Page 386 - Brion Toss - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

run weeping from the room. Fair enough?”) Their
arms and lines now form two interlocked circles.
The challenge is to get separated without untying
the knots, removing the loops from their wrists, or
severing either the line or their limbs. Anything else
is legal, and there is a solution. Explain that if they
succeed, everyone watching will be filled with awe
and admiration, but if they fail they will be laughed
at, not with. Having thus reassured them, you tell
them to begin.
If you’ve chosen your volunteers well, and if
those in the audience help by suggesting techniques,
you will now be treated to a randy acrobatic spec-
tacle, a series of contortions and intertwinings that
look like the Kama Sutra according to Robin Wil-
liams. It may be necessary to disentangle the sub-
jects from time to time before you mercifully step
in and pass a bight through one of the wrist loops. I Figure 11-13. Untying the Mobius Bowline, a topo-
call the trick Topological Bondage because it’s a per- logical adventure.
fect example of the main reason knots aren’t under-
stood: We assume we understand them, so we limit The solution, as you can see (Figure 11-13), is
their range of expression. This particular trick, by quite simple: Loosen the turn at the top of the knot,
the way, has an application in the real world when pull it down, pass the body of the knot through
you want to drop a mooring eye over a piling or bitt it, and you have a Slipknot which can easily be
that is already occupied by another eye. With yours straightened out.
on too, the other eye, which might belong to another When someone does manage to untie the knot,
vessel, can’t be removed without first removing they will have displayed rare topological ability;
yours. But if you thread your eye up through the be sure to congratulate them. Then invite them to
other before putting it over the piling, either one retie it.
can be removed without disturbing the other. This By the by, this genetically altered third cousin
works for any number of eyes. to a Bowline on a Bight is good for more than gig-
But we’re sneaking back into practicality here. gles; if, as the drawings show, the small eye at the
Time for a less dramatic topological interlude. end is spliced, you can make a loop knot that will
always stay tied, even in the most slick, springy,
THE MOBIUS BOWLINE jerked-upon line, and yet is easily tied, untied, and
adjusted in size just like a regular Bowline.
The Bowline is such a friendly, familiar knot, but do
we really know it? Take out a prepared line, with CIRCLING THE WORLD
an eyesplice in one end, in which you’ve already
tied a Mobius Bowline (left, Figure 11-13). Tie the And now a brief interlude while you rest your fin-
end to a rail or such, and challenge anyone to untie gers. Regard your bit of string contemplatively, and
the knot without undoing the end. Potential puz- relate to your audience the following:
zle-solvers can do anything they want except untie Imagine a string tied around the Earth at the
either end. Be prepared to step in, untangle, and equator. Call the Earth’s diameter at this point an
retie; people can get carried away. even 8,000 miles. How much longer would the

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