Knot for Everyone

Faithful readers of this blog already know I’m a nerd beyond redemption. They like me in spite of it. So there should be no surprise that as a boy I was very interested in the subjects of knots and knot-tying. My interest went way beyond Boy Scouts. I had books - 3 or 4 at least - on the subject.

The Ashley Book of Knots given to me by my father is one of my prized possessions. I thumbed that book countless times. Monkey’s fists, sheep shanks, bowlines on a bight, hitches and splices, plaits and sennits all fascinated me. To this day, I can easily tie a couple dozen different knots right off the top of my head. Bowline? Piece of cake. Carrick bend? Easy as pie. Hangman’s noose? Since I was ten. Want to win friends and influence people? I can show you how to tie a sequence of evenly-spaced overhand knots simply by casting a bunch of underhand loops over your thumb and passing the running end of the rope back through it all.

It turns out there are whole branches of science and mathematics devoted to knots. Physicists at the University of California are studying random knot formation using nothing more than a plastic tumbling box and strings. They’ve learned, for example, that long strings tumbled for a long time create big, complex knots. Short strings tumbled for a short time create simpler knots. Stiff strings don’t knot much at all. Thanks to this research, they are on the verge of explaining why all those neatly arranged computer cables under my desk spontaneously knot up into this intractable rat’s nest without any external influence whatsoever. Good for them.

It must be exciting to be a grad student.
K-