My uncle swore by rewinding tapes twice before playing them, but I think he was just messing with me.

He said rewinding a tape a second time would "settle the magnetic dust" back into place, and after I did it for years I finally realized my player was just eating the tape slower because I was giving it more time to cool down between spins, so who was really right here, the superstition or the actual physics?

2 comments

2 Comments

park.iris20d ago

Nothing settles magnetic dust, that's just physics folklore.

alice_harris3519d ago

My uncle had a similar trick for CDs, he said blowing on them like a Nintendo cartridge would "align the laser." I spent years blaming my breath for skipping tracks before realizing I was just fogging up the lens. Guess our uncles were really just teaching us patience through weird rituals.