x + y = Best way to tie your laces
A complex mathematical equation has been used to work out the best ways of lacing shoes and of tying the bows
PARIS - Mathematician Burkard Polster of Monash University in Victoria, Australia, has answered a question that, for centuries, has vexed humanity.
What is the best way to lace one's shoes?
Is it the criss-cross way, in which laces are threaded diagonally from eyelet to eyelet?
Or is it its popular rival, the straight lacing method, where one end of the lace is taken from a bottom eyelet to a top eyelet, and the other threaded through horizontally?
Using a complex equation to factor in lace dynamics, the pulley principle, the number of eyelets, tensioning power of the person putting on the shoe and so on, Mr Polster reached a dramatic conclusion.
The traditional methods are indeed the strongest ways of tightening a shoe to a foot.
But in other respects they are no match for 'a rarely used and unexpected type of lacing', he reports in Nature.
'Bow tie' lacing uses horizontal, vertical and criss-cross lacing in a cunning series, providing the least wasteful use of the shoelace.
Sadly, regardless of your lacing method, you are inevitably let down by your bow.
In essence, bows are typically two half-granny knots on top of each other and are chronically prone to slippage.
Mr Polster points out that with just a little change in our habits, we could easily tie a fancy bow using a reef knot.
'Hundreds of years of trial and error have led to the strongest ways of lacing our shoes,' he laments.
'Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the way in which most of us tie our shoelaces.' --AFP |
