The Ridiculous Debate: Are There More Wheels or Doors in the World?

A burning question has gone viral: if you were to count up all the wheels in the world, from those on every Hot Wheels car to those on every 18-wheeler, and then count each and every door, from the ones in Manhattan’s skyscrapers to the one on your mini fridge, which would there be more of? It seems like an unimportant question, but what makes it so relevant and heated is how unknowable and thought-provoking it is. New Zealand rugby referees manager Ryan Nixon sparked this crucial debate two weeks ago on a Twitter poll. Since then, the Internet has been divided with people and even companies choosing sides with valid points and firm beliefs.

The original poll shows that around 54 percent of the 223,347 participants think there are more wheels. The debate has blown up on TikTok as well, where most people seem to be choosing Team Wheels. UPS, for instance, is a firm believer that there are more wheels in the world, as they declared on their TikTok. GoPro took a bold stance, claiming the 50 million cameras they’ve sold all contain doors. The conflict is “tearing apart” the Late Late Show, and Hank Green is siding with Team Wheels, thanks to his kids’ (or maybe his) large toy collection. Choosing sides is hasty but exciting. At first, it seems obvious, but then you encounter strong points for both sides, and it forms a sort of determination to fight the opposing side to the death.

This piece wouldn’t be an Opinions article without an aggressive opinion. Even though the majority is confident wheel supporters, I’m certain it has to be doors. I can see why most people are choosing wheels, as it is one of the earliest inventions and has numerous uses, such as transportation. There are around 1.5 billion vehicles in the world as of 2022, and the majority of these vehicles have at least four wheels, making the wheels argument extremely strong. Even so, the amount of cities with large buildings is also easily imaginable. There are 10 thousand cities in the world, meaning there are millions of rooms, not to mention the countless closets in houses and buildings of all sorts throughout the globe. Rooms mean doors. From bedrooms to bathrooms, doors are an entry to most, if not all, rooms. These comparisons even out the playing field in a way, because they can’t be accurately measured but are relatively equal.

While it’s true that vehicles have wheels, all vehicles have doors too. The majority of cars have a 1:1 door to wheel ratio. Yet, there are many examples for other uses of wheels, such as hospital beds, bikes, skateboards, wheelchairs, toys, suitcases, and shopping carts. This argument is only strong because of its multiplicable aspect, meaning each item has a couple wheels, but the same applies for doors. The amount of standard doors we see in places from closets to offices is already very high, but think of the thousands of lockers in thousands of schools, as well as the cabinets, elevators, bathroom stalls, washing machines, and mailboxes in those door-filled buildings and houses!

What really makes this debate fun are the wacky ideas people are coming up with. Take, for example, coffins. Of course, it’s never going to be measurable, but you can imagine the billions of burials, and, even accounting for decay and how the use of caskets is a relatively modern trend, there has to be a very large number of coffins in the ground beneath us. As things get more abstract, the question of what a door or wheel even is arises. Even more crazy ideas, such as the debate-ending proposal of a doorknob being a wheel, stem from here. Does a wheel need to transport anything, or is any circular object connected to an axle a wheel? Does a wheel need to be able to keep rotating? This peculiar debate has people’s gears running like wheels and opens up doors to crazy ideas.