Because of all the recent sailing, I've been practicing knots and generally thinking a lot about topology. It uses a long-neglected part of my brain, so it's a much needed break from thinking about molecular biology and mechanochemistry.

There are many considerations for choosing a given knot on a boat. For example, you generally want a strong knot, but you sometimes want knots you can release against a load, or sometimes want knots that tighten under load for security. You also want knots that don't tangle upon untying. For this reason, having a solid repertoire of knots can be useful, both for sailing, and for moving mattresses on top of cars.

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But anyway, oh right, the familiar knot we use for tying our shoes is a variation of the square (or reef) knot. It's amazing at how automatic this knot becomes, even though it's actually pretty non-trivial. For example, when we tie our shoes, one side goes over the other for the first hitch, then we switch for the second round (most people do left-over-right for the first round, then right-over-left for the second round). If we did the same side on top twice in a row, we get a much less sound knot (I encourage you to try it, left-over twice in a row feels super wrong, but you could practice the mirror image: right-over-left, then left-over-right). Ach! How did I ever learn this as a kid? It's pretty sophisticated!

Finally, I leave you with the observation that we use a dainty little bow for all of our shoe tying. Even the manliest man has two small little bows at his feet...