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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"40268","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","alt":"Never Stop Asking Why: Why do I have curly hair?"}}]]Genetics, shampoo, weather … who is to thank for all of your curls? While many factors play into your good and bad hair days, you can thank physics (and your parents) for your natural curly locks. We explain why physics plays a part in how your hair falls with help from TIME.
In an effort to determine how and why steel pipes get wrapped around things, a group of MIT researchers also found an explanation of what causes hair to curl.
It’s no secret that the longer your hair grows, the more weight each strand places on the bottom of the hair shaft. This weight often causes the hair to topple over itself – or become curly.
According to TIME, straight hair lays flat and moves in just two dimensions, front to back and side to side. The researches call this a 2-D hook. If you have curly hair and it is short, each strand forms what the researchers call a 3-D local helix. It grows up and down, swoops in at angles, and doubles back on itself. If you have curly hair and you let it grow toward or past your shoulders, it is called a 3-D global helix because the hairs behavior becomes even more complex.
But a 3-D helix isn’t your hair’s only curly variable. Thickness, stiffness and weight of each strand, as well as the number of hairs per square inch, also play a role in determining the look and texture of your hair.
When the researches reduced all of these variables to algorithms, they found that their models could predict the behavior of any strand. Your locks curl based on the shape, thickness, stiffness, weight and the strands’ proximity to each other, and by tweaking any of these variables, your hair may fall in a completely different way.
Looking for more Never Stop Asking "Why?" questions? Catch up on all of the past "Whys" on Pinterest or on the blog!
