What happens to knots in zero gravity? Do they behave any differently?
I've tried to do some reading on it, but I can't find anything related to knots in zero gravity.
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9$\begingroup$ Why would anything happen to them? $\endgroup$– Organic MarbleCommented Jul 21, 2023 at 16:54
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13$\begingroup$ If you trust GPT, you are making a mistake. $\endgroup$– Organic MarbleCommented Jul 21, 2023 at 17:33
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4$\begingroup$ Do knots spontaneously untie themselves whenever you drop them? Of course not. The functioning of knots has nothing to do with gravity. $\endgroup$– Christopher James HuffCommented Jul 21, 2023 at 17:55
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6$\begingroup$ GPT can only generate sentences that sounds natural and no more. It's basically butchering statements from everywhere then frankenstein them into a new statement while following the grammar. There's a high chance that the generated statement is a non-fact. $\endgroup$– user3528438Commented Jul 22, 2023 at 8:30
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5$\begingroup$ Prior to the first human spaceflight it was wondered if astronauts would be able to swallow in zero gravity, since there would be no gravity to pull the food or liquid down. But that was actually easily answered on the ground by simply standing on your head and swallowing something. It seems like the same test can easily be done with knots by testing them both right side up and upside down. $\endgroup$– Steve PembertonCommented Jul 22, 2023 at 12:11
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2 Answers
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Knots in free fall...are knots. There's no reliance on gravity to hold knots closed.
Here's a whole bunch of knots tied in cord holding cables bundled together in the ISS. Seems to be working just fine.
Cropped from NASA original https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/iss036e017599/iss036e017599~orig.jpg
answered Jul 21, 2023 at 19:23
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Knots generally function based on friction and tension, which doesn't have much of anything to do with gravity. Now, as said, there are some kinds of knot that depend on tension in the line to stay tight, and will work themselves loose over time if tension isn't maintained (a bowline, for example). In theory, if you had such a knot and it was being used to hold an otherwise unsupported object, it might stay tight under normal gravity and slowly work loose in freefall, but that's not from any innate nature of knots. It's just because gravity is one way you can come up with line tension. As long as you have tension from some other source (such as spring force or momentum), it wouldn't be an issue.
