A flash of light, a jolt, and Kinesys materializes in the wrong place yet again. Liz looks out the porthole: a landscape that seems to change shape depending on how you look at it. “Paradoxon,” she sighs. “Perfect. The planet where nothing is what it seems.”
The crew stops to watch the traffic on the local highway. A car goes by with a Paradoxian family on vacation: the driver switches on the left turn signal and, a moment later, turns the steering wheel to the right.
Dord jumps up, outraged: “Did you see that? Left signal, right turn! That’s the most irrational behavior I’ve ever witnessed!” M00N laughs: “But nobody got upset, not in the car and not on the road. Maybe he knows what he’s doing!”
The Riddle
A driver is heading off on vacation with his family. At some point during the trip, he switches on the turn signal on the left side of his car, and immediately afterward starts turning the steering wheel to the right.
Nobody thinks this is unusual, neither the passengers in the car nor the other drivers on the road. In short, everything is perfectly normal. How is that possible?
Hint
A turn signal isn’t only for turning. And not every road is straight.
Solution
The driver is on a divided highway with two lanes in each direction and is about to pass another car right where the road curves to the right. So he switches on the left turn signal to indicate the lane change but, following the road, still has to turn the steering wheel to the right (with a slightly wider curve than he would have taken without changing lanes).
Dord takes a closer look at the curve and, much against his will, has to admit that it’s all perfectly logical. Even on Paradoxon.