I was doing some hairstyle research[1][4] and I discovered the ponytail equation. I couldn’t actually believe this was real. I thought it must be an April Fools that got into a Wikipedia article. Then I realised that I’d seen some of it before.
It’s the phrase “Rapunzel number” that causes familiarity. I’ve heard it used before, and that triggered a vague memory of previously discovering hair equations – possibly even this one. It still seems a little ridiculous, but there are people who have calculated stranger things (I mean, have you seen some of the stuff Randall Munroe gets asked to figured out?[2]). Actually, it’s entirely possible that it was something Randall Munroe wrote that caused the Rapunzel number to come to my attention, or it might just be the massive news coverage it seemed to generate in 2012, or it could be one of the times I’ve found interest in a video talking about how they do CGI hair (the Monsters Inc CG team put a lot of work into making Sully look like he had real fur – it was a massive leap in the technology at the time[3]).
Anyway, I just thought that the idea of a ponytail equation was a bit ridiculous and thought I would share it, even though I can massively appreciate the advantages such an equation can bring to the CG world.
Footnotes
| 1. | ↑ | I wanted to make sure the hairstyle I was mocking was indeed a reverse mullet. References disagree on how a reverse mullet should look, so I’m not actually sure. It was basically something like an undercut ponytail – long hair along the top gathered at the back into a ponytail with a short back and sides underneath. I do not understand why anyone would want this style unless it’s something like how you keep a devilock out of the way when you don’t want a devilock, but he didn’t look like the type to have a devilock so… |
| 2. | ↑ | what if? by xkcd |
| 3. | ↑ | VentureBeat article on Sully’s hair in Monsters University |
| 4. | ↑ | I did a lot of hair research… considering I didn’t really intend to do any. |