Tangled cables: How do they work?

[tehweave]

I'll bet all of us have been in a situation like this. I'm carrying three separate cables of three separate lengths. I drop them on the floor accidentally. As I go to pick up one cable, I find the other two are now hopelessly tangled up with the third. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? I dropped them three feet at MOST, they hit the floor, I pick them back up, and they go from "three separate cables" to "hopeless mess."

I tried counting all the knots. I stopped counting once I hit ten, because I got so pissed off. How is this possible? If you put several cables into a box, there's a good chance that you didn't throw them in together, you put them all in separately. Yet when you take them out of the box, they're all tangled up.

Can someone explain this? Maybe someone with an aptitude for science that knows enough physics to predict how two cables go from not even touching to an explosion of tangle?

Once you answer that question then we'll get to the bottom of my missing socks from my washer/dryer.

 

[tehweave]

How did I know someone would post that?

 

[Fenring]

Your cables are suffering from Cable Attraction Syndrome.

It's a fact all cables are naturally attracted to all other cables (if you leave two cables in a room, when you next enter it, they will have moved closer). When a cable is near enough to another cable, the two cables will try to become one (this is how companies can created DUAL LINK DVI cables as it is just two DVI cables joined together). Giving the cables a thicker covering of plastic around the wires will slightly discourage the cables from joining. There's not much you can do aside from keeping cables apart as cables have not been fully domesticated yet.

Your cables may also have a slight side of Wound Cord Disorder. When any cord is kept in a wound state for an incredibly long time, they will try to rewind themselves into a circle whenever possible, often around other things. this can be cured over time by taping the cord to a stright piece of metal. Think of it as having the cord quit winding cold turkey.

 

[tehweave]

I love you all.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

... i just moved houses i had all my cables in a neat box all ready to come out. i get them out it is like a creeper blew up in there. I do not understand!!!!

 

[Monkfish Acc.]

I personally think there is some sort of gnome who runs into your house and tangles the fuck out of all your cables as you sleep.
He then sharpens all your pencils down to the very nub and takes one sock out of every second pair you own.

He is kind of a prick.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I personally think there is some sort of gnome who runs into your house and tangles the fuck out of all your cables as you sleep.
He then sharpens all your pencils down to the very nub and takes one sock out of every second pair you own.

He is kind of a prick.

Well, that explains the gnome repellent my roommates use. We don't seem to have those problems around here.

 

[UnkeptBiscuit]

Cables are horny bastards. When no one's looking, they get at it like animals.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Probably the same thing that makes it so when you break a stick you never break it perfectly in the middle.

A bit off topic, when I saw the title, I was kinda hoping this could be a new thing where it was like the ICP magnets how do they work thing.

I was expecting a LRR crew vid or something.

 

[fanklok]

I say with magnets.

 

[DasDestroyer]

Wait, if when two cables get tangled up, it's because they're horny and in love, then that means when one cable gets tangled up by itself...
/shudder

 

[DarthFennec]

This has apparently been a problem for a very long time.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well they are a bit like women.
Explain/understand them... there is just no way, you simply haveto accept them as they are, tangled.

 

[InnerRebellion]

I don't even know. I put my headphones away, wrapped perfectly... they come out in a tangled clusterfuck.

 

[keve4433]

Didn't you hear? There once was a network tech who loved his job more than anything in the world. One day he got a call from a rather big business that was located in his area, they needed someone to clean up there cable closet and were offering him a rather large sum of money, he took the job without a second thought. When he arrived and they showed him to their closet he saw this.

He started to have second thoughts, but he needed the money, he help his breath and stepped in. He was in there for three months, his sanity slowly slipping away, until finally he snapped. One day he ran out and started tying every cable in sight into one giant mega knot. Eventually it got so large that it engulfed him and he died of starvation. Now his ghost wanders the earth tangling every cable it comes across.

 

[FalloutJack]

It's the power of the Uzumaki. The spiral has a will of its own and acts accordingly.

 

[JemothSkarii]

I say it's the Illuminati, part of their big plan

 

[Googooguru]

Gremlins....

or Tanglemon Pokemon mischievous little bastards

 

[Toriver]

when two cables really love eachother....

I just had to say, this post made my day. When I started reading this thread, this caught me by surprise. Awesome.

OP: I don't know why cables end up like that, even after working a summer in the media department in my university and dealing with cables all summer. I think my boss tried to explain it to me once, but I just forgot. But I do have a solution. Buy velcro cable ties or just simply wrap up the extra length of cable between your appliance and the wall and tie the loops up with string, tape or a twist tie. It works well enough.

 

[rubinigosa]

I heard that it is because the metal in the cables gets warm and longer when they are used and colder when not so the plastic around has to expand and then shrink witch makes it curl because of this.