The picture below may not look that complicated to people unfamiliar with knot theory, but it's been confounding mathematicians for decades. Now, a graduate student-turned-MIT professor holds the ...

MIT researchers develop a mathematical model to predict a knot’s stability with the help of color-changing fibers. Photo by Joseph Sandt Knots are some of the oldest and most-used technologies that ...

You may not have heard of knot theory. But take it from Bill Menasco, a knot theorist of 35 years: This field of mathematics, rich in aesthetic beauty and intellectual challenges, has come a long way ...

Color-changing fibers are helping scientists to understand, for the first time, the exact ways some knots hold tighter than others. In 2018, researchers developed pressure-sensitive fibers in part to ...

Scanning the crowd at a fancy soiree may reveal a wide array of neckties, each fastened with a highly complex mathematical object masquerading as fashion. An entire field of mathematics is devoted to ...

Mathematicians have studied knots for centuries, but a new material is showing why some knots are better than others. One sunny day last summer, Mathias Kolle, a professor at the Massachusetts ...

For over 50 years, mathematicians have argued over the nature of a complex knot. The tangled problem, known as Conway’s knot, is so fabled among mathematicians that a depiction of the knot even graces ...

Editor's Note: This article was provided by Inside Science. The original is here. (Inside Science) – Knots are everywhere, from laces of shoes to stitches that seal cuts. Sailors and others have known ...