In an era where our gadgets exceed the science fiction of just 20 years ago, it's amazing how many everyday annoyances have never gotten fixed. Nobody has invented tangle-proof wires, or smooth-pouring ketchup, or good-smelling bus passengers. You can't get too mad at science for not solving these problems. It's not like they haven't tried. It's just way more complicated than it sounds to fix things like ...

5 Wires That Get Tangled in Storage

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You stuff your headphones into your pocket, take them out half an hour later and curse as you try to untie a knot that looks like it was impossible to have formed on its own, like you have tiny knot-tying elves in your pockets trying to screw with you.

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We don't care what Dr. Jonas says. It's the elves, dammit!

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It's the same with your computer cables, and the Christmas lights in your attic, and your garden hose. In fact, everything in your home that is capable of twisting into a knot seems to be involved in a giant conspiracy against your sanity. And it always pisses you off, because there's no reason for it -- why would a bunch of wire that was in a nice loop when you stored it suddenly be a tangled mess later?

The Science:

Don't think that science has just been asleep at the wheel on this one; there is an entire mathematical discipline that specializes in how seemingly random tangles form. Knot theory is in fact one of the more popular pastimes among the mathematically well-endowed, and it focuses entirely on the "How the hell do things get tangled?" dilemma.

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"I don't see how my nudity helps this experiment in any way."

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And here's what they have found out: It is a near-mathematical certainty that a wire/string/hose/etc. of any length will knot in storage. To put it simply (and it gets infinitely complicated), there is only one way for a cable to be straight, but a massive number of ways it can get tangled. Scientists have found literally hundreds of separate, unique types of individual knot, or "prime knots," and they can be combined in infinite ways. You could go your whole life and never see the same knot twice.