Tim Queeney

even more deeply.

And then finally, the last thing is what you might call the helix effect, which is if you were to take a rope and to wrap it around your arm like this.

So I'm just wrapping this rope around my arm and I'm not actually... It's hard to see.

I'm not actually nailing this to my arm or gluing it to my arm or riveting it to my arm, but I'm just putting it on my arm.

And then if you can't see maybe too well here, if I pull it on the same axis on which I've wrapped it around my arm, it stays.

I've literally done nothing to make this rope stay other than the fact that it's all wrapped around my arm.

So what's actually happening here is you have this helix of rope that when you pull on it on that same axis on which it was twisted,

the helix collapses.

And you might remember those party toys you got when you were a kid where you stick your fingers in both ends and pull on them, the so-called finger trap.

And what happens is those toys are made up of a whole series of helixes.

And when you pull on them, all the helixes collapse and they tighten up.

And that's what happens with rope, with multiple strand rope.

This rope I have right here is actually made of jute.

And that's a natural fiber.

And this is actually a four-strand rope.

I don't know if you can see the four strands.

The four strands.

Those strands and most rope all through history has been three-strand rope.

And I'll talk about why that is in a second.

But the strands, when you pull on them, the strands all do that helix effect.