Submission + - The New York Times tries to lasso in science reporting, and fails. (nytimes.com)
The only definitions of "in phase" that Google helps with are the states of matter, and I don't see either the rope or the roper becoming gaseous or liquid (something the roper, I'm sure, is glad of) or if two sine waves have the same peak. I will assume, please correct me if I'm wrong, that two cosine waves having the same peak would be in phase also. But, since cosine is a function of sine
The article is different from the video by pointing out that the author of the paper being reported on is the student of another scientist/mathematician who won an Ignoble Prize for why spaghetti breaks when thrown against a wall.
This being Slashdot, I will leave out any other implications of "Whips, chains and ropes". We wouldn't go there.