sweaters

Physics

The science behind Christmas sweaters: How friction shapes the shape of knitted fabrics

(a) Photograph of jersey knit stitches. (b) Experimental setup. (c) Geometric and numerical model. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2404.07811 Through experiments, three physicists from the University of Rennes, Aoyama Gakuin University, and the University of Lyon discovered that it is the friction between the fibers that causes knitted fabric to take on a specific shape. Jérôme Crassou, Samuel Pointcru, and…