Why shoelaces come untied - science answers crucial question

gubble

My laces come untied everytime i'mi around our dog. She's obsessed with undoing them.

ICBM

Sporky said:

ICBM said:

If I was having problems with double bows coming undone I would either try tripling it or replace the laces with ones that aren't rubbish...

Though with the right laces a single bow is pretty darned secure.

I wouldn't know, I haven't left the house with my laces single-bowed since about 1975 .

FX_Munkee

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

ICBM said:

If I was having problems with double bows coming undone I would either try tripling it or replace the laces with ones that aren't rubbish...

Though with the right laces a single bow is pretty darned secure.

I wouldn't know, I haven't left the house with my laces single-bowed since about 1975 .

It's quite liberating, you should give it a go.

Reverend

Sorry @ICBM your double loop hypothesis clearly demonstrates a lack of experience with Nike trainers. 

ESBlonde

I always have laces on shoes so I have extensive experience over many decades.
One of the biggest problems is the nylon type material used to make the modern tough laces, it has a slippery quality to it. Yes it solves or partly relieves  the age old problem of frayed/snapped laces when you're in a hurry but now you have to keep stopping and re-tying the damn things several times a day.
So I look for laces that are less prone to this and accept that I may well replace them a couple of times in the life of the shoe at a time to suit me.

If the research just did some good like inventing a tough reliable lace that is not low friction then it may be money well spent, I suspect not.

thomasross20

@ICBM I always loved that Russian pencil story! 
I'm glad I do engineering as a day job - it means I get my fix of this sort of thing during the day so I'm free to focus on music at night.
P.s. flat laces FTW!

ICBM

Reverend said:

Sorry @ICBM your double loop hypothesis clearly demonstrates a lack of experience with Nike trainers. 

Why would I wear trainers, Nike or otherwise? I don't do sports which require them. And if I did, I wouldn't wear them on the street.

I wear shoes.

Reverend

ICBM said:

Reverend said:

Sorry @ICBM your double loop hypothesis clearly demonstrates a lack of experience with Nike trainers. 

Why would I wear trainers, Nike or otherwise? I don't do sports which require them. And if I did, I wouldn't wear them on the street.

I wear shoes.

I pretty much never wear shoes. Comfort is a major consideration for me. Nike tend to have the best fit but they often use rounded laces that come undone when double looped.

as @thomasross20  said, flat laces. seem to be the answer. 

Ravenous

As it's a (virtual) Friday, let me run it off topic.

The "pencils in space" story is an old myth. Both Americans and Russians used pencils initially, then both sides moved over to pens which they bought commercially. Felt tip pens were tried too but apparently don't work well for some reason or another (I forget why).

I know we all love laughing at NASA, and we all like a funny but invented story, but NASA didn't waste billions on space pens...

Love the shoelace story though.

Neil

Ravenous said:

As it's a (virtual) Friday, let me run it off topic.

The "pencils in space" story is an old myth. Both Americans and Russians used pencils initially, then both sides moved over to pens which they bought commercially. Felt tip pens were tried too but apparently don't work well for some reason or another (I forget why).

I know we all love laughing at NASA, and we all like a funny but invented story, but NASA didn't waste billions on space pens...

Love the shoelace story though.

I already mentioned the NASA pen urban myth further up the page...

VimFuego

I can believe the NASA pen thing, but that whole space story? nah I'm not buying that.

Ravenous

VimFuego said:

I can believe the NASA pen thing, but that whole space story? nah I'm not buying that.

Well it's important to bear in mind the space pens they bought in only work on FLAT surfaces

Sporky

Flat-flat, or flat relative to local space-time?

Ravenous

Sporky said:

Flat-flat, or flat relative to local space-time?

Flat flat.  All parts of the paper must be moving at the same velocity.

(Sorry OP, I've gone off on a rage and phuq'd up the original thread. But I hate this urban mythery.)

Ravenous

By the way the actual paper is quite interesting:

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsa/473/2200/20160770.full.pdf

Sporky

Ravenous said:

Sporky said:

Flat-flat, or flat relative to local space-time?

Flat flat.  All parts of the paper must be moving at the same velocity.

I take it this assumes an underlying Euclidian geometry?

Ravenous

Yes it assumes no nearby steep gravitational gradients or anything.

(I knew when I wrote it that someone would call me out on that assumption. But my rambling had already outstayed its welcome by then so I gave up.)

thecolourbox

I don't need science to explain why mine are untied, it's because I didn't tie them in the first place

Sporky

Ravenous said:

Yes it assumes no nearby steep gravitational gradients or anything.

(I knew when I wrote it that someone would call me out on that assumption. But my rambling had already outstayed its welcome by then so I gave up.)

Outstaying a rambling's welcome is literally my jam.

FazTheWookie

Try using the "Fell Runner's Knot" to tie your laces. Just as secure as a double knot, but still comes undone by pulling the ends of the laces.