Talk:Granny knot

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Comments[edit]

Is this supposed to be funny? You tie shoes with a "double slipped reef knot". A granny is a mistake in this application.

But you can turn a granny into a clove hitch and a clove hitch into a granny. No I don't know why.Ortolan88

is the person crazy?[edit]

how come the granny is praticaly the same knot as the square knot ? is the knots the same with just different names or did the person who invented knots wanted to be crazy ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.76.88.242 (talk)

Unclear if this is a serious question, but... Both the square knot and the granny knot are extremely ancient and have been tied by humans (and probably apes) for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years or more. Though they appear similar, the two different knots have quite distinct properties. So, no, the verdict would be not crazy. :) --Dfred (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They're actually two different knots, while they look the same, most people use a granny knot to tie stuff together but, like the article says it can be pulled out, while with a Square or Reef you actually have to rip through the rope, or whatever you're using to tie the knot. 71.35.171.166 (talk) 21:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Physics[edit]

Intuitively speaking, to me it seems rather obvious both why the granny knot can slip more easily than the reef knot, and why it can jam. Namely, when you tension the bend, the reef knot has symmetry along the line of tension whereas the granny knot does not. That means that under tension the knot rotates along the tension line. That then causes it to lose friction.

At least in long term use, the twist would also cause the stresses on the rope to go more against the direction of the fiber, fluffying up the surface of the rope. When that happens, it's not a knot anymore, it's a hairball.

So, where can this sort of analysis be found? I would have added at least the first part to the article, except that I'm working from first principles, instead of citable literature. Who's explained this out loud and where?

And second, I think all of the parts of Wikipedia which compare knots absolutely should spell out loud or at the very least cite physical analyses of the various strengths and weaknesses of specific knots. Perhaps even with regard to the type of rope being used. I mean, the second part of my first pass impression would be *radically* different if in fact the rope itself oriented its surface fibers to compensate. Thus, this sort of detail could actually help some avid Wikipedia reader come up with new ideas which involved the type of the rope in the knot, and vice versa.

So, is anybody thinking about this sort of systematic exposition of the physical principles behind the separate knots, where known? Decoy (talk) 17:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent observations... In practice, though, it turns out to be quite difficult to get solid, reproducible results using actual rope. As ancient and common as knots have been throughout human history, it is amazing to me (and many others) that so little progress has been made in explaining their detailed behavior in other than anecdotal terms.

A fair bit of strength and security testing have been done over the years, especially as related to climbing and rescue-related knots. However the lack of serious progress on the underlying hows and whys of knot behavior, as they relate to actual knots in real rope, is a topic has been lamented by knot authors and experts for a least 60 years. My feeling is that high fidelity computer modeling of rope and its behaviors will likely provide a way forward -- however a great deal of practical groundwork appears to still be needed to produce the raw data required for perfecting such models. Probably one of the best attempts so far to get a handle on these issues can be found in a few of the chapters of The History and Science of Knots[1], J C Turner & Pieter van de Griend, eds. ISBN 9810224699 --Dfred (talk) 16:03, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The square vs. granny knot issue has been an irritant to me most of my life because fundamentally, I don't understand it. I'm no expert, if there is such a thing, however what I've discovered is that a granny knot is superior to a square knot for anything I've ever needed it for. A square knot can deform into a slip knot if tension is applied to one of the ropes. A granny cannot.Tgm1024 (talk) 23:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A way to form the Zeppelin knot( some might find this simpler than Zeppelin knot article description), is to proceed as Granny knot, then at the last 'tuck under', take the right side working-end down between the lower cross over. Finished. SignedJohnsonL623 (talk) 08:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

The article gives a possible etymology from "granary". Looking at the interlanguage links, it looks unlikely to me. Several literally mean "grandmother's knot", a few others mean "old wives' knot", and none that I understand mean anything like "granary knot". phma (talk) 07:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed that claim. It doesn't appear in print before about 1990, and is a total folk etymology. --Slashme (talk) 08:49, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ABoK #3786 is not a Granny Knot[edit]

It's called "Granny Mesh Knot" in ABoK, but it is quite different from the Granny Knot (and much more stable). 79.218.246.145 (talk) 16:06, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]