Mythbusters Hair Myth

**lynlora** · January 28th, 2009, 07:55 PM

Was watching the Mythbusters show tonight and one of the myths was climbing down a rope made out of sheets,tissue paper and human hair.For the hair one Kari weaved together about 50 ponytails.She made three short ropes and then weaved all them together.Then tied each section into one long rope. Climbed down from a roof 140 feet up and the hair rope actually held !!!!

(Edited because of the wrong name)

**Addy** · January 28th, 2009, 08:02 PM

Drats, I decided to watch Dog The Bounty Hunter instead.

Should have watched MythBusters. It's a good show.

**Juneii** · January 28th, 2009, 08:04 PM

that's a bit gross, climbing down roofs by a rope of dead skin cells, but yes, our hair is quite strong when used together :]

**Fairlight63** · January 28th, 2009, 08:18 PM

Thats an interesting program. Wish that I had seen it.
Reminds me of when my daughter had long hair & strands of her hair would get wrapped around the brush of my vacuum cleaner the strands of hair would get REALLY STRONG almost like a rope.

**wintersun99** · January 28th, 2009, 08:23 PM

.............

**Sashay** · January 29th, 2009, 12:43 AM

Wow, I missed that one. I would have liked to see that, but I believe it!

**andber** · January 29th, 2009, 01:43 AM

If you google on "Man pulls train with ponytail" you'll find several videos about a man in India with a ponytail (not so long thou) who pulls a train with it. Human hair surely is strong when there are many hairstrands together!! Even a single strand can be quite strong!

Here's a task for anybody who would like to join in

Take one of your hairs that has fallen off. Tie a loop/knot in one of the ends and try to lift different things with the hair strand. What is the heaviest the hair can take?

**A'eorryn** · January 29th, 2009, 01:57 AM

If I'm remembering correctly, the average strand of human hair is stronger than a piece of steel wire of the same thickness. My grandma has hair like fishline (no joke, I can't break a strand of her hair to save my life, it slips out of my fingers before it'll snap!) at age 75, and though my own hair was nice and fine when I was young, after 15 years of having barely any now that it's growing out I see that mine is just like hers - though to a lesser degree, so maybe it will get progressively fishliney as I age. It means it isn't terribly 'soft' (my ends could take your eye out!

), but it sure is nice for bulk

~A'eorryn

**Solange** · January 29th, 2009, 04:33 AM

I saw that one. Mythbusters is one of the few shows I make a point to watch. It was Kari, not Tori, actually, but she did find working with the hair unappealing, lol. Handling lots of ratty hair from other people's heads would be very different than styling silky combed hair still attached to a person, lol.

**DelynofRhondda** · January 29th, 2009, 04:45 AM

I would believe this theory. One day for giggles, I took seven strands of hair, spun them together, and (this is the giggles part ...)

Replaced the high "d" string on my Gothic Bray Harp. The string came up to tune and held during a 45-min. practice. It probably would have been playable longer. It showed no ware from the finger-nails, peg or pin. Just a slight crimp where it had been held into the soundboard. Even the end wrapped around the tuning peg smoothed out.

I was curious about tinsel strength after reading different "historical" stringing materials. Also chose that particular string as I didn't know what pull it would have on the soundboard. One of these days I may try the entire upper octave with various count strands. (Lower octaves I don't have enough length for ... yet.)