Someone Finally Got To The Bottom Of Why Basketball Sneakers Squeak
Science to the rescue!
I think we have all lain awake at night trying to make sense of one of the greatest mysteries of our time: why do basketball sneakers squeak?
…No? Just me?
What do you lie awake thinking about?
I mean, I think we know the process through which the squeaking sound you hear over the course of any basketball game is produced. You simply have a rubber sole rubbing against the hardwood floor over and over again.
However, according to The Associated Press, Adel Djellouli, a materials scientist at Harvard University, wanted to figure out exactly how that sound was being made on a more "science-y" level.
Here's why I'm just a very handsome writer and not a scientist: not only did this question not occur to me, but if someone tasked me with figuring out the answer, I wouldn't even know where to start.
I'd probably just throw on a pair of sneakers, head to the YMCA, and start making them squeal while draining threes (alright, maybe that second part is wishful thinking).
Djellouli grabbed a pair of sneakers, but instead of a slab of wood, went with a piece of glass and started rubbing the soles all over it.
We can all hear this photo, right? (Getty Images)
Of course, that's going to get the job done on the squeak front, but the action was also captured on camera and with microphones.
The findings of this study were published in the journal Nature — which must have run out of nature stuff to talk about — and they found that the rubber sole of the sneaker works to maintain grip on the smooth surface. While it does, small parts of it change shape and lose and regain contact with the smooth surface over and over again, thousands of times per second.
READ: CUSTOMERS ARE SUING A SNEAKER COMPANY BECAUSE THEIR KICKS ARE SQUEAKY AS HELL
The frequency of this results in that high-pitched squeak that I bet you've heard in your head a bunch of times since you've been reading this.
I know I have.
"That squeaking is basically your shoe rippling, or creating wrinkles that travel super fast. They repeat at a high frequency, and this is why you get that squeaky noise," Djellouli said.
Well, now I can sleep soundly.
At least until I start thinking about Chupacabras or what I want to have for breakfast in the morning.