NPR

A Knotty Problem Solved

We know that some knots hold better than others, but the why of it hasn't been so clear. Special fibers that change color under strain are providing some answers.
Scientists are studying how some knots perform better than others, like this figure-eight knot tied using a special fiber that changes color under strain. Regions of high strain (green, yellow) can be easily distinguished from sections of the knot at low strain (red, orange).

Special fibers that change color when they are under strain have helped scientists come up with some simple rules that can predict how a knot will perform in the real-world.

There's a whole field of mathematics that studies knots, to explore abstract properties of idealized curves. "But that's not what you care about if you are, for example, a sailor or a climber and you need, a graduate student at MIT whose new appear in the journal .

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