Knot Theory

I was walking down the hall, at my uni, in the Physics building, a place I had never been before. I am here to participate in a newly formed rocketry club. It’s a typical hand full of nerds all gathered together. We don’t really have an agenda, but they have a 3D printer. Thankfully, it’s not hooked up to the scary computer. One of the guys tried to log in and found, when he started it up, it was running Arch. Ack!

The next time I came back I was looking around more, taking in the posters and the adverts on the walls I didn’t see before. There were various signs for classes and topics, but one stood out to me. Knot theory.

I’m not really a hard maths person. I do science, but I skipped physics. So, as I am walking down the hall a small poster or flier catches my eye. I don’t remember what it said. Something like ‘Do you like knots’ or something like that having to do with knots. Me and ropes, and strings, and hoses, and wires, and head phones when they still had wires, generally do not get along. I have a theory I can’t prove: knots form spontaneously for no other reason than to be annoying. There. Knots. I was never a sailor, so I never learned my knots very well anyway. They have their utility, but I suck at them.

Knots. Knots? Knots.

I put it out of my head and continue on. Today we’re printing fins for out rockets.

I come back again, third week in a rock, and I once again see this flier for knots. Is this a class? A Club? I’m early, so I wander around a bit. I turn down a corridor I’ve never been down before. There’s more stuff, physics displays, posters, 3D printed examples of stuff. I guess they also do computer stuff here too, so there’s old computers, all kind of neat stuff. It has a casual museum quality, so I wander and I peruse.

As I am walking, I see one room is open. It’s after hours, so most of the rooms, classrooms, labs, are closed for the evening. But not this one. I can heard voices, the chatter of conversation. I’m mildly curious. I continue at my leisurely pace and as I pass by the open door, I cast my glance in the direction of this open door. I stop, and cock my head to the left, the right. I purse my lips and furrow my brow, one eye brow moving up and down. I apparently make a face, to myself, that must say something like “Wait, am I really seeing this?”

I notice that the conversation in the room has died down and the person at the head of the room seems to have noticed me. I’m unsure if he saw the range of confused looks my face cycled through. “Interested in knots?” he asked. I take a second, shake my head slightly, both taking in the view, and the question. “Uh, no, not really. I kind of hate knots, honestly.”

“Ah well, a difference of opinion. Care to join? We could use a different perspective.”

I step forward a little more and peer in, still confused, but curiosity taking over. I was not expecting this. This has to be a joke of some kind I think. The group is arranged as I would expect for a class. There is a guy at the head, leaning on a large desk, well, sit-standing, leaning back against it. He must by this group or club’s “leader”. Everyone else, and boy is this a collection of individuals, are seated in the desks chairs, like the classroom it is, and class is about to start. There is a giant monkey’s fist sitting on a desk, turned sideways, between the main professor’s desk and the front row. The thing is huge, probably a foot in diameter, make of rope, rough rope, yellowed and kind of frayed, cords thicker than my thumbs. Next to it is a massive rats nest of insanity. I can’t tell if this is an intentional ’neighbor hood knot’ or the byproduct of a ball of rope thrown in the back of everywhere where it rolled around for half an eternity, inventing new terrible, un-untiable knots.

My curiosity now can’t let me not at least take a look. “Hi” I say as I walk in, drawn, not to the monkey’s fist, but that monstrosity of a neighbor hood knot. “Reerkis…. what is this thing?” I say, looking at this incomprehensibly tangled series of knots within knots, tangles, twists, and general string related nonsense. Maybe a cat did this I think. “How many cats did it take to make this thing?!” I blurt out. I’m not usually so gregarious, but this thing. Reekris.

“And that is part of the reason we are all here” says the guy at the front. “Most of us find knots interesting, fascinating, utilitarian, mathematically anomalous or elegant. But the one thing we all share here is an interest in knots.”

I look around, actually taking in who is here for the first time.

Now this is a collection of weirdos I think.

First off, the guy at the front looked like he is a youth pastor mixed with a boy scout leader, though to be fair, is there really a difference? Yes, I think, the youth pastor tries harder to seem “cool” to teenagers, like the dude who never actually grew up past his senior year. Boy scout leaders just don’t seem to care. Different crowd. This dude is both somehow. He’s a ~40’s aged guy, tall and skinny, brown hair, combed over, glasses, but not serial killer glasses - just normal rectangular thin wire frames glasses. But he’s got the sweater. Not overly creepy, not too Ned Flanders, honestly, I can’t really remember past that.

I look around the room, at this group. One guy is literally wearing a gimp mask. Wow. He’s got a black tank top, and jeans, tattoos on the arms. With the mask on I can’t tell if this guy is black, native, Hispanic, middle eastern, just a really tan white guy, but he is darker skinned. He stare is unnerving. I notice he has a literal anchor tattoo, like he’s Popeye or something.

There is an older woman, maybe late 60’s, and she just looks like an average mom, grandma. Mom jeans, polo shirt, a little heavier later in life, her endowments having grown over the years, both above and below. Her hair is shoulder length, dirty blonde streaked with grey. She has a calm quiet to her, but sharp knowing eyes.

There is another person, a younger person, androgynous, I really can’t tell if they are a guy or a girl, mid 20’s, a little over weight, which isn’t helping with the gender id. They have a baby face and I see no stubble, but they’re cheeks have a little red to them. I can tell they burn easily, as they are white as a sheet. Bright red hair, grown long enough that it can be styled, or not, into something that a guy or a girl can easily pull off. I don’t remember much else about them in this moment.

In the middle is a guy, mid 30’s, with a thick mustache and the rest is close cropped, calculated to look like stubble. It is stubble, maintained. His hair has that unkempt quality that says that he works to keep it like that. He’s wearing an semi-ironic long sleeve sweat shirt, with a half witty quote for a fake brand, and rich kid shorts. The type that are a bright pastel color, not jeans, something like Vineyard vines or whatever, and top siders. He’s also got glasses. I can’t tell if they’re real prescription classes or just non-prescriptions lenses for the look. But it’s a look. They’re somewhere between BCGs and those completely circular ones.

The next person I notice is a young lady, somewhere between 19-21, I can’t really tell. She is definitely pulling off a thing I have noticed more lately. The 90’s mom revival. Or well, that’s what I call it. Thrift store mom jeans, the waist pulled pretty far up. A randoms over sized t-shirt, a pastel yellowish, tucked in, at least in the front. She also is doing the ironic/unattractive glasses thing, but I can tell these are real. And, I don’t know how I noticed this - Keds. A song by the Queers pops into my head at this site. “Janelle Janelle…”

I can’t really talk myself. I’ve been wearing hiking boots out of a sense of utilitarianism, much like the folks in the geology department, an old band t-shirt, ripped in the armpits (why do they do that?), and jeans. At this time I still have this stupid mustache that I twist outwards like Salvador Dali, and I have a tendency to play with my goatee, so it’s become two, like little chins horns.

The leader guy, whose name is turned out to be David, asked if I’d like to stay. As he had said before, a different perspective on knots is welcome. Apparently, pretty much everyone else enjoyed knots, in some way or another. Not me. Ha!

So, we snaked around the varied characters array across the chairs and desks, introducing themselves and a little something about themselves and why they were here.

Sebastian, the guy in the gimp mask, which he admitted gave off strong BDSM vibes, had actually been burned rather severely by battery acid while out at sea. He used to be a commercial fisherman. He said that one day, in particularly rough waters off the coast of Argentina, he was doing maintenance one the boat’s back up batteries, and he tripped over something, while carrying battery acid, and it somehow splashed on his face. He said it really was a freak accident. But he always had an appreciation for knots and how the ancient sailors came up with them. So, here he was.

Next, Winifred, the older woman, unsurprisingly, enjoyed knitting. She found the way the yard or whatever string like medium you preferred, could be tricked into little loops and knots, interweaving themselves. At the BDSM mentioned by Sebastian, she got a bit of a twinkle in her eye, and it came back when she mentioned the ‘interweaving themselves’. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs as she said this. There was an air of something left hanging, unspoken them.

The young woman, said her name was Sophia. She was here because knots are weird when you think about it. She heard there was some kind of theory relating to them and wanted to know more. That was all she said.

The mid 20’s redhead spoke up, once again, leaving their gender a mystery. Maybe they wanted it that way I thought, and if so, more power to ya. They did a bit of a cough, then stood, a bit theatrically, and announced “I am Kelly. Knots are my thing and my thing is knots.” They pulled a thin rope from their vest pocket, full of knots. All kind of weird knots, and then, with a flick of the wrist, and a flick of the rope, they were gone. The rope was now knot free. A bit of a show-person. There was a small murmur of appreciation and a little bit of golf clap from the room, they did an exaggerated bow, tucked the rope away, and sat down.

The last guy, mustache guy, turned to look at everyone, a little nervous. He did an abbreviated wave, awkward in both its motion and in how brief it was. “Um, yeah, hi, so, uh, yeah, I’m Brent, and I guess I like knots.” He said, both stiltedly and quickly.

The lead guy at the front introduced himself as James. He said his interest in knots came from his time at an all girls Catholic School he has forced to attend in Ireland growing up. His mom lived in London and forced him to live with his cousin, and thus he ended up there. He said it was very awkward, but the sisters always made him do all the packing and rigging for trips, as did his cousins, so, he learned a lot on the fly. He found he was really interested in math, not practical math, but theoretical math. And thus, knot theory.