Climbing ropes
today are nylon, usually with a
core of long, twisted fibers that give the rope most of its strength, and an
outer sheath of woven, colored fibers.
«Probing deeper into the solid inner
core is like tracing it back in time, to the beginnings of its formation,» Simon Redfern from the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the study, told BBC, adding that if the findings of the study are confirmed, it would imply that «something very substantial happened to flip the orientation of the
core to turn the alignment of crystals in the inner
core north - south as is seen
today in its
outer parts.»