Chris Gorski of the American Institute of Physics gathered scientists insights about certain fairy tales. Gorski writes:
In the Brothers Grimm story of Rapunzel, a witch holds a beautiful young woman captive in a tower. Rapunzel is blessed with a lovely singing voice and long, long blond hair. One day, her voice enchants a prince passing through a nearby forest. They fall in love, and Rapunzel lets down her hair so that the prince may use it to climb the tower to meet her. This chain of events begs readers to ask a question. Can human hair support the weight of another person? … Nathan Harshman, Assistant Professor of Physics at American University in Washington, DC, suggests Rapunzel would be safer and more secure if she tied her hair around something before lowering it. ?The whole idea is that you can use the friction of the hair against itself in the knot, and whatever it is tied around will support the weight of the prince.? That is a much better idea than making Rapunzel?s scalp the anchor point.
(Thanks to investigator Ron Josephson for bringing this to our attention.)