Rapunzel's hairy ladder is actually quite plausible, provided that it was long enough. A strand of human hair is strong enough to hold 3.5 ounces. The average princess has 100,000 to 150,000 hairs on her head, which means that a hair rope could possibly support approximately 16 tons without breaking. However, before trying to lift sixteen tons of Number 9 coal with your golden locks, don't forget that it only takes about one ounce to pull a single hair from your scalp. In other words, hoisting anything much over 3 tons will rip your ponytail right out of your scalp. And, parenthetically, if you thereafter gave the hair to someone else, you might even be charged with tress-passing.
The underlying information in this factoid is courtesy of, once again, the delightful publication mental_floss.
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