#mtbscience

“We are all familiar with tying knots in tangible substances such as shoelaces or ribbon. A branch of mathematics called ‘knot theory’ can be used to analyze such knots by counting their loops and crossings. With light, however, things get a little more complex. It isn’t just a single thread-like beam being knotted, but the whole of the space or 'field’ in which it moves. From a maths point of view, it isn’t the knot that’s interesting, it’s the space around it. The geometric and spatial properties of the field are known as its topology.”