmetrical, they all have a hidden one-sidedness that has nothing to do with being right-handed, this person or lefty. So, in almost all of us, the heart is located on the left side, and the liver is on the right. Beneath our skin, we are highly asymmetrical.
For biological forms, however, there are exceptions. In ten thousand people there is one in which the location of the internal organs is upside down. This phenomenon is called "situs inversus" in Latin. Dr. Nigel Brown of St. George's Hospital School of Medicine, who wrote a paper on situs inversus, is convinced that the asymmetry of the body is ultimately determined by the left or right morphology of the chemical "building blocks" of life, although he admits that it is directly related to the molecule and the mammal not yet possible. But does this mean that if the DNA helix were oriented to the right, then all people would have a heart located on the right? Dr. Brown thinks no, although he is equally sure that there is some kind of chemical trigger that somehow tells the human fetus at the age of fifteen days what is left and what is right.
8% of the world's population use their left hand
So, if the mirror arrangement of the internal organs is observed in one person out of ten thousand, then people who write with their left hand, play tennis with it, are quite common - 8 percent of the total number of Homo sapiens. Dr. Christopher McIenas of University College London suggested that a two-stage process occurs in the human body. In our body there is a gene that allows us to distinguish left from right, a kind of label. This label is then read by another gene, not yet discovered by scientists. It is he who determines whether a person will be left-handed or right-handed.
If we are born with one variant of the last gene, then we become right-handed. But a significant part of people have a different version of it, it reads the label so that they become lefties.
The division into right-handers and left-handers is a unique feature of man. Curiously, only half of left-handers are genetically left-handed, and 50 percent are compensatory, that is they became left-handed as a result of damage to the left lobe of the brain.
Many little things annoy a lefty in a "right" world. He enters the subway - the slot of the coin acceptor is located on the right. All training manuals for any manual labor are designed for right-handed people. And so in everything. Therefore, the slogan "The salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves" was adopted by left-handers in the Western world. They have created all sorts of unions, associations and societies designed to protect their rights. There is a well-known case when in 1980 the International Association of Left-handers achieved the reinstatement of the American left-hander Franklin Winboard, who was fired from the police for refusing to wear a holster on the right.
And it's right. In some cases, left-handed people need no less help than disabled people. The most striking example: all doors are hung so that their opening is designed for right-handers. If a young weak girl - lefty, and the door has a strong spring, then it is simply not possible for her to open the door.
Left-handed problems begin in childhood. In Russia, for example, there are practically no prescriptions for left-handed children. By the way, until the mid-80s in Soviet schools they were forcibly retrained to be right-handed. The production of scissors for left-handed people has long ceased (in Soviet times they were made in Gorky). At all left-handers need a lot of "left" items- from small things to serious things: hockey sticks, watches, cameras (all models have shutter buttons on the right), phone books, and so on and so forth.
If you want to imagine how a left-hander lives in our “right-handed” society, tie your right hand to your body for at least an hour or two. Or reread Alice Through the Looking Glass, where ingenious left-hander Lewis Carroll skillfully described the feeling of a left-handed person from life in a right-handed world. By the way, Nikolai Leskov, who wrote "Lefty", was left-handed.
famous people who are left handed
There are not as many famous left-handers as there are right-handers, and yet there are a lot of fighters in their regiment. The word "fighters" is quite appropriate, since many prominent generals were left-handed. And among them are such geniuses as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon ... Joan of Arc, who became famous in the military field, was also left-handed. But her left-handedness became one of the arguments of the prosecution, which led the Maiden of Orleans to the stake.
Left-handedness is not an obstacle for those who make a political career, nor does it determine the moral character of a person-politician. Queen Victoria and Adolf Hitler were left-handed. All US presidents of the last two decades of the 20th century - George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton - are left-handed, the tradition could continue if Al Gore (also left-handed) won the last presidential election. By the way, their common worst and geographically closest opponent is Fidel Castro, also left-handed.
Left-handers are traditionally strong in art. This is probably due to the fact that they have better developed imaginative (intuitive) thinking, for which the right hemisphere, which controls the left hand, is responsible than logical thinking. Lefties were Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Raphael and Rubens, Pablo Picasso Pizarro, Franz Kafka and Paul Verlaine, Mozart and Beethoven, Paul Simon and Jimi Hendrix...
Left-handers simply occupied Hollywood. Among them are stars such as Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Deanna Durbin, Jean Harlow, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Roberts, Charlie Chaplin, Robert De Niro, Tom Cruise, Robert Redford, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone ...
Left-handed athletes effectively use their anatomical feature in those types of competitions where tactical martial arts are present - tennis, boxing, fencing. Left-handed tennis players include ten-time Wimbledon winner Martina Navratilova with her trademark backhand, Monica Seles, Rod Laver, named the best tennis player of all time; Jimmy Conors and John McEnroe. In boxing, left-handers win up to 40 percent of gold medals, although they are three times less in this sport than right-handers.
Albert Einstein is left handed
There are not so many left-handed scientists among scientists, but a few are quite significant: physicists Albert Einstein and James Maxwell, physiologist Ivan Pavlov, theologian and physician Albert Schweitzer.
Among the famous left-handed entrepreneurs, there are also a few. Exceptions are John Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Bill Gates. If among ordinary people there are 8 percent left-handers, then among geniuses it is 20 percent. That is, left-handers in general are more than twice as gifted as right-handers. So if your child is lefty, dont be upset. Just try to see the genius in him. By the way, left-handedness is often inherited. It is possible that you yourself are a genius. Only as yet undiscovered and unrecognized. Do not miss your chance.
>Compositions based on the work of Lefty
Talent
The story "Lefty" is one of the most famous works of the successor of folklore traditions and simply the famous Russian writer N. S. Leskov. It is especially attracted by the combination of the epic genre with reality and the combination of folk origins with the deep thoughts of the author himself. The full title of the work is "The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea." The writer has repeatedly admitted that the whole story is fiction, and Lefty is a person invented by him. And even the folk phrases that we often meet in the course of the tale were invented by him.
It is amazing how he knew, felt and loved his people. Critics noticed that no one had studied the Russian soul so deeply before Leskov. Reading the statements of the protagonist, at first it even seems that the author portrayed himself, that he himself speaks with such old, folk words, but this is not so. The hero of the story is a simple, unremarkable Tula master, who does not even have a full-fledged name. He personifies all the poor, but talented people of that time who did not have the opportunity to develop their talent and put it into practice.
However, Lefty was lucky enough to apply his skills on a “very important” order. He shod a dancing flea, which belonged to the sovereign himself, and engraved his name on each horseshoe. It was possible to see this only through the "melkoscope". For such high skill, he had the honor to demonstrate the talent of Russian masters in England. Cossack ataman Platov, having provided him with everything necessary, sent him on his way with an exhibit of a funny flea. In England, everyone liked the work of the master. They persuaded him for a long time to stay with them forever.
But Lefty could not exchange his native land for a foreign one. The Russian faith was very close to him. In addition, relatives were waiting at home. It is noteworthy that the hero, being such a talented master, was not at all accustomed to reading and writing. The author notes that if Lefty had at least a little knowledge from the field of arithmetic, then the flea would also dance. And if he had been even a little more self-serving, he could have sold it for a lot of money, but Leskov's hero was not one of those people. He was a broad-minded man with an open and kind heart. While abroad, he did not for a moment forget about his relatives and about the Motherland, he looked longingly towards his native shores.
Leskov, like no other writer, knew the Russian people, their talent and ability to work hard. He wanted to dedicate this tale to craftsmen with golden hands and excellent talent. He managed to accurately convey all the features of the Russian character and originality, bitterness and joy for the people, synthesize tragic and comic features, and also create many neologisms, such as "nymphosoria" (ciliates), "melkoskop" (microscope), etc.
Article menu:
The image of Lefty in Leskov's work is quite interesting and unusual. There are very few people like him, and even more so in our time. He goes with the flow, practically does not change anything, fate develops tragically, but he still enjoys life.
Lefty - a talented Tula gunsmith
When Nikolai Pavlovich, the Russian emperor, ordered to improve a flea brought from England by the previous emperor Alexander Pavlovich, Lefty did the hardest work.
He forged the smallest detail that even the human eye cannot see. Of the three masters who performed the operation to improve the flea, he was the most assiduous, resourceful, and talented.
Modest, inconspicuous and ugly
Despite all the work of Lefty, many underestimated him. Usually this was due to appearance.
He was inconspicuous, ugly face, oblique, and even left-handed. Almost no one guessed what a huge potential is hidden in this seemingly most ordinary peasant.
But, as I said, people like our hero are not often met.
Dear readers! We bring to your attention which was written by N. Leskov.
In his place, many would certainly have demanded monetary compensation for moral damage, or a personal workshop, or some other reward for the great quality work done.
But Lefty was not like that. He floated calmly with the flow. Didn't go anywhere. Perhaps even underestimated himself. He did not demand anything at all, although he lived not so luxuriously.
Even on the paws of a flea, he did not sign, but simply made the work twice as difficult as the other masters who forged the flea with him. So none of the Russian and English masters who saw the creation of the joint activity knew that not two masters, but three worked on a work of art. And the name of the third remained unknown to the world.
Special Patriotism Lefty
Despite all the difficulties that Lefty went through, he never betrayed his homeland. No matter how much he was underestimated, he always remained true to his beloved country. When he went to England, it can be assumed that he really liked it there. He was offered to stay, promising all the vital and comfortable conditions.
He knew that his work would be appreciated there. But Lefty remembered that there is practically nothing for him closer than his native land, and it doesn’t matter what kind of people there will be. The main thing is that at home. I had to refuse. For some, this may be routine, but for Lefty, it was a huge choice.
Dear readers! We offer in the story of Nikolai Leskov “The Old Genius”
Just imagine: a homeland where no one needs you, and then you are invited to another, more progressive country, where you will be appreciated ...
Lefty dies
Upon arrival in Russia, a terrible thing happens. Our hero is very ill. Dat is so strong that you have to go to the hospital. His name has already been forgotten. What he did is also forgotten. Yes, who he is, everyone has already forgotten. Lefty was taken to a hospital for the poor. In the meantime, they carried it on a stretcher, dropped it, and the guy broke his head. So he died in the hospital. None of those who saw him, none of those who surrounded him, or carried him in a stretcher, suspected that a great master gunsmith was dying before their eyes, with whom practically no one can compare. But he is still happy with what he has. This is how the life of Lefty ends tragically.
Ed Wright / Ed Wright published a book: Left-handed History of the World / Great left-handers in the history of the world, where he spoke about the following people: Pharaoh Ramses the Great, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael , Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henry Ford, Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Mahatma Gandhi, Charlie Chaplin, Alan Turing, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Bill Gates, Martina Navratilova.
“Today, left-handers make up about 10% the population of the earth. It can be assumed that in different eras and in different cultures, this indicator did not change significantly. Although where left-handed discrimination took on sharper forms, people were less likely to advertise their left-handedness (for example, in the conformist culture of Japan, only 5% population openly consider themselves left-handed). Many genetic left-handers under the pressure of the surrounding society were forced to retrain to be right-handed. Since discrimination against left-handed people has existed in one form or another in almost all times and in all cultures (the only exception, perhaps, was the ancient Incas, who considered left-handedness a sign of luck and happiness), it is impossible to determine how many great people were actually "hidden" or "reoriented" lefties. History is silent on this. If the proportion of left-handers in the total population of the planet is, as already noted, of the order 10% , then among the male population it is slightly higher - 12%, and among the female population it is slightly lower - 8%. That is, men are almost 2 times more likely to be left-handed than women. According to one theory, this is due to the fact that left-handedness is a consequence of an excess content of the male hormone testosterone during fetal maturation. […]
Among primates, only in humans, one in ten is left-handed. Modern science cannot yet explain this. All animals, with a few exceptions, are almost equally left-handed and right-handed. According to one hypothesis, right-handedness is associated with speech, for which, as well as for the functioning of the right hand, the centers located in the left hemisphere of the brain are responsible. Another possible explanation is that the development of more complex tools, such as scissors, required the development of new skills, which in turn led to the dominance of one hand over the other. Then the question arises: why throughout the history of mankind, the ratio between right-handers and left-handers remained almost unchanged? It is partly believed that in the process of evolution, left-handers ensured their survival due to the effect of surprise, creating which in hand-to-hand combat with the actions of their main hand they received a serious advantage. Just imagine: for the most part, people expect a blow from the enemy with their right hand and, as a rule, do not know how to parry a blow delivered with their left. And if the number of left-handers were higher, left-handedness, obviously, would not have already given obvious advantages.
To some extent, this assumption can also be used to explain the high performance of left-handed athletes with their relative small number in such sports as tennis, baseball and cricket. The trajectory of the ball sent to the side of the opponent with the left hand is almost impossible to predict in advance, since the blows are carried out at non-standard angles. It can also be argued that if left-handers have this advantage on the physical plane, then their brain, having evolved, has learned to use it mentally as well. In other words, the scope of the ability of left-handers to strike with unusualness, to be able to take the enemy by surprise is not limited to martial arts, be it hand-to-hand or sports. In confirmation of this, the brilliant military career of such left-handers as Alexander the Great and Napoleon, who became brilliant commanders largely due to the ability to mislead the enemy with their unexpected strategic decisions on the battlefield. It can be assumed that the ability of left-handers to act unexpectedly transforms in them into the ability to construct non-standard stratagems and manifests itself in various spheres of social life.
In English there is an expression: "Only left-handers are right with their heads." Indeed, the left side of the body is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain, and in lefties, it is the right hemisphere that is dominant. At the same time, studies have shown that the right and left hemispheres of the brain perform different functions.
The right hemisphere is primarily responsible for visual and spatial perception. Therefore, there are so many left-handers among architects. Developed visual-spatial abilities are a valuable quality in many areas of human activity. For example, this allowed Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael to reach the heights in the fine arts, Henry Ford - in industrial design; Babe Ruth, Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe - in sports, and Napoleon, who had a phenomenal gift for mentally reconstructing a map of a particular area - in the military field. Visual-spatial perception is also associated with the ability to think abstractly, thanks to which mathematical genius is born.
People with a dominant left hand, in other words, left-handers, have always been born. In ancient times, lefties were considered sorcerers and witches, because they often had extraordinary abilities. And such people were burned at the stake. In ancient Russia, left-handers were not allowed to testify in court. It was believed that the devil was left-handed.
Fortunately, times have changed, and it has long been known that magic does not play any role here. A left-handed person is already being born. Nature has made us asymmetrical. Our brain chooses which hand will be dominant. If the right hemisphere of the brain is more developed, then the left hand becomes active, and vice versa, if the left hemisphere is more developed, then the right hand will be the main hand.
We have selected the 5 most curious facts from the life of lefties:
- Left-handers are very gifted people who have extraordinary abilities or have some kind of bright talent. For example, the scientist Albert Einstein, the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar, the writer Leo Tolstoy, the artist Pablo Picasso, the actress Marilyn Monroe were all left-handed. But still, modern psychologists believe that a person’s genius does not depend on which hand dominates him. But left-handers and right-handers think differently. And this remains a fact.
- Left-handed people are more creative, active, they do not sit still, they swallow information whole. But here logic can be problematic. Left-handers are able to grasp information on the fly, they see the problem as a whole, right-handed people need to put everything on the shelves. If a pure left-hander has difficulties with mathematical problems, then it will be easier for him to explain the material on the images. Right-handers, on the contrary, prefer logic. They make good analysts and excellent strategists.
- Statistics indicate that many successful athletes are left-handed. Tennis player Rafael Nadal, soccer player Pele. Tennis player Martina Navratilova, who is left-handed, was the first racket of the world for nine years. It was an absolute record.
Statistics show that 40 percent of gold medals are won by left-handed athletes.
There are not so many pure lefties in the world. In the animal kingdom, the opposite is true. There are more lefties. For example, monkeys and polar bears have stronger left paws. But, as an exception, right-handed animals are also found in the world of fauna, however, much less frequently.
The other side of the coin is that left-handers often suffer from schizophrenia and alcoholism. However, scientists from different countries disagree about this outstanding fact.
In order to determine who your child is, you can conduct a simple test. To begin with, let's define the main hand - for this, ask the child to clasp the hands in the lock. Whichever finger is on top - that hand will be the leading one. You can also fold your hands in front of you in a Napoleonic position (clasp your hands with each other in front of your chest), if the right hand is on top, then it is the main one in the child. Now let's try to determine the leading ear. Ask your child to listen to the ticking of a watch. With which ear he reaches for them, he will be dominant. In order to determine the active eye, you need to make a small round hole in a sheet of paper and ask the child to look into it. Which eye looks into this hole, that one will be the main one. Finally, you can check the child's leg. Just ask him to cross his legs. The leg that is on top will be the leading one.
If a child did everything left-handed, then in front of you is a pure left-hander, of whom there are no more than 10 percent on our planet. And about 45 percent of pure right-handers. If, when performing the test, “left” and “right” are mixed, it means that your child is a hidden left-hander, about 50 percent of such people. There are also ambidexters. There are very few of them. These are people in whom both hands function equally well and the leading one does not stand out. Such people have the ability to use both hemispheres at once. Ambidextrous children learn new information better, are more quick-witted, and adapt to new conditions more easily. When raising such a child, one must take into account the fact that if both hemispheres of the brain receive a large load, then the child may experience neurasthenia, he will be very tired, and headaches may occur.
To avoid this, you need to try to reduce the load on the left hemisphere, which is responsible for intellectual development and logic, instead, develop more of the right hemisphere, which is responsible for creativity. For example, instead of additional math classes, do drawing, dancing with your child, you can enroll your child in a music school. Then the brain of the child will not experience excessive stress. 
But our world is more adapted for right-handers, since after all they are the majority. For example, if you take a store. In all supermarkets, the traffic on the trading floor is counterclockwise. This is designed to make it easier for right-handed shoppers to put items in the shopping cart. The more goods are taken, the faster the sales of the store grow.
Marketing move. Sports stadiums are built on the same principle. Athletes run counterclockwise around the stadium so that the active right leg can save the runner from falling during the turn. Turnstiles in the subway are adapted for right-handers, as well as a hand hole in a sewing machine. For left-handed people, we managed to find only stationery - scissors, sharpeners, rulers with a mirror scale. And the rest of the left-handers still have to cope on their own.