But nature does it better.
Sailors leave a lot of unused space in the middle of their rope coils.
New mathematical analyses show that the helical twists of DNA and proteins are the ideal shapes for packing rope-like structures. Finding the best method for compact coiling is a classic puzzle. Amos Maritan, with the International School for Advanced Studies, and the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, present new solutions to the puzzle in the July 20 issue of Nature . They note that evolution has already built these solutions into molecules. We suspect it is the former.