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Animated Knots

animatedknots.com

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As kind of a knot guy, unlike other commenters this is my #1 favorite knot site.

Other sites with animated 3D models might be useful for visualizing the topology of knots, or something. But for actually tying the knots I find this site and its curated photos much more practically useful. The fact that it's not literally animated is a feature; it shows the key stages you go through, rather than every detail.

And the photos are just clearer and better than any other resource. (If you look closely you'll see a lot of editing work has been done on them like to minimize the diff between consecutive photos.)

Only downside is that I wish it had more minor knots!

To anyone into knots, I recommend Knots 3D on Android. It is really handy because most people keeps the phone with them all the time. Beautiful and well maintained app. It's not overwhelming, in the sense that it doesn't try to add every existing knot in the same database, it has usage, which gives context, history and specially related knots, which makes it possible to compare different related knots that are usually used for the same thing.

I use them both. I like Knots 3D better, but it's missing some knots that I use. No EStar stopper or Matthew Walker in Knots 3D, for example.

Knots 3D is also on iOS. It's great and I have used to help teach knots to Scouts quite a few times.

When you tie your shoe laces, you're probably using a square knot [1] but with double slip. If your shoe laces often open while walking, you might be doing it wrong (granny or thief knot).

If you want to learn just one new, very convenient knot, which can be used in many situations, I recommend the Bowline [2].

[1] https://www.animatedknots.com/square-knot

[2] https://www.animatedknots.com/bowline-knot

For shoelaces, go Ian Knot and forget about the rest.

https://www.animatedknots.com/shoelace-bow-knot-fieggen-meth...

https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

It’s a great knot to get other people interested, too, because you can go “alright, so first you start in this position like any other knot, right? Then you just zwoop and done”. Tying your laces in a single fast movement really makes your nerd friends curious. It’s like a magic trick.

For clarification: it's the same knot (square knot), just a different way of creating it.

Is it? From the animatedknots link:

> The difference is that the loops are NOT stacked under each other ... The loops are passed inside each other

I feel like the way we discuss knots is way too clumsy considering how old and important the topic is.

How do we live in a world that has something as successful as regex, yet we don't have similar for knots?

Yes it is - look at the end result.

The "not stacked ..." part compares it to the clove hitch, which is another knot entirely.

The Ian's Secure Knot is what I've used for years and the only shoelace knot my kids were taught. Trivial modification of the usual bunny ears and hardly ever comes undone.

I, too, am a fan of the Ian’s Knot site and for at least a couple of decades. A while ago I noticed that he has posted a page through which people can donate to the site’s operation but also which details all of the income sources that have dried up.

I donated today because his site is worth supporting.

Ian's knot site was here just recently. (5 days ago)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848231

Interesting, I actually learning the Shoelace Bow (surgeons)[1] from this site a couple years ago and it's my go to now for any shoelaces that don't lock tight or that I really need to stay tied (think running or backpacking)

[1] https://www.animatedknots.com/shoelace-bow-knot-surgeons

I know similar web about paper airplanes (maybe I found in HN too some years ago):

https://www.foldnfly.com

And, for reference, one of the historical encyclopedias of knots is the ABOK.

https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots

What's missing from linear serialization of a book format like ABOK and this website is metadata tags that indicate each knot's attribute(s), i.e., bight, open, slip, etc. and an ability to browse and filter by such tag(s).

The best part of stumbling upon niche subjects is learning about their mythology. The name Clifford W. Ashley meant nothing to me five minutes ago, but now I'm in awe at the fact his work from over 80 years ago is still the authoritative source on the subject.

I've got the Android app and love it, as well as Knots 3D.

Most knot enthusiasts will already know about it, but in the analog world The Ashley Book of Knots is fantastic. Beautifully illustrated; the author, Clifford Ashley, was a marine painter and spent decades documenting almost 4,000 knots.

> The Ashley Book of Knots is fantastic.

Yup. Referring to knots by their ABoK numbers is also more practical than by their wildly varying names.

It is a wonderful catalog, but I don't find it to be as useful for learning to tie the actual knots as books by Budworth, Pawson, etc. (or Youtube, these days)

One of the cool aspects of knots for this audience is that they have a unix-like aspect where multiple individually-useful knots can be "piped" together, the example I like to use is the Trucker's Hitch:

https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot

(which also can be tied in multiple ways, depending on which knots you combine to make it)

How are more people not obsessed with knots?

It's the purest form of human creativity! It's nothing but a strait line and humans have figured out how to twist and turn it into a million different objects and endless uses. Our entire species has propelled itself into a realm of knowledge built on the fundamental twisting of a simple lines and observing those properties.

The clothes you wear are knots. Every surgery you have ends in knots. The combined effect of knots on our technology and understanding of the world is fascinating.

Only humans can see a rope, have a picture in their heads of what it should look like and then set forth on creating it. It's just such a precious nugget of what it means to be human and have the urge to fuck around with shit.

Is knitting a really long knot?

As an avid knitter, I can confirm it really is. In practice there might be multiple knots as you change balls of yarn for example but topologically each sweater is just a very fancy knot.

In fact, the words are etymologically linked, they’re really just the same word! See https://www.etymonline.com/word/knit

> knit(v.)

> Old English cnyttan "to tie with a knot, bind together, fasten by tying," related to Old Norse knytja "bind together, form into a knot," Middle Low German knütten "to tie, knot," Old English cnotta "a knot," from Proto-Germanic knuttjan, from stem knutt-. Of brows, late 14c. Intransitive meaning "do knitting, weave by looping or knotting a continuous thread" (especially in reference to plain stitch) is from 1520s.

At least some people say yes, but it could be useful or interesting to talk about why you ask and what difference you see between knits and knots. Perhaps it depends on how one defines “knot”, but it seems like most definitions I can find work for a knit sweater.

These first two links talks about a knit being a series of knots - slip knots specifically. The other two suggest a knit is a very long knot.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190519004510/https://www.nytim...

https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~rlg131/topology_and_knitting...

https://mathemalchemy.org/2021/03/04/knots-trivial-and-other...

https://iwoolknit.com.au/blogs/news/the-science-of-knitting-...

This is a big part of whatmade me take up knitting as a hobby – one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

> The combined effect of knots on our technology and understanding of the world is fascinating.

Knots as code, code as knots: https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2107

> The clothes you wear are knots. Every surgery you have ends in knots.

The space robot you send to another planet utilizes knots: https://www.planetary.org/articles/20120905-knots-on-mars

"It might surprise most people to learn that multitudes of knots tied in cords and thin ribbons have probably traveled on every interplanetary mission ever flown. If human civilization ends tomorrow, interplanetary landers, orbiters, and deep space probes will preserve evidence of both the oldest and newest of human technologies for thousands, if not millions of years.

Knots are still used in this high-tech arena because cable lacing has long been the preferred cable management technique in aerospace applications. That it remains so to this day is a testament to the effectiveness of properly chosen knots tied by skilled craftspeople. It also no doubt has a bit to do with the conservative nature of aerospace design and engineering practices. Proven technologies are rarely cast aside unless they no longer fulfill requirements or there is something substantially better available."

Is this a very high quality website that simply tries to do one thing well and isn’t trying to monetize?!

I know it’s foolish but I want to daydream for a bit that the Web turned out differently. That at some point around Space Jam the people decided that a business being online was a deeply offensive invasion of Our space and would be boycotted, so they gave up on trying. And what was left was lots and lots of webpages like this among the personal pages and pages about nothing. And that services like search engines were provided by universities. And undergrads who attended would take their turn working for these services as a sort of community service rite of passage.

We have web rings and web rungs (more of a ladder topology) and nothing was for sale but the community would be fine with the occasional grandson selling meemaw’s knit scarfs. Oh, and Zombo Com was tolerated given its sheer breadth of utility.

I want to stay up well past my bedtime some summer night, finding some new web zone filled with a clever collection of someone’s identity they shared with the world. Maybe while a breeze gently wanders in through an open window and a train ventures forth in the distance.

For those that want to nerd out old school:

> The Ashley Book of Knots is an encyclopedia of knots written and illustrated by the American sailor and artist Clifford W. Ashley. First published in 1944, it was the culmination of over 11 years of work. The book contains 3,857 numbered entries and approximately 7,000 illustrations.[1] The entries include knot instructions, uses, and some histories, categorized by type or function. It remains one of the most important and comprehensive books on knots.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashley_Book_of_Knots

There is some duplication/variations in that count, e.g.:

> ABoK #176, #355, #364, #430, #1188, #1189, #1249, #1250, #1251, #1252, #2052, #2097, #2489, #2560, #3441, #3700, #3853

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrictor_knot

Bought this book last year. Fantastic purchase. Love Animated Knots too. But I wanted something that was useful offline if the internet is down, or if I'm innawoods.

Love this site. Bought their app a couple of years ago and started learning knots by tying them over and over on repeat during zoom meetings with a couple of lengths of paracord. Slowly building up a decent collection of knots!

I particularly like the comparison between similar knots that helps you understand when one is better than the other.

I learned a lot of the knots and hitches I use from this site. One of my favorites is the Beer Knot (https://www.animatedknots.com/beer-knot) which I use to make little loops out of paracord. They are one of the few things on the site that are not exactly a hitch or knot but an object that makes tying other knots easier. In my bike repair kit I carry a few in different diameters.

If you wrap it around a pipe or tube using a cow hitch or prusik, it creates an eyelet that is as reliable as if it were welded in place, but is also easily moved by loosening it slightly. On bicycle tours I use them to create ad hoc eyelets on my racks which make lashing oddly-shaped things on the rack easier. They also work great for converting a small diameter eyelet into a larger one.

It seems to be a nice, handmade, thoughtful collection. Things like being able to flip the images is a nice touch.

However, name "animated" will only lead to disappointment for people finding slide shows of humans. This is basically the same kind of that a Boy Scout handbook provides.

I looked up truckers hitch. It’s a slide show, even on YouTube.

I learned that knot differently, and wonder if mine has a different name.

I think "Trucker's Hitch" refers generally to any setup where you tie a midline loop, then use it like a pulley and tie off the free end. There are several different ways of doing the loop knot and the ending knot, with their own names on their own, but Trucker's Hitch refers to the overall setup.

My favorite is the Versatackle Knot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatackle_knot

As a ultra noob in the art of knotting, I liked this when I stumbled over it a few weeks back. I agree that for newbies it would be even more instructive with smoother flows, I guess they're held back by the animations being photos and not, well, animations.

I also have read their backstory/naming thing [1] several times but I still don't quite get it. I first thought they were related to the historical Grog, but that was a misunderstanding. I think.

[1]: https://www.animatedknots.com/grog-story

*by Grog!

This website was so useful for Boy Scout rank advancement.

Super useful website.

Knots seem like boring and obscure useless knowledge from a time long gone, but since gaining an interest in them as a result of getting into bushcrafting, I'm shocked at how often knots come in handy even in day-to-day life. When I was a boy scout, and I was doing my knot merit badge, they did not put any effort into demonstrating the use cases of the knots they taught us. If they had, I'd have been hooked then. Took over a decade before I revisited it and realized how cool knots are.

A skill I will definitely be teaching my boys in a more practical way when the time comes.

For these single-website to explain things, I really like that HN's 1-click link to view past submissions shows the past posts (I have seen this useful website come up in the past!):

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=animatedknots.com

A chill little puzzle game where you swap hexagons to untie a knot:

https://brainteaser.top/knot/index.html

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I worked offshore for Santa Fe International on a pipe laying barge. There, I learned the applications and strength of 3/4 inch rope. As a "rigger I", I've tied off almost anything on the deck during almost any kind of storm. As a joke, I once tied off an anchor, attached to a buoyed, two inch steel cable. The deck foreman was not amused.

There are three things that I usually do when I’m anxious, waiting for something, and not at my desk: (i) Read a Book, (ii) Play Chess, or (iii) Re-watch the Knots 3D on the Phone.

https://apps.apple.com/in/app/knots-3d/id453571750

I loved knots, lashings, plaits, braids, and splices as a kid, this really brought me back.

also this has been discussed on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=animatedknots.com

Interesting site. The layout and interaction flow feel well thought out, and the minimal design makes it surprisingly refreshing to use.

Reading this thread as a furry is...interesting.

I wish I did scouting as a kid. Knot tying seems so fun and useful.

Never too old to learn!

Boy Scout Handbook 9th edition was what we used.

Here's one US Marines use (pdf):

https://web.archive.org/web/20170516214745/https://www.marso...

I love the idea of this site but have always been disappointed by the fact that it's more of a slideshow than actual animations. You have to do a fair bit of interpolation if you aren't experienced.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com