Scientists study the physics of breasts to design better bras.
To best support breasts, a designer has to understand how they move. To that end, McGhee’s team in Australia, headed by biomechanist Julie Steele, tags women with light-emitting diodes and asks them to run on treadmills. (The women run with and without bras, so the laboratory doors are bolted to prevent uninvited people from bursting in.) Computer systems then track the breasts’ motions in three dimensions by following the moving lights. “We can actually work out exactly where they’re going, how they’re moving, and how this movement is affected by bras,” Steele says. Breasts move in a sinusoidal pattern, Steele has found, and they move a lot. Small breasts can move more than three inches vertically during a jog, and large breasts sometimes leave their bras entirely. “We have videos of women who, particularly if the cup is too low, spill all over the top,” Steele says/
The larger the breasts and the more they move, the more momentum they generate. To change or stop that momentum requires a large force, usually applied through bra straps. When straps are thin, the pressure exerted through them can be so great as to leave furrows in the shoulders of large-breasted women. As the straps dig into the brachial plexus, the nerve group that runs down the arm, they may cause numbness in the little finger. In some cases, breasts can slap against the chest with enough force to break the clavicle.
(via GeekPress)
You missed my favorite part of the article- “The first sports bra was created in 1977, when two American women took a pair of jockstraps, cut them apart, and sewed them back together. ” That’s ingenuity!
I’m honestly surprised by this quote: “A pair of D-cup breasts weighs between 15 and 23 poundsthe equivalent of carrying around two small turkeys.”
Two small turkeys? Oy!
Yeah. I don’t think I’ll dwell on that one. I’d just as soon consider them the wonderful body bits they are as someone who doesn’t have to lug ’em around.