Talk:Figure eight knot

Trivial knot
I think a knot theorist would say that a knot that looks like the figure eight is the trivial knot, ot the unknot. You just take a cirle and twist it in the middle and you have an eight, no? AxelBoldt
 * That does confuse some people, sure. But the figure-eight knot isn't defined as "a knot that looks like the figure eight".  And if you take a look at the Figure-eight knot, you'll see that it indeed looks like a figure eight--with a band passed through one of the loops to prevent untwisting it into the unknot. 35.11.50.219 22:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation
I hope nobody minds, but I have made this page a disambiguation page. Mainly, the number of references to this page have been increasingly mathematical. One reason is that I've been using the term "figure eight knot" in some math articles I create; however, this is standardized terminology in knot theory, whereas it appears to me that "figure-of-eight knot" is just as common as "figure eight knot" for the real world object. So I've taken advantage of this difference in terminology to direct stuff appropriately.

I've kept occurrences of figure eight knot referring to the real world object in place ( figure eight knot, when the reference is in an article on another knot of a similar name, e.g. double figure eight., but in other cases I would recommend linking to figure-of-eight knot directly.

Mathematicians should use figure-eight knot or figure eight knot. --C S (Talk) 22:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Two articles and Dab'n are appropriate, but not as implemented:
 * The use of "of" and hyphenation to distinguish Dab from article is arbitrary and thus confusing.
 * It's unlikely that those who are aware of knot theory (i was a math major and know of it only from roommates) are anywhere as numerous as those who learn knots in youth organizations, or even those specifically learning the fig-8 for rock climbing or glacier travel.
 * In any case, those who have heard of knot theory can't help knowing that it is paralleled by physical knots (and those who know more than a dictdef of knot theory will have specifically visualized the figure 8 as a physical knot, even if they never tie one). In contrast, the more attention the physical-fig-8 user has to give to knot theory on their route to that article, the worse they are being served.
 * Some primitive knot-theory-like concepts probably belong in a section of the physical knot article: at least something beginning along these lines:
 * The standard conventions of the mathematical theory of knots are abstract enough to regard all figure-eight knots as indistinguishable. In many important uses of physical figure-eight knots, however, the person tying the knot cares a great deal about the fact of one of the two stretches of rope outside the knot being at least five or ten times as long as the other. Thus a distinction may be relevant between one physical knot, and another that has equivalent turns and crossings, but differs in which of those features are adjacent to the longer and which to the shorter end of the rope. One fairly natural naming scheme describes the knot as right-handed when tied by a popular series of steps, in which the tier's right hand manipulates the rope between its closer end and a position along the rope, namely the fairly closely fixed point where the left hand mostly grips and steadies the rope. Such a scheme also naturally establishes a front and back face of the resulting knot, reflecting the knot-tiers view of it.
 * This can lay the basis for describing the tying-method referred to, other methods with equivalent results, elaborations like the retraced figure-eight, the flat and the compact dressings of it, the fisherman's-knot "stopper" or the sport finish, and issues in untying.
 * Figure eight knot Figure-eight knot should become the title of the physical-knot article, and begin with a HatNote Dab to Figure eight knot (mathematics) Figure-eight knot (mathematics); the variants with hyphens and/or "of" should all be Rdrs to that physical-knot article. ( BTW, while leaving out the hyphens is probably appropriate for the titles, "figure-eight knot" is proper in titles, prose and captions.) --Jerzy•t 11:15, 14 & 06:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I have marked up (and re-signed) my preceding contrib, since i find i am mistaken in believing that the use of hyphens, commas, and the like in titles is discouraged by guidelines. In fact Naming conventions indicates (now, and perhaps always has) nothing closer to that than for characters that could screw up the article page's URL. Figure-eight knot is the appropriate title. (Note that "figure-eight knot" is appropriate for a knot known as or otherwise related to the figure eight; "figure eight knot" probably should be reserved for a figure named or otherwise related to "eight knot" -- perhaps a graphic pertaining to the speed of eight knots, or a sketched symbol conventionally accepted as an icon for the eighth knot on some list. --Jerzy•t 06:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)