The gnat hitch
--------------
I had trouble sleeping a few nights ago. This happens to me from
time to time. I know that looking at a screen when you're trying
to sleep is a terrible idea, and if I have a paper book on the
go sometimes I'm good and I'll get up for a bit and read that.
But often I end up cruising around the small internet instead.
Lettuce's gemlog, after all, is best visited between 1am and 6am
local time. Says so right on the landing page[1].
But the other night I was cruising around Gopherspace, and noticed
that earlier this year, Defanor had made a phlog post[2] about knots.
Reading somebody mention the Ashley Book of Knots[3] made me smile.
I went through a brief "knot phase" while I was living in Finland,
which included borrowing the Ashley Book of Knots from my local
library. That book is the bible of knot geeks. It assigns unique
numeric IDs to every knot under the sun, because the same/different
names have been and are are will be used for differnet/the same knots
in different places, at different times, in differnet languages,
so names for knots are actually frustratingly ambiguous if you want
to get serious about it. It's a big book, which isn't surprisng.
Knots are one of humanity's oldest technology, and during the age of
sail, knowing everything there is to know about joining and looping
rope was genuine life-or-death stuff for huge numbers of people.
That knot phase of mine didn't last very long. I think it was kicked
off by wanting to get better at pitching tarp shelters. I was a
scout, way back when, and no doubt learned plenty of knots, probably
even a badge or two. Subsequently I have forgotten everything except
the clove hitch, which I think I can actually tie, and the reef knot,
which is just the *name* I know of a knot that exists. I decided
to set that right, and did some research, and learned that some of
those scout knots I got taught actually aren't very good. I came up
with a very small set of good, easy to tie knots, one or two of each
major type, and for a brief while I practiced them regularly with
some paracord I left beside the couch. Now it's maybe five years
later and, surprise, surprise, I can remember the names of almost
two of them (bowline and something-something-alpine-butterfly?) and
can't tie either from memory.
But despite seeming predisposed to forgetting practical knot
knowledge very quickly, I retain one clear memory from that
short-lived phase. The existence of the gnat hitch!
Why is the gnat hitch interesting? Because it was documented
for the first time ever in February 2012, which on the timescale
of knot history is yesterday. Now, obviously, coming up with a
genuinely novel knot that nobody has ever tied before is not hard.
You can just keep adding all kinds of useless, random, repetitive,
extra loops and twists and things and pretty quickly find a brand
new little corner of the vast combinatorial-explosion-space of
knots. But nobody will care about that knot, it'll be useless.
What's shocking about the gnat hitch is that it's not some obscure,
elaborate, inpractical oddity. It's a prefectly functional knot.
It doesn't come undone by itself easily when you don't want it to
under load or jostling, but it also tends not to jam itself up so
tight that it's impossible to undo it on purpose when you're ready
to. And it's quick and easy to tie! The first time I watched an
animation[4] showing how to tie the gnat hitch, my immediate reaction
was "Heck, I've probably done one or two of those in my life without
even knowing what I was doing it"!
And, hey, maybe I had. I think it's exceedingly unlikely that nobody
ever *tied* a gnat hitch until 2012. But apparently nobody anywhere
ever gave this knot a name and included it in a book of knots or a
training manual or anything like that. That is just astonishing!
And, somehow, uplifting. Even when uncountably many person-hours
have been thrown at exploring a problem space over many generations,
with very strong, practical incentives to find good solutions,
sometimes there's perfectly good stuff just lying there overlooked
in a corner, waiting for somebody to stumble across it and be the
first to say "Hey, what about this?".
[1] gemini://gemini.ctrl-c.club/~lettuce/
[2]
gopher://uberspace.net:70/0/~defanor/phlog/knots.rst
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashley_Book_of_Knots
[4]
https://www.animatedknots.com/gnat-hitch-knot
