Ponytail Physics

[Cimorene]

Here's an interesting hair-related article I thought I'd share with you all:

Ponytail Physics: How Competing Forces Shape Bundles of Hair (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/03/03/ponytail-physics-how-competing-forces-shape-bundles-of-hair/)

"Some of the major forces conspiring to shape a ponytail are elasticity, gravity, tension and pressure. That last property, Goldstein and his colleagues found, comes from the curvatures of individual fibers, from which the physicists derived a so-called equation of state for hair. A similar concept was applied more than 65 years ago in studies of the compressibility of wool." :hmm:

Someone from LHC should contact these researchers for a study of bun physics, because I've seen some pretty gravity-defying 'dos around here! :p

[HintOfMint]

Very interesting!

I suppose that could be a new milestone for those growing out very short hair--the length at which it ceases being a ponytail stub unaffected by gravity and starts acquiring the ponytail shape (dependent on the average random intrinsic curvature of the hairs in question, as they might say:p)

[Cimorene]

Hmm...maybe we could have another hair classification system (like we need one :p) based on the Rapunzel number. Any physics/math genius longhairs want to get started on that for us? :D

[HintOfMint]

Haha, don't look at me, I'm going to be a lawyer.

[jacqueline101]

I think its interesting. I have apl hair and I have some what of a nice pony tail.

[owlathena]

How interesting!

[FrozenBritannia]

Remind me not to volunteer for any pony tail studies... Wonder what the subjects thought of the cutting back repeatedly thing?

[annamoonfairy]

Food for thought

[sjshelt]

I heard about this on NPR!!! Interesting!! They were also talking about how to create the 'perfect pony poof' lol. So supposedly there is a formula that makes the perfect ponytail...

[Tisiloves]

I'm hoping the ponytails they cut were on mannequins, but I doubt it :(