https://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2018/06/05/loose-ends/ Skip to content The Last Word On Nothing "Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing" - Victor Hugo * Home * About Us + Ann Finkbeiner + Ben Goldfarb + Cameron Walker + Cassandra Willyard + Christie Aschwanden + Craig Childs + Emily Underwood + Eric Wagner + Helen Fields + Jane C. Hu + Jennifer Holland + Jessa Gamble + Kate Horowitz + Rebecca Boyle + Richard Panek + Sally Adee + Sarah Gilman * Books by Us Loose Ends By: Cameron Walker | June 5, 2018 [3559499656_50f31ddbd5_z-475x356]I usually avoid talking to people at the gym. But a few weeks ago, the man next to me had his shoes untied, and I couldn't help myself. The laces were bright red, and extremely long. He was doing side steps that looked like they had high trip potential. And I was extra-sensitive to falls that day-my mother-in-law had ended up in the hospital after losing her footing in her backyard, and this gentleman looked about the same age, and was approaching his exercises with the same determination I imagined she would. "Could I tie those for you?" I asked. I felt like I needed to give some sort of explanation. "I tie a lot of shoes," I said. He laughed, and thanked me. "You must have kids. I remember that," he said. "When my son was little, even if I double-knotted them, his shoes always came untied, too. I don't know how he did it." That's the thing, we don't even have to do anything. Except move our feet. The very action of running--and also, I'd imagine, skipping, dancing, climbing up on the kitchen counter when you're not supposed to, sprinting through the library after being told not to, hurtling yourself over the guardrail at Glacier Point--creates enough force on shoelaces to make that sweet little bow you tied fall apart, sometimes in a matter of seconds. (The guardrail thing also creates enough of a squeezing force on a parent's heart to render them at first speechless, then unable to stop yelling.) Last year, researchers filmed a colleague's shoes as the shoes were put through their paces on a treadmill. During the run, the shoe hits the ground with seven times the force of gravity, and that force stretches and relaxes the knot, which can begin to wiggle free. As the foot swings to recover and take the next step, the shoelaces whip around, creating inertial forces on the lace. Combined with the loosening knot, the laces fly free. Watching the movements in slow motion, the researchers found that this can all happen in two strides. But sometimes, laces really do stay tied all day. The researchers aren't sure why. What they do know is that the moment the knot starts to falter, it can cause "an avalanche of failure," one said. They have looked into it further, adding weights at the ends of laces, trying different lengths and styles of laces. One of their interests is in DNA and other microstructures, determining what forces could make them fail, and what arrangements make them resist detangling. With shoes, there is a way to tie a single knot that makes it less likely to fail. The reef knot, or square knot, holds laces more securely than the granny knot. The easy give-away is that if you tie your laces and the bow turns so that it runs along your shoe, rather than across the top of your shoe, you're likely tying a granny knot. (I spent a half-hour trying to figure out which one I did. Then I re-learned how to tie my shoe.) I still remember the feeling of someone else tying my shoe. It feels secure, comforting. Even the rhythm of it, the words you learn as you are taught how to tie it. The rabbit goes around the tree, under the hole, and out the other side. Right over left, left over right, makes this knot both tidy and tight. I can see my neighbor bent over my small sneakers, showing me the rabbit. I can remember my dad's hands as he tugged at the ends of my laces. Now I am the one tying, the one teaching. Rabbits, rhymes, I'll say anything if it helps keep everything together. Maybe I should be saying something to myself: with this knot, I am trying to stop the avalanche of failure. Even though I know nothing can stop it. The man with the bright red laces knew this. "Are you sure I can't help?" I asked him. "Oh, no," he said, smiling. "They'll just come untied again anyway." And then he sidestepped merrily away, his laces slithering along behind him. * Image by Elilemie (Flickr/Creative Commons license) 3 thoughts on "Loose Ends" 1. [5e2d41fa] Sameer says: June 5, 2018 at 2:48 pm This super-fast (good) knot will save you all the trouble of rabbiting around, and it is impossible to make it into a granny knot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPIgR89jv3Q 2. [6e2b0e09] Old Geezer says: June 5, 2018 at 10:53 pm I remember when this study was first published. My first thought was that any 12 year old boy scout can tell you that a granny knot won't hold up. Because I work around the tractor and other equipment, I always tie my shoes or boots and then tuck them into the tops. I don't trip over them or snag them on the various knobs and handles that seem to stick out all over. I have now taken to tucking in my laces on dress shoes and gym shoes as well. 3. [59d30736] Cameron says: June 7, 2018 at 10:09 am Old Geezer--I so wanted to be in Boy Scouts! I was 30 years too late. Glad you're keeping all your loose ends in check. Comments are closed. Categorized in: Cameron, Curiosities, Physics Tags: knots, physics, shoelaces, shoes Post navigation - Redux: Fasting - The New Fad Diet? Hello, I'm Back, Did You Miss Me? - Copyright (c) 2024 All Rights Reserved. The writing on this blog belongs to the person who wrote it and should not be re-published without explicit permission of the author. Thank you! The header images courtesy of the astounding Public Domain Review https://publicdomainreview.org/about/ and the equally splendid Biodiversity Heritage Library https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ Decode by Scott Smith Search Search for: [ ] [Search] Subjects and Writers Subjects and Writers[Select Category ] Who's Up Next? 6/10 Christie 6/12 Sarah 6/14 People of LWON Archives Archives [Select Month ] Prizes & New Books Becky Boyle's Our Moon, published by Penguin Random House, takes the moon personally and not everybody can get away with that. The book was the lead review of the NY Times Book Review. Nell Greenfieldboyce, Friend of LWON, just published Transient and Strange, with W.W. Norton. It's a book of startling science-adjacent essays, and not everybody can get away with that either. One essay began life as an LWON post, Ben Goldfarb's Crossings with Norton Press, is about his preoccuption other than beavers: the ecology of road kill. The book is on 2023's year-end-best lists of the New York Times, Kirkus, Science News, the New Yorker, Smithsonian, and Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards. Cameron Walker's new book, National Monuments of the USA, is for kids, and writing honestly about national monuments is a little harder than you'd think. Sally Adee's new book, We Are Electric, published by Hachette Press, was glowed upon in a New York Times review which featured the phrase, "the long grass of some mightily weird modern research." Craig Child's newest book is Tracing Time, published by Torrey House Press, about the rock art on his home Colorado Plateau. One advantage of writing for free for LWON is that you can write about things that have triggered books or fallen out of their research. So: Sarah's seabirds, Sally's bioelectricity, Craig's rock art, Ben's roadkill.