‘It’s unpredictable,” says Oliver O’Reilly, a professor in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “But when it happens, it’s in two or three strides and it’s catastrophic. There’s no way of coming back from it.”
Yes, the spontaneous untying of shoelaces is merciless, random and irrecoverable – as O’Reilly has proved in his new study. A Berkeley team used a mechanical leg and a human running on a treadmill to examine why the untying happens. They found that neither banging a leg up and down, nor simply jerking it forward made laces untie – it was the combination of the two that did so. The stomping of the foot relaxes the knot. The swinging of the foot acts like invisible hands to separate the outer ends of the laces. By then, cataclysm is mere seconds away.
O’Reilly’s research would be redundant if we lived in the world that Back to the Future II promised us – with automated self-lacing hi-tops. But sadly, nowhere has humanity shown its capacity for regression more obviously than in the market for shoe-closing devices. Even velcro, which seemed to be winning the closure-format wars of the 80s, is now almost unheard of. Instead, we continue to rely on a centuries-old technological bodge to finish off trainers spun on cutting- edge 3D looms.
Far worse, we have also been taught a method of tying our shoes that makes it more likely they will come undone: the classic bow, a waking nightmare of shoe technology. It has been known for decades that superior alternatives abound. In 2005, the first-ever three-minute TED Talk was on one such technique. Terry Moore of the Radius Foundation suggested a reversal of the classic. Start as usual, but once you have a bow in your left hand, simply go under with your right hand (rather than the habitual over). The resulting knot sits far squarer to the shoe, and, mechanically, that means it loosens less often.
O’Reilly’s study tested this alternative against the standard knot, and found it to be five times as effective. The only downside is that it’s mildly harder to teach to children. For those who can’t get their head around its backwards nature, the internet also recommends something that has become known as Ian’s Secure Knot, after the shoelace guru who popularised it. Here, after crossing to form the base, you make two bows, cross them, then thread them through the hole you made as a result of crossing.
On Ian’s Shoelace Site, New Zealander Ian Fieggen suggests a vast array of knots. The Secure is the highest-rated by his users. His own testing, he says, reveals it to be twice as sturdy as a standard knot. “Regardless of the knot used,” he suggests, “Finish it off by pulling the knot nice and tight. Follow-up by pushing the bits in the centre of the knot snugly together to make the knot compact and secure.”
Fieggen laments a culture in which we have become increasingly inured to laces that come undone. He points out that the more rounded and the more plastic the laces, the more likely they are to untie. He suggests replacing anything too rotund with traditional flat laces, made from softer materials. He also recommends waxing with beeswax or rubber cement.
The key message here, though, isn’t about rubber cement – it’s about our common humility in the face of the vastness of knowledge. The next time your local pub pointy-head starts rambling about collateralised debt obligations, just remember he probably doesn’t even know how to tie his own shoelaces.
