How and Why Knots Spontaneously Form

palegray.net writes "Scientists believe they have found the underlying reasons why knots are so common in the universe. This research helps us understand how knotty arrangements in various molecules lead to biological patterns, as in certain proteins. The article also provides a look at the field of topology, and how it relates to knots."

Knot-unknot asymmetry

[SpinyNorman]

Surely the fundamental reason why knots form (or rather why they persist/accumulate)is because of the inherent assymmetry of them formign/unforming.

A loose end in a jumble of coils, if jiggled around, is almost bound at some point to pass though a coil and form a potential knot, but a knot once formed is by no means destined to become unknotted, especially once additional knots form on the loose end thereby securing earlier knots.

If the chance of becoming knotted is less than the chance of becoming unknotted, then there's going to be a trend towards becoming increasingly knotted (to some limit where the accumulated knots limit mobility of the mass).

It seems there may also be a ratcheting effect once a loose knot forms - the knot/loop being bulky will more likely catch on the surrounding mass then the single stands leading into it, so that if the loose ends get tugged by the jiggling of the surrounding mass then the knot will tighten.

But there again I'm just a dude who uses string rather than a high powered topologist getting paid to research string, so what do I know?!

Hands-on knot theory

[clawsoon]

As a sysadmin who has spent days untangling hundreds of tangled cables from the backs of too-crowded racks - hundreds of A/V lines criss-crossed by dozens of network lines criss-crossed by power cords - I've had some time to think about practical knot theory. I've established two primary hypotheses:

1. Placing cables is difficult because you are not just defining the position of that cable, you are also defining the position of every other cable in relation to that cable. As the number of cables rises, the complexity increases combinatorially. (Or exponentially. Or something. I faked my way through those math classes.)

2. There are many more ways for cables to be tangled than to be untangled, so statistically, tangling is overwhelmingly likely. It's like entropy that way: There are many more ways for particles to move in different directions than there are ways for particles to move in the same direction, so it takes special effort or special circumstances to get them all to line up.

Re:Hair

[orasio]

Because the computer reference has relevance to the Slashdot crowd (I mean, they've actually seen this phenomenon happen with cables) but a woman's hair? How often does a basement dweller get close enough to a woman to notice that her hair is tangled or not?

Ten years have passed. We finally moved out of our parents basement. We grew old. People who are young now are no longer the nerds we were back in the day. Add to that the fact that nerds are much more attractive for the ladies right now, and you will see that most of us have seen a girl from up close, and even touched them with their consent.

It was a nice joke, to say that slashdot people were virgins, but sadly that joke died. Learn to live with it. there are a lot of nerds still here, but B.O. and problems with girls does not define us anymore. In my case, for example, you could make fun of GNU evangelism or something like that, maybe.