Hitches : Are they "knots", like bends ? If they are, where are their nubs ?

[SS369]

@xarax post:10

What is most interesting…is the following related question : Can “neutral”, un-loaded rope segments be part of a knot, and prevent this knot of being able to get itself un-knotted, by their mere presence there, by their bulk, the incompressible volume of their rope material ? In other words, can a knot that is interwoven with one or more neutral, not loaded pieces of string, be helped to remain knotted by those pieces, but be able to be un-knotted if those stings are pulled off the knot s nub ? ( I suppose that the net [vector] sum of the forces on those string(s), induced by the surrounding knot, would be zero, so that the string(s) can not “pushed” and thrown out of the knot, by the contact with the the other, loaded parts of the knot. We have to pull one end of a “neutral” string to slip it through the knot, in a similar way we pull a key out of a lock…The pressure induced by the the door on the lock, does not throw the key out ! )

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The “Neutral” parts are , imo, part of the knot. I don’t feel that these so called neutral parts are in fact neutral. They play an important role in those particular knots. Most knots, again my opinion, are compound structures. Yes, we can make a knot that does not do any work, decorative ones for example (though they can do work or a job). A drawn knot or a knot-board’s entries does nothing, but they are still knots.

We can see all manner of things within a simple or complex tangle we call a knot. We can even see this in un-knots, such as the Blackwall hitch, that I have used for years as a method of tying off mason’s twine to layout foundations of houses.

Hitch: To connect or attach.

So, within many/most knots there are hitches (not all!). A compound structure for sure.

SS