If you’ve been paying attention the last couple of days, then you’ve probably heard the very simple question: Are there more wheels or doors in the world? Now, I’ll just come out and admit that I don’t think there’s any way there could be more doors than wheels, but we’ll get into that later. First, how did we get here? Well, it all started with Ryan Nixon on Twitter posting the question to the world. Very soon after, the tweet went viral, and as a result, here we are asking the question ourselves. Well, let’s take a look at the results.
An overwhelming number of students seemed to believe that there were indeed more
wheels—at least over 80.9%. A lot of the argument from the wheel side seemed to believe that there just seemed to be no world in which there could even be fewer wheels. One response said, “There have to be more wheels, Conveyer belts, Grocery Carts, Gears, bikes! [sic]” they do make a good point. But, are we stretching the definition of the wheel per se? The Oxford Dictionary defines a wheel as a circular object that revolves on an axle and is fixed below a vehicle or other object to enable it to move easily on the ground. Well, it does sound like we could be stretching the definition here. That seems to be the main argument for the side of the door: Wheels simply stretch their ideas too far in order to get the result they’re happy with. One response posted the idea that if doorknobs are wheels inside of doors, then windows could count as doors. By Oxford’s definition, doors are a hinged, sliding, or revolving barrier at the entrance to a building, room, or vehicle, or in the framework of a cupboard. Besides the entrance of a building, a window does classify as a sliding barrier.
Wait, how did we get here? Why am I trying to call a window a door? It seems even I have gotten too swept up in the argument. But, at the end of the day, that’s really all it is: a silly argument posted to friends that we can all talk about. It reminds me of the discourse that came from trying to understand whether a dress was yellow or blue. Just good honest fun that we can all talk about and share our own opinions. Even if the right answer is clearly wheels.
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