Comment by IAmBroom
3 hours ago
"Perfect" is doing some heavy lifting here. The string is always a non-straight catenary curve, unless infinite force is used to pull an indestructable string.
A laser beam* across the room will show the defect in the string straightness. It's more than good enough to fool human eyes, which are not good at judging slow gradients (such as all the touristy "mystical anti-gravity locations" where balls roll apparently uphill). Therefore, the snap-line is good enough. But not perfect.
* Gravity of course still affects the laser beam's straightness, but on a level good enough to fool electron microscopes, so we can give that a pass.
You can usually put enough tension on the string to make any droop negligible. But yes modern laser levels are a better if less tactile option in some cases.