When confronted with the need to tie something off, most people resort to simply tying as many half-assed knots as they can in the vague hope that the sheer frictional complexity will stymie the ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1876, Peter Guthrie Tait set out to measure what he called the “beknottedness” of knots. The Scottish mathematician, whose research ...

In 1876, Peter Guthrie Tait set out to measure what he called the “beknottedness” of knots. The Scottish mathematician, whose research laid the foundation for modern knot theory, was trying to find a ...