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UC San Diego physicists tackle knotty puzzle
Date:10/3/2007

string was dropped into the box and tumbled around like clothes in a dryer. Knots formed very quickly, within 10 seconds. The researchers repeated the experiment more than 3,000 times varying the length and stiffness of string, box size and speed of rotation. They classified the resulting knots.

It is virtually impossible to distinguish different knots just by looking at them, said Raymer. So I developed a computer program to do it. The computer program counts each crossing of the string. It notes whether the crossing is under or over, and whether the string follows a path to the left or to the right. The result is a bunch of numbers that can be translated into a mathematical fingerprint for a knot.

We used the Jones polynomiala famous math formula developed by Vaughn Jones, a mathematics professor at U.C. Berkeleybecause it automatically simplifies mirror images and other knots that are identical, but look different.

Rather than getting just a few types of knots, Smith and Raymer got all the types that mathematicians had enumerated, at least up to a certain complexity level. The longer the string, the greater was the probability of getting complex knots.

Based on these observations, the researchers proposed a simplified model for knot formation. The string forms concentric coils, like a looped garden hose, due to its stiffness and the confinement of the box. The free end of the string weaves through the coils, with a 50 percent probability of going under or over any coil. A computer simulation based on this model produced a similar pattern of simple and complex knots as observed in their experiments.

Smith and Raymer said that the model can also explain why confining a stiff string in a smaller box decreases the probability of knot formation. Increased confinement reduces the tumbling motion that facilitates the weaving of the string end through the coils. The paper cites other researchers who hav
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Contact: Sherry Seethaler
sseethaler@ucsd.edu
858-534-4656
University of California - San Diego
Source:Eurekalert

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