Crowonthepost t1_iqpo3rw wrote on October 2, 2022 at 4:41 AM

I had always heard this referenced as a case for entropy. Their natural state is to be tangled. We impose order on them by making them straight. Left unattended though they will always move towards disorder.

I understand your question was more about the physical forces at work. But I always thought this was interesting!

Edit: autocorrect

BurnOutBrighter6 t1_iqprns7 wrote on October 2, 2022 at 5:20 AM

Yes it's a case for entropy.

>Their natural state is to be tangled. We impose order on them by making them straight.

Even more than this, the "why" can be explained with probability. There are thousands, millions, maybe infinite different tangled states a cord can be in, and exactly one non tangled state. Being tangled is the "natural state" simply because it's by far the most likely state.

Every time you put the cord in your pocket and scrunch it around, you're picking another random configuration. Since "untangled" is vanishingly unlikely when picking randomly from all possible configurations, it "spontaneously" comes out tangled ~every time.