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Comment by hcknwscommenter

1 day ago

fiber optic strands are glass tubes and they bend.

Fiber optic strands are glass rods (solid interior) instead of tubes (hollow cylinder). The two shapes have different strength properties per unit mass [1, 2].

[1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/12913/hollow-tub...

[2] https://www.mtbiker.sk/forum/download/file.php?id=207637

Pretty much every solid material gets vastly more bendable when it's very thin.

(From vague memory, stiffness is proportional to the cube of the thickness.)