All about knots

Windy_Skies · January 4, 2020, 12:47pm

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ejkuat/why_some_knots_hold_much_tighter_was_poorly/

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/71

Windy_Skies · January 4, 2020, 12:59pm

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ejkuat/why_some_knots_hold_much_tighter_was_poorly/fd1h5a8/
There are 2 important properties for knots, safety and solidity. Solidity is how well a knot will hold before breaking under tension (I guess this is related to how the fibers are stressed / compressed into the knot). Safety is how much the knot will not untie itself, or shift or misalign. This is quite an important property, if your life depends on it.

So, some knots can be solid but unsafe, others can be safe but not that solid. A few are both, my all-time favorite being the bowline, that everybody should be learning early in their life.

There are other properties, of course, and a wealth of knots exist, especially coming from sailing. As per the comments above, 2 hands or 1 hand, but also how long it takes to do (sometimes you need to be fast on a ship), or how difficult to execute / memorize (some knots can be overly complicated), or how easy to untie them even after being wet or having pulled a lot on it, or on what type of gear it has to be attached, or how beautiful they are etc…

Source: “The Ashley Book of Knots”, and a few years of practice.

Windy_Skies · January 5, 2020, 8:33pm

21 posts were merged into an existing topic: Off-topic comments split from [All about knots]

Rodread · April 5, 2020, 6:53am

Do like this long pole hooping catcher sewing method…

Windy_Skies · April 18, 2020, 12:28pm

Lots of deleted comments in the above. Here’s some of them: https://www.removeddit.com/r/askscience/comments/g3erci/is_there_a_science_about_knots_and_what_gives/

Windy_Skies · April 26, 2020, 10:41am

How Knot To Hang A Painting - Tom Scott

Windy_Skies · September 29, 2023, 9:10pm

Kind of related:

And: All about ropes and lines

Not really related: