[Unedited] Mario Livio with Krista Tippett
On Being with Krista Tippett
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The Theory of Knots, You Know?
In the middle of nineteenth century, nobody knew what atoms were. One physicist suggested that atoms were knotted tubes of ether. A mathematician named peter gathritate started creating a theory of knots. And he worked on this for like 20 years. By the time he finished working on that, everybody forgot about it. So mathematicians just continued with theory of knots for its own sake. Yet they've had absolutely no application in mind. It turns out that to day, you knowo you may have heard about strength theory. They are also very useful for studying the structure of the d and a.
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