h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How do cables manage, unaided, to twist themselves around each other, the furniture, the cat and any other object which remains immobile in the same room for more than 30 seconds?

There was this Greek geeza called Pythagorus (I think?) who had a theory that everything in the world was either stuff or meta-stuff.

Stuff is what you and I can see, touch, bite, own etc.
Meta-stuff is the idea behind the stuff.

So we have cables, ropes, chains etc doing their thing.
And we have the archetype behind them - let us call it 'meta-cable' so we have label for it.

Well, I reckon that meta-cable is related to meta-snake and so it just likes to coil up and catch other stuff.
Yep, as simple as that. I bet you are amazed.

;-Þ

Incidentally, if you want to coil a rope so that it can be uncoiled without snagging, here is how:

1. grasp the loose end in one hand (the 'holding' hand)

2. hold the rope loosely in the other hand (the 'moving' hand) and move hands apart a fixed amount
(amount of movement determines the size of the loop)

3. grip rope and move hands together

4. pass rope grip into the 'holding' hand to form a loop

5. for alternate loops, the fingers of the 'moving' hand rolls the rope a 1/2 (half) twist before passing the rope loop
(This has the effect of reversing the alternate loops, so that the twists in adjacent loops counteract as the rope is uncoiled.)

With practise, the technique becomes easy and the eye of the on-looker is completely fooled.

Now you've learnt sommut!

I learned this technique at my daddy's knee at a very early age. He was an electrician and electrical engineer, working in the aero industry, so often had to coil cables for instrumentation and so on in a manner designed not to cause damage. I was stunned to see a BBC engineer coiling signal cable bundles over his arm once - guaranteed to lead to a twisted horrible mess.

The same technique works for rope, of course, as any good boy scout knows.

But it all goes pear-shaped when the cables are laid out neatly in the dark space behind a computer! The cable goblins appear and nurdle your tidy cable runs into something resembling an explosion in a spaghetti factory. Bastards.