Kite strings. Nothing can match the tangled-ness of kite strings that have been “helpfully” gathered up by a non-kite person.
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These people sound like a ball of laughs.
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I can only speak to cables, and climbing rope. The latter being the beast that always finds a way to tie itself into a knot you can’t even comprehend. I’m guessing a thinner filament can get all sorts of tangled.
Must be one of our shared genes…
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http://www.pnas.org/content/104/42/16432.full
Spontaneous knotting of an agitated string
Abstract
It is well known that a jostled string tends to become knotted; yet the factors governing the “spontaneous” formation of various knots are unclear. We performed experiments in which a string was tumbled inside a box and found that complex knots often form within seconds. We used mathematical knot theory to analyze the knots. Above a critical string length, the probability P of knotting at first increased sharply with length but then saturated below 100%. This behavior differs from that of mathematical self-avoiding random walks, where P has been proven to approach 100%. Finite agitation time and jamming of the string due to its stiffness result in lower probability, but P approaches 100% with long, flexible strings. We analyzed the knots by calculating their Jones polynomials via computer analysis of digital photos of the string. Remarkably, almost all were identified as prime knots: 120 different types, having minimum crossing numbers up to 11, were observed in 3,415 trials. All prime knots with up to seven crossings were observed. The relative probability of forming a knot decreased exponentially with minimum crossing number and Möbius energy, mathematical measures of knot complexity. Based on the observation that long, stiff strings tend to form a coiled structure when confined, we propose a simple model to describe the knot formation based on random “braid moves” of the string end. Our model can qualitatively account for the observed distribution of knots and dependence on agitation time and string length.
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Agreed, sounds lovely and relaxing.
We had the ends come off several 1000 yard spools of parachute cord. The cord tumbles off the end of the spool and there’s no way to pull it without a total disaster. We had to trash all that cord. The knots were so dense and involved so much cord that we couldn’t even cut our way out of it.
I knew these people exist, but I didn’t know how to find them. Feels very A-Team.
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We could use some of these people in the State Department.
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Or in investigative journalism.
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I’m a tad disappointed that it took the BB crowd five comments in to allude to Plutarch’s (probably apocryphal) Alexandrian solution.
Me, I’m more partial to the Magee solution…
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