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Updated: May 11, 2026

Magnetic Tweezers for the Measurement of Twist and Torque
Published on: May 19, 2014
The average shape of the closed trefoil knot fluctuating on a floppy rope
Marcin Modlinski1, Sylwester Przybyl, Piotr Pieranski
1Department of Computational Physics, Poznan University of Technology, Nieszawska 13A, 60-965, Poznan, Poland. Marcin.Modlinski@doctorate.put.poznan.pl
Abstract:
The average shape of the trefoil knot tied on a floppy, hard rope subject to thermal fluctuations has been determined. The fluctuations of the shape of knots were performed by random bending. As a result of the changing shape procedure large sets of deformed conformations of the initial knot were obtained. Afterwards, these sets were subject to the shape-fitting procedure. It has been found that the conformation is different from the ideal conformation of the knot.
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