a thing i find unsatisfying about the explanations of knot theory that i’ve come across: people will say mathematical knots are “nothing like” real world knots, because mathematical knots have joined ends.
but to imagine actually *constructing* (nontrivial) mathematical knots, you’d need to imagine the ends unjoined, doing some operations that in fact do correspond to real-world knots, then joining the ends.
no one ever talks about constructing them, for some reason?
chris martens /
npub15p…mwhd2
2023-08-08 18:08:32
Author Public Key
npub15pejcagya70mssj8a5dp6htdkdw93h4wzk952favkktwh40sqs3scmwhd2Published at
2023-08-08 18:08:32Event JSON
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"content": "a thing i find unsatisfying about the explanations of knot theory that i’ve come across: people will say mathematical knots are “nothing like” real world knots, because mathematical knots have joined ends. \n\nbut to imagine actually *constructing* (nontrivial) mathematical knots, you’d need to imagine the ends unjoined, doing some operations that in fact do correspond to real-world knots, then joining the ends.\n\nno one ever talks about constructing them, for some reason?",
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