I don't remember that. What I remember is that there were some people who do not have a concept of left or right, and that it is alien to them and they cannot learn it. It's more of an ability to figure out cardinal directions.

I'm pretty sure if aliens have the ability to read a star chart, they could figure out one half is left and the other half is right.

Why do you think this video was made? It even contains our diplomacy plan!

@harriet: But how do you tell them which is which? You don't have a common frame of reference, even on a star chart, unless you can see what they see and draw a line for them. You can't tell if they're drawing a line right, left, up, down, or diagonal.

I remember that bit on QI, and it's still something I think about when I've got free time on my hands, because it seems there's get to be some way to communicate left/right.

The closest I can come is the right-hand rule that comes up in physics, that for example describes how a magnetic field deflects an electron. But I haven't worked out the details yet. All in all, I think I'd rather give aliens the puppet video, and risk interstellar war with the threat at the end.

If they exist in the same physical space as us, then I can't imagine The terms being so hard to translate to their own words. If they are some transcendent mega race, then they probably already know. If space is full of retards, then I could see the problem.

And yes, I see the origin of the problem being relative terminology of direction, but they must have at least some sense of space themselves, thus they made it to our planet instead of looping around in 3 dimensional space until they starved. It's not that profound a concept.

-2 for being too long. ATHF version was cut-down to a funny length, ending with great final line.

As for QI, I do remember that bit. I may be mistaken, but I think they also discussed an aborigine (correct terminology?) that had no concept of nor words for left or right, but rather would describe things in terms of north, south, east, and west from the position of the speaker - as these were senses of spacial direction they seemed to be born with. Also, I love that show.

Yes, this is from ATHF.

Thank you! That was bugging me.