![](http://static.neatorama.com/images/2013-03/knot-in-water.jpg)
I
have enough trouble making tying knots with my shoelaces, so this is doubly
awesome: researchers at the University of Chicago, Illinois, have created
a 3D knot in a fluid.
To investigate, Dustin Kleckner and William Irvine of the University
of Chicago, Illinois 3D-printed strips of plastic shaped into a trefoil
knot and a Hopf link. Crucially, the strips had a cross section shaped
like a wing, or hydrofoil (see picture).
Next, the researchers dragged the knots through water filled with microscopic
bubbles. Just as a wing passing through air creates a trailing vortex,
the acceleration of the hydrofoils created a knot-shaped vortex that
sucked in the bubbles. The result was a knot-shaped flow of moving bubbles
– the first fluid knot created in a lab – which the team
imaged with lasers.
Jacob Aron of NewScientists has the video clip of the fluid knot:
Here.
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