Why must take the road mountain zigzag?

The straight line may be the shortest path between two points, but on a slope, the zigzag line is the fastest way to go. Climbing on a slope, the mechanism and energy for uphill changes the way we locate terrain.

"You think people go the same on every terrain, but when there is a change in elevation, things are much more complicated," said study author Marcos Llobera at the University of Washington. "There are slopes that will be extremely powerless if you keep going straight, so people have to follow diagonal lines to reduce the slope. Then they have to go back to the original direction, so it creates the shape. The higher the slope, the more important it is to find a right angle. "

Llobera and his colleague TJ Sluckin at the University of Southampton in England have developed a simple mathematical model that shows how zigzagging is the most effective way to go up or down a steep hill.

However, most people do not need models to know them all, they do so without thinking.