Why Do Your Shoelaces Keep Coming Loose? Experts Tell You Why

An Unsolved Mystery That Haunts Everyone! Why Do Your Shoelaces Keep Coming Loose? Experts Tell You Why

Every moment on the earth, in addition to eating, drinking, and lazing, people do the same repetitive action, and there is another thing that almost troubles everyone that people believe will happen, that is, the shoelaces are loose. Recently, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have solved a mystery in our lives: Why do shoelaces loosen by themselves?

What Force Is Causing The Shoelaces To Unwind?

Oliver M. O'Reilly, professor of mechanical engineering, and Christine E. Gregg and Christopher A. Daily-Diamond — released a report saying that the force of your foot hitting the ground, combined with the motion of your leg, causes the laces to loosen and eventually unravel.

When you run, the soles of your feet hit the ground with about seven times the force of gravity. This impact is transmitted to the knots, causing them to rub against each other, and over and over again until the knots are undone, and the swinging leg exerts an inertial force on the free ends of the laces - lo and behold - and soon you The laces would wiggle and look like overcooked spaghetti.

Is There A Way To Keep The Shoelaces From Unraveling?

The researchers found that strong shoe knots were usually square knots, while weak shoe knots were "granny" knots.

A quick way to figure out which type of knot is by looking at the knots in the shoelaces. Weak knots will usually have one loop towards the toes and one towards the ankle. Daley-Diamond said: The loops of a strong shoe knot are usually facing each other.

For those who have trouble tying their shoes, there are of course other options, such as loafers or sneakers that use Velcro.

"We spent countless weekends walking up and down the aisles, staring at the laces and watching them come undone," Greg said.

Initial experiments used barefoot running shoes, fashion shoes, running sneakers, and hiking boots.

Greg said she spent many hours sitting at a table swinging her legs to see if the movement had any effect on the knots. It turned out that there was no effect, and if it was just stomping, there was no effect.

While running, the force of her feet hitting the floor or the treadmill, combined with her gait, eventually caused the shoelaces to loosen. In an article published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, the researchers wrote that this loosening was "a sudden and catastrophic phenomenon."

The researchers used a high-speed camera to record Greg's run and attached an accelerometer to the shoe knot to measure the force on her foot.

There are many variables that were not assessed, such as shoe and lace type, tightness of knots, etc. "If you add a bunch of other variables, it's endless," O'Reilly said.

It took two years from hypothesizing to testing. O'Reilly said the work was a "loving exercise" of nights and weekends after the researchers finished their full-time jobs.

Besides the inconvenience of having to retie your shoes, is there any significance to this study? He says there are practical uses, such as improving surgical sutures.

O'Reilly said the initial germ of the project came when he was teaching his 5-year-old daughter, Anna, how to tie shoelaces. Now Anna is 14 years old.

He said that in his 52 years of life, he has often encountered shoelaces coming loose. "I don't want her to have the same problem," said O'Reilly, who wore Converse sneakers.

So, after extensive research, will his shoelaces still come undone?

"This kind of disaster happens every day," he said with a laugh.