Related papers: Quadrisecants give new lower bounds for the ropele…
We study Kauffman's model of folded ribbon knots: knots made of a thin strip of paper folded flat in the plane. The folded ribbonlength is the length to width ratio of such a ribbon knot. We give upper bounds on the folded ribbonlength of…
A long standing open conjecture states that if a link $\mathcal{K}$ is alternating, then its ropelength $L(\mathcal{K})$ is at least of the order $O(Cr(\mathcal{K}))$. A recent result shows that the maximum braid index of a link bounds the…
A quadrisecant line is one which intersects a curve in at least four points, while an essential secant captures something about the knottedness of a knot. This survey article gives a brief history of these ideas, and shows how they may be…
What length of rope (of given diameter) is required to tie a particular knot? To answer this question, we define some new notions of thickness for a space curve, one based on Gromov's distortion, and another generalizing the thickness of…
Knots are commonly found in molecular chains such as DNA and proteins, and they have been considered to be useful models for structural analysis of these molecules. One interested quantity is the minimum number of monomers necessary to…
We present new computations of approximately length-minimizing polygons with fixed thickness. These curves model the centerlines of "tight" knotted tubes with minimal length and fixed circular cross-section. Our curves approximately…
The lattice stick number $s_L(K)$ of a knot $K$ is defined to be the minimal number of straight line segments required to construct a stick presentation of $K$ in the cubic lattice. In this paper, we find an upper bound on the lattice stick…
Ropelength and embedding thickness are related measures of geometric complexity of classical knots and links in Euclidean space. In their recent work, Freedman and Krushkal posed a question regarding lower bounds for embedding thickness of…
The shape of the most tight trefoil knot with N=200640 vertices found with an appropriately modified finite element method is analyzed. The high number of vertices makes plots of its curvature and torsion very precise what allows the…
An alternating torus knot or link may be constructed from a repeating double helix after connecting its two ends. A structure with additional helices may be closed to form a non-alternating torus knot or link. Previous work has optimized…
A quadrisecant of a knot is a straight line intersecting the knot at four points. If a knot has finitely many quadrisecants, one can replace each subarc between two adjacent secant points by the line segment between them to get the…
Given a thin strip of paper, tie a knot, connect the ends, and flatten into the plane. This is a physical model of a folded ribbon knot in the plane, first introduced by Louis Kauffman. We study the folded ribbonlength of these folded…
A long standing conjecture states that the ropelength of any alternating knot is at least proportional to its crossing number. In this paper we prove that this conjecture is true. That is, there exists a constant $b_0>0$ such that $R(K)\ge…
Knotted ribbons form an important topic in knot theory. They have applications in natural sciences, such as cyclic duplex DNA modeling. A flat knotted ribbon can be obtained by gently pulling a knotted ribbon tight so that it becomes flat…
Using Kauffman's model of flat knotted ribbons, we demonstrate how all regular polygons of at least seven sides can be realised by ribbon constructions of torus knots. We calculate length to width ratios for these constructions thereby…
The ropelength problem asks for the minimum-length configuration of a knotted diameter-one tube embedded in Euclidean three-space. The core curve of such a tube is called a tight knot, and its length is a knot invariant measuring…
Take a thin, rectangular strip of paper, add in an odd number of half-twists, then join the ends together. This gives a multi-twist paper M\"obius band. We prove that any multi-twist paper M\"obius band can be constructed so the aspect…
We study Kauffman's model of folded ribbon knots: knots made of a thin strip of paper folded flat in the plane. The ribbonlength is the length to width ratio of such a ribbon, and it turns out that the way the ribbon is folded influences…
The ribbon number of a knot is the minimum number of ribbon singularities among all ribbon disks bounded by that knot. In this paper, we build on the systematic treatment of this knot invariant initiated in recent work of Friedl, Misev, and…
We investigate the elastic behavior of knotted loops of springy wire. To this end we minimize the classic bending energy $E_{\text{bend}}=\int\kappa^2$ together with a small multiple of ropelength $\mathcal R=\text{length}/\text{thickness}$…