Modern Mysteries

Scientists solve age-old shoelace mystery

By T.K. Randall
April 12, 2017 ·  14 comments

Why do shoelaces keep unknotting themselves ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Oto Zapletal It's one of the most notorious irritations of the modern age - that moment when, looking down at your feet, you realize that your shoelaces have come undone and are flailing all over the place.

Now though, a team of mechanical engineers at UC Berkeley believe that they have finally discovered exactly what it is that causes our shoelaces to untie themselves.

The answer, as it turns out, is a combination of stomping and whipping forces that act like an invisible hand as we walk - loosening the knot and then tugging at the ends until they unravel.The research however has a broader application than simply helping to keep our shoes tied.

"When you talk about knotted structures, if you can start to understand the shoelace, then you can apply it to other things, like DNA or microstructures, that fail under dynamic forces," said study co-author Christopher Daily-Diamond.

"This is the first step toward understanding why certain knots are better than others, which no one has really done."

Source: Phys.org | Comments (14)

Tags: Shoelaces