How come tied shoelaces love to untie, but clumsily packed away wires love to knot themselves?

369 viewsOther

How come tied shoelaces love to untie, but clumsily packed away wires love to knot themselves?

In: Other

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just putting it simply without going too deep into the science: when you walk or run there are forces exerted on your shoelaces that can cause them to loosen. Different knot technique can mitigate this. For cables the longer the cable, loosely coiled, then agitated, has a high likelihood of entangling itself. I think i read somewhere that the ideal cable length to prevent self/pocket entanglement is around 30 cm which is really not practical lol

Edit to add:
Shoelaces can be one of two states, tied or untied, and the forces applied are “impact” from walking and running. A loose cable in a pocket has one state of being untangled, but almost infinite ways to be entangled, and the forces different. It’s more agitation from rubbing against other things in your pocket or from your leg

You are viewing 1 out of 8 answers, click here to view all answers.