right handed and left handed go back to the definition of coordinate systems
(which goes back to the way the world works)
standard cartesian coordinates is a right handed coordinate system
draw x, y, z on a piece of paper:
positive x to the right of page
positive y up (toward top of page)
positive z out of page toward you
x, y and z are mutually perpendicular
then the cross product (vector product of two vectors)
+x (direction) cross +y (direction) = +z (direction)
left handed systems are "backward"
+x (direction) cross +y (direction) = -z (direction)
this represents how the world works - torque, angular momentum, ampere's law, poynting vector, etc
essentially everything one meets in physics (hence the real world) is right handed
(i'm sure there's something that's left handed, but it escapes me right now)
one can distinguish right handed and left handed system by using ones right hand,
see the right hand rule for curve orientation
if the curvature is in the direction of the curvature of the fingers, the vector points in the direction of the thumb
this works regardless of which side you look at the rotating object
note clockwise and counterclockwise are viewpoint dependent
looking at a spinning wheel from one side appears clockwise, but from the other side, it appears counterclockwise
whereas applying the right hand curvature process, the thumb points in the same direction,
regardless of what side of the wheel you're on