Why do chords always get tangled

The Explainer is a weekly podcast from TheJournal. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Newsletters : Sign Up. Partner Publications. The latest Irish and international sports news for readers and members. A platform helping fund the type of in-depth journalism that the public wants to see. So there, Mam. Image: Justin Baeder via Flickr. Short URL. Published with permission from:.

Published with permission from. Business Insider. Business Insider is a business site with strong financial, media and tech focus. See more articles by Business Insider. Contribute to this story: Send a Correction. Read next:. Embed this post. Your Email. Recipient's Email. Your Feedback. Your Email optional. Report a Comment. Please select the reason for reporting this comment. Please select your reason for reporting Most of us coil our wires in on itself around our hands, twisting the cable with every single turn, as demonstrated by the London School of Sound in the gif below.

This method is incorrect as each coil creates a twist in the wire, which becomes apparent when you unfurl it. The great thing about the over-under method is that every initial coil is countered by the loop you make with your twisted palm.

Hopefully, our guide on how to detangle headphone wires and keep them that way will help lessen those frustrating instances. The next time you put your headphones on, just remember how the slightest change in orientation can set off a twist effect in the wire, and being wary of this can make a big difference. Do you have a great tip for keeping headphone wires tangle-free?

Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. The cable spaghetti involved in A-B testing. Note just how nice that Thieaudio Voyager 3 cable is! You might be interested: Do expensive cables matter? On the other hand, most high-end headphones make use of a Litz wire , which consists of several individually-insulated copper wire strands woven together.

This type of wire is generally considered to be more robust and more flexible. Raymer and Smith performed 3, trials to demonstrate this. Apple's iPhone earbuds are centimetres 55 inches long and thus right at the 50 percent tangle-rate-sweet-spot, at the top of the curve. In other words, if you place your earbuds in a bag the odds of them tangling into a knot as you carry them around are 50 percent, at least. Raymer and Smith didn't look at strings with more than one branch, but anecdotally I can confirm that the tangle-rate is pretty high.

Finally, here is a schematic showing how a cord that starts off neatly coiled - you don't just stuff them in there, do you? It shows that one end of a cord only has to cross another part of the cord twice in order to start spontaneously knotting itself:. That last part is perhaps the most magical of all: The research shows that your earphones are indeed spontaneously knotting themselves.

Sure, it's because of their length and the agitation of the container they're in.