Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal

(quantamagazine.org)

77 points | by GavCo 3 hours ago ago

6 comments

  • Koshkin 2 hours ago

    > Every knot is “homeomorphic” to the circle

    Here's an explanation:

    https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3791238/introductio...

    • bmitc 27 minutes ago

      Intuitively, just imagine picking a starting point on each of the circle and the knot. Now walk at different speeds such that you get back to the starting point at the same time.

      In fact, that's what the knot is: a continuous, bijective mapping from the circle to the image of the mapping, i.e., the knot. (As the linked answer says.)

      Edit: I see now that the article already has this intuitive explanation but with ants.

  • lovegrenoble 2 hours ago

    A browser puzzle, based on "Knot Theory". Not sure I learned anything from playing this, but that was fun:

    https://brainteaser.top/knot/index.html

  • MengerSponge an hour ago

    This is relevant to my interests

    • sakesun a minute ago

      At my age, I really have to restrain myself of these interests to spare my time for some other stuffs. :(

    • layer8 10 minutes ago

      Teen mathematicians run circles inside you (if not around you).