Don't think that science has just been asleep at the wheel on this one; there is an entire mathematical discipline that specializes in how seemingly random tangles form. Knot theory is in fact one of the more popular pastimes among the mathematically well-endowed, and it focuses entirely on the "How the hell do things get tangled?
To put it simply and it gets infinitely complicated , there is only one way for a cable to be straight, but a massive number of ways it can get tangled. Scientists have found literally hundreds of separate, unique types of individual knot, or "prime knots ," and they can be combined in infinite ways. You could go your whole life and never see the same knot twice.
So any time you have a bunch of long, flexible objects or, in the garden hose scenario, one really long object in multiple loops , the objects link in a number of places. When there's enough contact points, and the objects are long and slim enough, the chances for these objects not getting into one of those trillions of knot states is downright astronomical.
The more contact points, the more possible knotted states. At some point, it's just easier to use a bowie knife and buy a shitload of cords. So even a little motion -- jostling the box of Christmas lights when you move it, a change in temperature causing your garden hose to shrink a tiny bit -- makes those states catastrophically accumulate , often within seconds. Put the headphones in your backpack, walk across campus, boom: You have descended into knot hell.
Can It Be Fixed? Yes and no. The actual knotting will happen no matter what. Sure, the crucial element is motion, so restricting that by neatly arranging the cables and securing them with, say, cable clips will do the trick. But if you are the kind of person who considers that an option, chances are your cables are neatly arranged and alphabetized already. Which is widely considered an early warning sign of sociopathy. If the movement can't be restricted, like with those headphone cables, you can either muster up the patience and technique to roll them up neatly or, failing that, just bury them at the bottom of the bag under something heavy and hope for the best.
My old live echo loop act I did starting in had, at its peak, about 90 cables, including signal and power. All prime knots with up to seven crossings were observed. Our model can qualitatively account for the observed distribution of knots and dependence on agitation time and string length.
Schematic illustration of the simplified model for knot formation. Because of its stiffness, the string tends to coil in the box, as seen in Fig. As discussed in the text, we model knots as forming due to a random series of braid moves of the end segment among the adjacent segments diagrams at bottom. The overall connectivity of the segments is indicated by the dashed line. According to my tongue, that hole is definitely wider.
Register or Log In. Did you know that there is a mathematical formula that explains why your headphone wires get tangled? Believe it or not, this phenomenon has been the subject of scientific research. Earbud tangles are a function of the length of the wire and the amount of agitation the wire is subjected to.
When the two are plotted against each other — length versus agitation — the rate of knots and tangles follows the statistical pattern that describes a curve. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith from the Department of Physics of the University of California in San Diego demonstrated this phenomenon: It revealed that a cord of less than 46 centimeters in length about 1 foot six inches will almost never tangle itself when sealed inside a rotating box for a period of time.
Smith of the University of California at San Diego. But between 46cm and cm the probability of a knot forming rises dramatically. For more articles worth reading, visit The Browser.
Best of the Web. Why do earphone cords always get tangled? Share using Email. By Robert Cottrell 23rd June
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