Why is untangling two small knots more difficult than unravelling one big one? Surprisingly, mathematicians have found that larger and seemingly more complex knots created by joining two simpler ones ...

Pity the double bowline--it's gotten a terrible rap.starting in 1989 when Lynn Hill took a 70-foot groundfall when her partly tied bowline pulled free of her harness. But, still, for decades thiis was ...

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 ...