SmarterEveryDay
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 17 months, 2015–2025
7:58 · 32M views · Apr 24, 2015
Destin of Smarter Every Day learns to ride a bicycle whose steering is reversed, taking about eight months, and compares it with how his young son learned much faster. It illustrates knowledge versus understanding and brain plasticity in adults versus children.
HN cites it widely in discussions of tacit knowledge, habit, unlearning and adult versus child learning.
20 comments from Hacker News
I agree - surely adults can learn these tennis strokes, even if they are harder to pick up. There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1]. A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him to ride the bike more than a few feet at a time before falling off. Finally, after 8 months of consistent practice, he could ride it relatively well. When he put his 6-year-old son on the bike (who'd been riding a normal bicycle for 3 years), he had it mastered just 2 weeks later . [1] this video
From the excellent smartereverday youtube channel this video Strongly recommend to watch the above video.He does an experiment on how long it takes to get comfortable by changing the handle bars.
One of my friends one day forwarded me the YouTube link to Backwards Brain Bicycle by Dustin ( this video ) and I was so amazed by how our brains cling to the meanings of relative phenomena we've learnt in the past and how it characterizes our behavior as humans. For example, that's why we find it so hard to give up a certain habit. Our response, a replication of the concept in the form of a simple game. Let us know what you think.
Reminded me of this Smarter Every Day video, which is definitely worth a watch: this video (The Backwards Brain Bicycle)
Sadly it's wrong. My gripe with it is that it presents countersteering as necessary , while it's just a technique to more quickly initiate a turn. Basically by steering right while leaning left, then snapping the handlebars to the left, you can change your centre of gravity relative to the bike's faster than you can just by leaning left. When leaning your body left you also naturally push the handle bars right which produces a countersteer as well even if you didn't mean to. However, you can easily observe a bicycle steering without first initiating a countersteer. The easiest is if you just push it and let it coast by itself. It will naturally start leaning one way and continue turning that way until it falls on the ground without any countersteering. Another way is, if its geometry permits, to ride it without holding on to the handlebars - you can see you're steering left and right by shifting your weight on only the seat without any countersteering. Or you can consciously avoid doing a countersteer and make turns that way - noticeably less quickly than if you do countersteer, but quite possible. Another proof would be the fact that monowheels work and can be steered. You cannot countersteer a monowheel, yet it steers just fine. Look also at Destin's backwards bicycle experiment - this video . I really don't think you can countersteer that thing anyway, yet it steers just fine. I think if Veritasium had given people more time (days? weeks?) to adjust to the bike, they would le