Tear-Free Hair Brushing? All You Require is Mathematics

Tear-Free Hair Brushing? All You Require is Mathematics

brushing
There are better ways to brush tangled hair. Credit: WSJ.

As any person who has actually ever had to clean lengthy hair knows. Knots are a nightmare. Yet, with enough experience, many discovered detangling techniques with the least amount of discomfort. Begin at the bottom, function your means up to the scalp with short. Gentle brushes, and apply detangler when needed.

Applying the unthinkable

L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Organismic and Transformative Biology, and Physics. Discovered the auto mechanics of combing years ago while cleaning his young daughter’s hair.

“I recall that detangling spray seemed to work often. However, I still needed to be careful to brush carefully by starting from the free ends.” Stated Mahadevan. “Yet I was soon terminated from the job as I was not very client.”

While Mahadevan lost his duty as a hairdresser, he was still a scientist. The topology, geometry, and technicians of detangling posed intriguing mathematical concerns relevant to various applications. Consisting of fabric manufacturing and chemical procedures such as polymer handling.

In a new paper released in the journal Soft Matter. Mahadevan and co-authors Thomas Plumb Reyes and Nicholas Charles discover the mathematics of combing. And explain why the cleaning strategy used by many is the most reliable method to detangle a bundle of fibers.

To simplify the trouble. The scientists substituted two helically laced filaments instead of a whole head of hair.

“Utilizing this marginal design. We examine the detangling of the dual helix by a solitary stiff tine that moves along it. Leaving two untangled filaments in its wake,” said Plumb-Reyes, a graduate student at SEAS. “We measured the forces and contortions associated with combing and then substituted it numerically.”

“Short strokes that start at the free end as well as move towards the secured end eliminate tangles by developing a circulation of a mathematical amount called the ‘link density’. That identifies the quantity that hair strands that are intertwined with each other. Regular with simulations of the process,” said Nicholas Charles, a graduate student at SEAS.

More findings

The researchers also identified the optimum minimum length for every stroke any smaller sized. It would take permanently to comb out all the tangles and any kind longer. Also, it would certainly be too unpleasant.

The mathematical concepts of brushing established by Plumb-Reyes, Charles, and Mahadevan were just used by Professor Daniela Rus and her team at MIT. To develop formulas for brushing hair by a robot.

Next off, the team intends to research the technicians cleaning curlier hair and how it responds to humidity and temperature. which might cause a mathematical understanding of a truth every person with curly hair knows: never ever brush dry hair.

This research was sustained by funds from the United States National Science Foundation and the Henri Seydoux Fund.


Read the original article on Sciencedaily.

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