Slashdot Mirror
MIT Physicists Have Finally Cracked Overhand Knots
An anonymous reader writes: Knots are indeed a relatively ancient art, a technology developed across centuries of trial and error and some very old, intuitive notions of symmetry and elegance. (The more 'ugly' or random a knot looks, the less likely it is to function well.) The basic physics and mechanics of knots are, however, relatively unstudied scientifically. If a knot works then it works—what more is there to ask? Quite a bit, it turns out. In a study recently accepted for publication in the Physical Review Letters, engineers at MIT and Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris offer a new fundamental theory of knots based on relationships between topology, the mathematics of spatial relationships, and the basic mechanics of friction and pliability.
Note that this does not concern the mathematical term "Knot", which means something entirely different.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
It was certainly on university courses 20 years ago
Mine too (circa 1990), but the summary is correct. 20yrs is a long time, the detail you have forgotten is that mathematical knots do not have loose ends and are typically useless in the real world. TFA is talking about the mechanical properties of open knots, these are knots with loose ends, the useful kind found on shoelaces, climbing ropes, fishing hooks, sailing ships, flat-bed trucks, etc. Of course I haven't RTFA but I'm tempted because at first glance it appears they have used the same branch of math that studies closed knots (topology) to describe the mechanical properties of open knots
What is a Knot? - Numberphile
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It is well understood in math, because it is not physics or engineering, but knot theory is a mathematically field.. Seriously.