The Burau representation of the braid group is faithful for n = 4
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-da...
This was one of my favorite talks he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn78MhPmbCc
Damn.
> Now to return to that strange and crude mysticism, which, as I have said above, took hold of Empress Alexandra and with which she infected her august spouse. In the course of my stay in Paris in 1903 I had long talks with Baron Alphonse, the septuagenarian head of the Rothschild house. Our conversation mostly revolved around the preoccupation with the occult and the mystic which had taken root at the Russian Court, this being, in the Baron's opinion, a bad symptom. He repeatedly returned to this subject. History shows, he pointed out, that great events, especially of an internal nature, were always and everywhere preceded by the prevalence of a bizarre mysticism at the court of the ruler.
The Memoirs of Count Witte
> Whoever has had the opportunity of studying the concealed feelings of persons by means of psychoanalysis can also tell something new concerning the quality of unconscious motives, which express themselves in superstition. Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive thinking and compulsive states, who are often very intelligent, show very plainly that superstition originates from repressed hostile and cruel impulses. The greater part of superstition signifies fear of impending evil, and he who has frequently wished evil to others, but because of a good bringing-up has repressed the same into the unconscious, will be particularly apt to expect punishment for such unconscious evil in the form of a misfortune threatening him from without.
Sigmund Freud, Premonitions and Chance
If you look closely, you can find a mention of the n=4 Burau representation in it, and the fact that it "remains an open problem" to find elements of its kernel, i.e. to determine whether it is faithful.