[imagesource: The Guardian / Getty Images]

Let’s just get one thing straight: it is virtually impossible to know exactly how many doors and wheels exist on this planet.

So the question posed by Ryan Nixon recently is absolutely ridiculous and making me slowly question why we are all here in the first place – a much more pertinent and interesting conversation if you ask me.

Nixon sparked the terribly silly internet debate with this simple Twitter poll:

My mates and I are having the STUPIDEST debate…

And I am here for it.

Do you think there are more doors or wheels in the world?

— Ryan Nixon (@NewYorkNixon) March 5, 2022

As you can see, the results of the Twitter poll show that more people reckon there are more wheels in the world than doors.

As I said, there is no way to know for sure, and society would truly be in a crisis if official resources and energy were directed towards finding a proper number.

But anyway, we’ll get into the debate. In fact, people have created graphs and formulas to prove their answer, reported The Independent.

Let’s take a look at those in favour of wheels:

“Who is voting doors???” responded one person. “There’s wheels on everything. I have wheels on my garment rack, makeup storage holder, rubbish bin. It’s definitely wheels.”

Another said: “Very solidly wheels. All cars have 4 wheels but 2-4 doors. An average home might have 6-10 doors but it also has 3 suitcases with 6-12 wheels. A collection of toy cars might have 400 wheels.”

This person went all out to demonstrate the argument for #TeamWheels:

I spent far too long on this please like and subscribe pic.twitter.com/qeImmTuoPH

— Mr.Darcy sans money and good breeding (@FuriousLives) March 6, 2022

On the other side of the debate are those in favour of doors:

“Doors,” said one person. “Four door cars and trucks nullify themselves. All ships have doors, no wheels. All buildings have doors, no wheels. Doors.”

One Twitter user applied a ratio to justify their answer. “Doors by far,” they responded. “Most things with wheels have at least a 2:1 door-wheel ratio, and then you have all the other doors in the world.”

“In my household there are 29 doors including fridge, cupboards, washing machine, tumble dryer and car,” one person said. “Got 4 wheels on my car and the hamster has a wheel, can’t think of any more wheels I’m saying doors”.

This doors person spent a fair amount of time creating an equation to prove his point:

Using the ideology that wheels are only for vehicles and doors only count if they can be walked through.

Think it’s quite clear that doors win. Let me know if I’ve missed anything major or something needs explaining. #wheelsvsdoors @whujoe pic.twitter.com/yvyOZYgmoP

— Alex 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@LFCALEX_7) March 7, 2022

I do not purport to understand that.

The debate leaked into other social media platforms, too:

@literallyjohngreenDoors are great. Wheels are great. But they are not equal in quantity.♬ original sound – John Green

@capatcho #wheelsvsdoors #teamwheels ♬ original sound – Icy Trey

Journalist Jenny Lawson has summed up this internet phenomenon pretty well:

Hailey: Tik Tok is having the stupidest debate about whether there are more doors or wheels in the world.

Me: That is stupid. Clearly it’s doors.

Hailey: WHAT. IT’S STUPID BC CLEARLY IT’S WHEELS.

And thus begins an hour long debate. Thanks tik tok.

— Jenny Lawson (@TheBloggess) March 9, 2022

Nixon really ought to have defined what constitute doors and wheels before unleashing such debate.

Here’s USA Today:

Carlo Ratti, a professor at the department of urban studies and planning at MIT, told USA TODAY that although he has not tried to calculate a definite answer, there are “many ways to look at this.”

“[Although,] I’m more like a door person,” he said. “The number of doors should be taken into account, and not just by looking at what’s in our homes.”

Now on top of stating your star sign whenever you meet someone new, you also have to say whether you are a doors person or a wheels person.

The Daily Record made a pretty decent attempt at calculating the possibilities but ultimately concluded that the “question as to whether the world is home to more wheels or doors is likely to remain unanswered.”

Indeed, the fact that the internet likes to have meaningless arguments is perhaps the only takeaway here.

[sources:independent&usatoday&dailyrecord]