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Comment by cool-RR | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, I don't think that the rope would hold up to being cut lengthwise.

Note that it is not being "cut" lengthwise, but instead is being "split" lengthwise... it's an important distinction. An alternative for split could be "un-braid".

Some of the comments below yours seem to be confusing the 2 times the author mentions the dividing of the rope.

The 1st is when he outlines the problem (at the beginning)

>Yet he divides the rope in half, ties the two parts together, and escapes to his freedom.

The 2nd is when the author provides the answer (at the end)

> The answer: he split the rope lengthwise, tied the two halves together and shimmied to freedom.

He doesn't say "cut", he says "split". A twisted rope can be split into two parts without damaging either.

Er, no. You're both substituting in the word from your mental model.

"Yet he divides the rope in half, ties the two parts together..."

Er, no. From the article:

> Which leads to one final question: how exactly did the prisoner with the insufficiently long rope manage to escape? The answer: he split the rope lengthwise, tied the two halves together and shimmied to freedom.

That's not the proposition, that's the reveal.

So what?

Does it say cut? I thought it said the rope was split, which to me implies unraveling it.

Why not? Big ropes are made with smaller fibres entwined. It's not that difficult to obtain two smaller ropes from a bigger one provided that it is big enough.

It depends on the thickness and material of the rope.

Most ropes are twisted or braided. Cutting lengthwise would cut all of the threads completely destroying the rope.

You could maybe unbraid the rope and deconstruct carefully into component threads and reconstruct into two ropes, Banak-Tarski(spell?) style. But that would be quite involved.

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