Child's Play, It's Knot

By Genna McLaughlin

Don't be fooled by the tinker toys on Dr. Eric Rawdon's office floor at Chatham College. The configuration of red and green sticks that looks like child's play is the serious work of a knot theorist. 

Rawdon, assistant professor of mathematics at Chatham, is the resident knot theorist. And the clusters of extension cords, pipe cleaners and tangles (squiggly clear toys that can be attached any number of ways) are his props.

"These are examples of trefoils, the simplest knot there is," said Rawdon. "I use these to show the basics."

The knots are catching a good deal of attention on campus.

Psychology, math, chemistry and economic students signed up for Rawdon's Knot Theory course during January interim. And students, faculty and staff from all over campus attended his knot theory lecture in October.

What Rawdon shares with them is an introductory glance at a complex science that has been around for more than a hundred years. A subfield of topology, knot theory is rooted in mathematics but has strong ties to biology, chemistry, medicine and even philosophy.

Rawdon was exposed to knot theory as a graduate student at the University of Iowa where several of his professors were experts in knot theory.

According to Rawdon, that's not a common thing.

"Because it's so specialized, you don't find knot theory on too many college campuses," said Rawdon. "Not even at the graduate level."

But you will find knot theory in being studied all over the world.

According to Rawdon, knots are a hot research topic because "knot theory can be used to answer questions arising in the study of DNA."

Rawdon recently received a $73,202 National Science Foundation grant to study knots. Part of the funding purchased a computer and computer software for knot work. In Chatham's Science Complex, two computers run computations measuring the complexity of knots on a continual basis.

With the grant, Rawdon also created a "knot squad" - a team of student research assistants. Together Rawdon and his squad are using DNA theory to solve some questions about knot theory.

Jolene Riches, a sophomore majoring in mathematics, is part of the squad.

"Knot theory looks simple at first, but it's pretty complicated," said Jolene. "We spent the first semester learning the basics of knot theory so that we could do experiments."

The excitement, according to Riches, is in not knowing the outcome.

"You never know if a discovery is going to take you two steps from where you were before or if it will explode into so many other things," she said.

"This type of study is good for undergraduates," said Rawdon. "They realize that there are really simple questions that have very difficult answers or simple answers that are hard to prove."

Rawdon has published several papers on knots and works with knot theorists all over the world.