how the fuck you can set a pair of wired earbuds down for 5 minutes and they get tangled up beyond recognition
In: Physics
The answer to this is a universal secret… we’ll sooner be able to travel between galaxies than understand what fuckery is afoot with auto-tangle wires!
There are many ways to explain it, but I like math, so I will pass this explanation on to you.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-mathematical-law-that-causes-your-headphones-to-tangle
There are two choices: 1) you choose a stable folding pattern for them, in which case they don’t tangle, or 2) you choose an unstable folding pattern, in which they are tangled before you set them down, you just don’t know it.
Millennia ago, early sailors discovered “flaking”, a rope coiling scheme that prevents tangling. They’ve solved this problem for thousands of years. Alas, these are not the days of sailing ships, and most people know nothing about sailing. Most people use the unstable, round-and-round, coiling scheme which almost guarantees tangling by twisting the line.
Because there are billions of different ways it can fold in on itself, only 1 of which is untangled. Every other one is tangled. It’s just probability/stats.
This is a great example of entropy, entropy is the concept that a closed system (in this case the wire) will tend towards its most chaotic state. Think of it this way, if I tear up a book and throw all the pages in the air, there are millions upon millions of ways for the pages to be unordered, but only one ordered way, that is all the pages, resting on the ground, in order, so a chaotic result is much more likely. The same is true for a wire, it has a few states that are ordered, a clean spiral, layed out flat, etc. But there are millions upon millions of possible knots. Especially if they’re jangling around in your pocket. If you want to prevent tangling, you’ll need to prevent chaos from happening, try wrapping the wire around a flat object, your phone or even a rectangular piece of cardboard will work, and hook the buds under one of the other wires, then when you want to use them, unhook the buds and unravel, no tangles, because you forced a ordered state.
Thanks for the explanations. I see I got downvoted so I’m sorry if I offended or bothered anyone with what I thought was a legitimate question.
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