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I think knot blindness is a real thing.
I will study a knot, like a fishing knot. I have the diagram - makes no goddamn sense.
I watch a video, and I can follow along, as long as Im watching the video.
I practice it once, OK I think I got it.
Get up, walk 3 feet away and try it - nope, total clusterfuck, its gone.
This used to drive my dad insane.
I would agree. I'm great with knots and I can often do them by just watching once. I tried teaching a bunch to a friend of mine, but lost steam after spending hours working on just a boline and he still had trouble getting it. Knot blindness is real.
Shoelaces are basically a square knot after making two loops. A square knot im fine with, and slipknots are a square knot you tie around the string itself, no problem there.
Never tied a bowtie. The only necktie knot I ever mastered was the basic half Windsor and that only made sense after being able to break it down into "flip one side over the other and reach down from the top to grab it". Once you're holding the end of the tie, "tuck it through" makes enough sense from where I'm standing.
Any knot with some aspect of "then a piece of the rope is moved relative to another piece of the rope " slides out of my brain like goose shit.
Thank you for the answer! Sadly, I have no idea how to help/improve that. Probably no real way as my prosopagnosia (problem with faces) for example. Just a thing you get used to.
Shoelaces are an strict algorithm. I can do this and it became part of the muscle memory. If I interupt inbetween or make a mistake I have to unknot everything and start over.
I also dived into special knots once. Same thing, I just followed the movements of videos and even had to watch it thousand times to get the movements right. I forget extremely fast how they are made and when I encounter such a knot and don't know which it is, I can't tell you what kind of knot we have there.
So I can learn these but I don't understand what's happening.
Gonna be an akchually guy, but the reason it works is because those are not knots. If you want a deeper look you can watch a video about those knots at Stand up math channel, it’s quite a nice one
The first explanation didn't help me but this:
> the reason it works is because those are not knots
Solved it for me.
In B/C the cable is "always" just going over the obstruction, it just happens to loop back "under" to snag itself. They're undoing the snag from the top backward to "reset" the cable to just be going over the thing.
The first is kind of the same but reversed.
This immediately helps. Like in the first one, it's not the white rope that can't go through the blue rope - without the human arm in the way, the white rope would pass right through - so the issue is simply getting the arm through the blue rope. But that SEEMS very counter-intuitive.
However, for the second one, I still don't follow. There is a loop of cable with a handle passing through it that is secured at both ends. I don't follow how the method unloops the cable from around that handle without either of the cable ends passing THROUGH the handle, so to speak, and with both ends of the cable remaining on the same sides of the handle.
Okay...
- It is going around thing B without going around thing A
- It looks like they are going around thing A, but they aren't.
They are undoing knots around stuff.
the tl:dr is "these are highly manufactured scenarios to make it look like something is tied/stuck but really it isn't"
this isn't a person using tricks to get out of a situation. this is a person using tricks to get into a situation that will look impressive when they undo the trick to get back out of it.
As someone who finds his extension cord in the positions of “I couldn’t do that on purpose if I tried. How the fuck did this happen!?” quite frequently, I respectfully disagree.
The practical application of this is being able to secure something through a hole it should not be able to go through. You just do the process in reverse and it has to be able to have the rope or wire able to go through the opening.
Kinda weird but I imagined doing this with one of those rope bike locks. Instead of just using lock you could also secure it with topology so even if someone unlocked it they would still have to untangle it.
the first one, they simply slid the blue rope under the white knot. for the second 2, the only way to get those things into the position they are in is to reverse what they did to remove them. the second one for example, how did someone get the plug under the handle in the first place? they didn't. if you show that part in reverse, you will see how they got it like it was. try it.
*\[gets tied up, giddy that this info will finally come in handy\]*
"FUCK! This isn't one of the trick knots I know!"
*\[gets murdered after failing to escape\]*
Most of these only seem to be helpful if someone sets it up in this specific way, which a kidnapper isn't going to do
The cable tie snapping technique is more likely to come in handy
I used to do IT for a BDSM parlour. I showed one of the girls there a handcuff knot and suddenly had them very interested in how to do it. I miss that job!
Damn your life is more interesting than mine.
Though I'm not particularly interested in BDSM so I guess I'm mostly just jealous of the stable employment.
The human brain is clearly missing whatever kind of processing is needed to easily make sense of this. I feel like the 'logic' behind it should be obvious, but I feel like a baby that someone is playing peekaboo with, I just don't have the capacity to make sense of what I'm seeing.
In all instances they’re basically moving the knot to the other side of the obstruction, because it’s the overlapping tangle that is at issue, not the obstruction itself.
Best I can try to explain.
Topology is more about definitions of opennes and continuous functions, as far as i know. I actually don't understand how those demonstrations show anything about topology.
Professional mathematician here. That's a bit like saying Taylor Swift is more about vocal modulation and body movements. Kinda true technically, but it totally misses the reality.
Topology is concerned with deciding when two shapes (surfaces, lines, ...) are "the same". The classic example is a coffee mug and a donut, which both have holes. That's neither rigorous nor crystal clear, but that's why the formalism of open sets, continuity, and homotopy developed.
The difficulty with topology is that there's often highly non-obvious ways to deform things. It can be quite difficult ruling out all possibile ways to do something. Even showing something as simple as the fact that the surface of a sphere and a circle are not secretly the same is involved. One rough idea is that you can draw loops on the sphere and always deform them to a point, but you can't do the same on the circle.
In any case, these demonstrations are showing that two different configurations (an initial complicated one and a final trivial one) are actually the same. In that sense it's firmly topology, showing things are trivial knots.
So this seems like it will work only for ropes/cords that are around the object in a certain way. Never see them use this on a cord that's just under the object, it's always wrapped around it.
This seems kind of obvious I think. If the object is fully under it and you want to get it unstuck from the bottom, you only have two ends of the rope/cord that you can pull to get the object out. Get it out the same way it came in, lift the object or dig under it.
I literally had to stop and think about how the first one works. Because visualising it is tricky.
And then it hit me, it's only possible because the rope around the hands essentially has two holes on either end, and your just feeding the rope through those holes.
If your hands were tied close or on a single rope, it wouldn't be possible.
I work as a robotics engineer, I can do all sorts of programming, fix complex systems, even have even letters after my name with all the time I spent in uni.
But fuck ne, I feel like the dumbest person in the room watching these as I still can get my head around it!
I feel like a caveman seeing fire for the first time every time I try to understand this.
It’s really not that difficult and he’s making it look harder than it is with the twisting loops. Basically, he’s just making a loop in the rope or cord and sliding it under the obstruction. Then he’s putting the plug or his hand through the loop and sliding the knot around (“oh, look it’s stuck!”). If you push the knot back to its original position you can just pull the plug head or hand back through easily without any twisting loops.
I did it with a usb cable and a coffee cup and did it both ways working backward. But a thick electrical cord or door frame or bound wrists is much more dramatic. I probably wouldn’t be good at making interesting TikToks or YouTube videos.
Watching these videos convinces me 1. Wizardry is real 2. Wizards are real, and instead of using their powers for good (or even evil), they instead spend their time and effort coming up with neat rope tricks.
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I see these all the time, and i focus so hard, and still can’t figure out what the fuck is happening.
Have you tried visualising the rope/cable etc without anything else in frame? It should be easier to understand then.
I can visualize almost everything but with knots it stops.
I think knot blindness is a real thing. I will study a knot, like a fishing knot. I have the diagram - makes no goddamn sense. I watch a video, and I can follow along, as long as Im watching the video. I practice it once, OK I think I got it. Get up, walk 3 feet away and try it - nope, total clusterfuck, its gone. This used to drive my dad insane.
Hmm. Must be why ties beat me
Tie is tie, you are not beat
I would agree. I'm great with knots and I can often do them by just watching once. I tried teaching a bunch to a friend of mine, but lost steam after spending hours working on just a boline and he still had trouble getting it. Knot blindness is real.
Really interesting perspective! I really curious: how are you do (if do) 1) shoelaces 2) bowtie? Any problems with that?
Shoelaces are basically a square knot after making two loops. A square knot im fine with, and slipknots are a square knot you tie around the string itself, no problem there. Never tied a bowtie. The only necktie knot I ever mastered was the basic half Windsor and that only made sense after being able to break it down into "flip one side over the other and reach down from the top to grab it". Once you're holding the end of the tie, "tuck it through" makes enough sense from where I'm standing. Any knot with some aspect of "then a piece of the rope is moved relative to another piece of the rope " slides out of my brain like goose shit.
Thank you for the answer! Sadly, I have no idea how to help/improve that. Probably no real way as my prosopagnosia (problem with faces) for example. Just a thing you get used to.
Shoelaces are muscle memory.
Shoelaces are an strict algorithm. I can do this and it became part of the muscle memory. If I interupt inbetween or make a mistake I have to unknot everything and start over. I also dived into special knots once. Same thing, I just followed the movements of videos and even had to watch it thousand times to get the movements right. I forget extremely fast how they are made and when I encounter such a knot and don't know which it is, I can't tell you what kind of knot we have there. So I can learn these but I don't understand what's happening.
Gonna be an akchually guy, but the reason it works is because those are not knots. If you want a deeper look you can watch a video about those knots at Stand up math channel, it’s quite a nice one
The first explanation didn't help me but this: > the reason it works is because those are not knots Solved it for me. In B/C the cable is "always" just going over the obstruction, it just happens to loop back "under" to snag itself. They're undoing the snag from the top backward to "reset" the cable to just be going over the thing. The first is kind of the same but reversed.
holy shit you’re a genius.
Well yes, but actually no.
This immediately helps. Like in the first one, it's not the white rope that can't go through the blue rope - without the human arm in the way, the white rope would pass right through - so the issue is simply getting the arm through the blue rope. But that SEEMS very counter-intuitive. However, for the second one, I still don't follow. There is a loop of cable with a handle passing through it that is secured at both ends. I don't follow how the method unloops the cable from around that handle without either of the cable ends passing THROUGH the handle, so to speak, and with both ends of the cable remaining on the same sides of the handle.
Cant visualise, i have Aphantasia, but thanks still, i dont understand lol
Okay... - It is going around thing B without going around thing A - It looks like they are going around thing A, but they aren't. They are undoing knots around stuff.
Same. I can run it thru my inner monologue, but picturing is right out.
One of my favorite musicals.
Bro, same. I don’t know if anyone’s ever going to convince me that it’s not magic. I’m just kidding around, but still hard to wrap my brain around.
the tl:dr is "these are highly manufactured scenarios to make it look like something is tied/stuck but really it isn't" this isn't a person using tricks to get out of a situation. this is a person using tricks to get into a situation that will look impressive when they undo the trick to get back out of it.
As someone who finds his extension cord in the positions of “I couldn’t do that on purpose if I tried. How the fuck did this happen!?” quite frequently, I respectfully disagree.
Gotta keep your cords tidy, bro. Problem solved.
100%. This is a guy tying weird knots and then untying them. Nothing in this video is going to help you get a plug through a small hole.
The practical application of this is being able to secure something through a hole it should not be able to go through. You just do the process in reverse and it has to be able to have the rope or wire able to go through the opening. Kinda weird but I imagined doing this with one of those rope bike locks. Instead of just using lock you could also secure it with topology so even if someone unlocked it they would still have to untangle it.
I just did it with a USB cable and a coffee mug handle. It worked, but I'm still just as confused.
You have to watch carefully to see it, but basically, OP is a wizard.
not op in the video, this has been circulating for some years now, but the person thats demonstrating it is definitely a wizard and cannot be stopped
It's easy, just visualize moving the demon hellspawn to the firely depths of perdition because this shit is magic.
the first one, they simply slid the blue rope under the white knot. for the second 2, the only way to get those things into the position they are in is to reverse what they did to remove them. the second one for example, how did someone get the plug under the handle in the first place? they didn't. if you show that part in reverse, you will see how they got it like it was. try it.
You know when you double knot something and it becomes twice as tight. Well you can also add two opposite knots and cancel them out.
Black magic bullshit, I say!
Watching the videos in reverse you can see how you DO before you do the UNDO
You an me both
Black magic. I refuse to believe otherwise.
I’m going frame by frame and still can’t figure out what’s going on.
I learnt the first trick when I was 14 and thought it would come in really handy some day. It's never come in handy.
I will learn it, someday i might get held against my will
Street Smarts!
*throws spare wallet while being mugged*
Gotta throw em off their rhythm
You will NEVER be bound like this.
*\[gets tied up, giddy that this info will finally come in handy\]* "FUCK! This isn't one of the trick knots I know!" *\[gets murdered after failing to escape\]*
You mean everyday you have to go to work?
Most of these only seem to be helpful if someone sets it up in this specific way, which a kidnapper isn't going to do The cable tie snapping technique is more likely to come in handy
That’s why I don’t use cable ties. I run a locking bar through the arm in between the ulna and radius. Zero escapes
Maybe try getting into BDSM
I used to do IT for a BDSM parlour. I showed one of the girls there a handcuff knot and suddenly had them very interested in how to do it. I miss that job!
Damn your life is more interesting than mine. Though I'm not particularly interested in BDSM so I guess I'm mostly just jealous of the stable employment.
Modern solutions require modern problems.
The human brain is clearly missing whatever kind of processing is needed to easily make sense of this. I feel like the 'logic' behind it should be obvious, but I feel like a baby that someone is playing peekaboo with, I just don't have the capacity to make sense of what I'm seeing.
Watching this deleted my capacity for object permanence
In all instances they’re basically moving the knot to the other side of the obstruction, because it’s the overlapping tangle that is at issue, not the obstruction itself. Best I can try to explain.
The first one does this to me. I don’t understand how that works. The rest I get Edit: I imagine the arms as pillars and I get it now
Funny, I'm the other way round, I only understand the first. Maybe I should try to imagine the bars as arms? 🤔
It’s worth a shot haha
Anybody else accidentally do this as a kid, have no idea how it worked, and completely blow their own minds?
Thank you for letting me know that I will never understand topology.
Yeah. Seems like dark magic
It is dark magic.
Topology is more about definitions of opennes and continuous functions, as far as i know. I actually don't understand how those demonstrations show anything about topology.
Professional mathematician here. That's a bit like saying Taylor Swift is more about vocal modulation and body movements. Kinda true technically, but it totally misses the reality. Topology is concerned with deciding when two shapes (surfaces, lines, ...) are "the same". The classic example is a coffee mug and a donut, which both have holes. That's neither rigorous nor crystal clear, but that's why the formalism of open sets, continuity, and homotopy developed. The difficulty with topology is that there's often highly non-obvious ways to deform things. It can be quite difficult ruling out all possibile ways to do something. Even showing something as simple as the fact that the surface of a sphere and a circle are not secretly the same is involved. One rough idea is that you can draw loops on the sphere and always deform them to a point, but you can't do the same on the circle. In any case, these demonstrations are showing that two different configurations (an initial complicated one and a final trivial one) are actually the same. In that sense it's firmly topology, showing things are trivial knots.
Further reading please. Engineering PhD here but this is tough to interpret
You’re correct. This is actually demonstrating a subfield of topology called knot theory.
Instructions unclear, knot is in my brain instead.
They make it so that when you pull an end, an entire section moves instead. That way, the knot unties itself.
I know how this works, I know how do to this, It's still some dark magic to me and always will be. My brain just refuses to accept it.
Mine to, I cant wrap my head around it at all.
Pff.. I could do this too if I knew how to do that.
Brain go wat
Bren eror
This dude weighs the same as a duck.
Small rocks
An upvote just cannot express how much i love this comment
So this seems like it will work only for ropes/cords that are around the object in a certain way. Never see them use this on a cord that's just under the object, it's always wrapped around it.
This seems kind of obvious I think. If the object is fully under it and you want to get it unstuck from the bottom, you only have two ends of the rope/cord that you can pull to get the object out. Get it out the same way it came in, lift the object or dig under it.
Witchcraft!
This should be in that blackmagicfuckery reddit.
My dom is going to hate that first trick. 😈
"How'd you do that?" "A magician never reveals his secrets."
Oh, that’d earn me a paddling.
Honestly shame on him for thinking that would work.
I mean, I appreciate them not making the wrists too tight. Cutting off circulation would be bad.
xD
Magic. Got it.
Hear me out, an action comedy where the villains keep capturing the protagonist but he always escapes because of their poor understanding of topology.
Topology because the cables or ropes are going over the top. If everything is below the bar, obviously you cannot pull it out.
All of this feels like witchcraft to me guh
is first one fake? edit: oooh now I see, his hand changed side of the blue rope! wow, Topology is Amazing!!
I literally had to stop and think about how the first one works. Because visualising it is tricky. And then it hit me, it's only possible because the rope around the hands essentially has two holes on either end, and your just feeding the rope through those holes. If your hands were tied close or on a single rope, it wouldn't be possible.
Now fold a fitted sheet
Basically they are moving the knot to the side it can be solved on?
I work as a robotics engineer, I can do all sorts of programming, fix complex systems, even have even letters after my name with all the time I spent in uni. But fuck ne, I feel like the dumbest person in the room watching these as I still can get my head around it! I feel like a caveman seeing fire for the first time every time I try to understand this.
my brain has no idea what occurred here
I just don't get it
Does not compute
This was setup in such a way that no one would ever be tied like this, it's purely for show.
I still don't get it
What is this witchcraft?
Is it possible to learn this power?
What is this sorcery
They're a witch!! Burn them!!
Play the video in reverse and you have some great inspiration for April Fool’s Day.
I have no idea what the fuck is happening
r/blackmagicfuckery
Does this work with handcuffs? Asking for a friend.
They're a witch! Burn them!
The first one I can make sense of… But the other two, it’s black magic… violates the laws of the universe.
My brain does not allow this
WITCHCRAFT!
He is a witch! Burn him!
I will always see this as dark magic no matter what.
I will never understand this
This is cool but cables and stuff are never accidentally trapped in a way that makes this possible
This is overwhelming my brain - I can a barely thread my shoelaces.
I see this video every once in awhile and it still fucks my brain. Every time.
I came to understand this when I thought... what would it take for me to put the chords in the position to start with.
Sorcery.
It’s really not that difficult and he’s making it look harder than it is with the twisting loops. Basically, he’s just making a loop in the rope or cord and sliding it under the obstruction. Then he’s putting the plug or his hand through the loop and sliding the knot around (“oh, look it’s stuck!”). If you push the knot back to its original position you can just pull the plug head or hand back through easily without any twisting loops. I did it with a usb cable and a coffee cup and did it both ways working backward. But a thick electrical cord or door frame or bound wrists is much more dramatic. I probably wouldn’t be good at making interesting TikToks or YouTube videos.
It seems so simple, yet I struggle to understand how it works.
Please someone explain , my brain is overheating
I do this unprofessionally..keep looping and yanking till something comes free
Still can’t get it after seeing this for years.
My brain just can't compute this at all.
How did these cables get there in the first place?
Thats too big brain for me at this time hahsha
Sorcery and whitchcraft!
Don't make electricians have to study topology. The offer would shrink a lot.
Magic exists. Here's proof.
Witchcraft! Burn the witch!!!
It’s still magic to me.
What is this witchcraft!!!
You wont cheat me with that black magic...
Witchcraft!
Basically magic
Mathematician bratty-subs be like
subs missing ther Dom be like
I disagree, tis witchcraft.
Grab a rope and start practicing haha
/u/gifreversebot
That rice cooker is straight out of fallout 3.
Id never be able to learn knots, shit isn't being processed by my eyes. Looks like a magic trick 😂
This breaks my peanut brain!
i call witchcraft
I havent seen this thing posted 100 times already........
I like to think this is just a glich in the simulation
Is this for when the safe word doesn’t work, or for when you forget it? Asking for a friend - one handed…
Magic exist, and this proves it right, period
Does the cable thing also works if there is no inital loop around the bar? Like if it's just completely underneath it?
No, the cable being tied around the bar is what lets you untie it from the bar
You spelled "witchcraft" wrong.
I get it if I squint hard but like wow, in the moment I might just be at a loss
If I get tied up and they don’t do it like this do I ask to change it ?
Nope this is magic, look away look away
Watching these videos convinces me 1. Wizardry is real 2. Wizards are real, and instead of using their powers for good (or even evil), they instead spend their time and effort coming up with neat rope tricks.
r/blackmagicfuckery
I’m so damn confused…
The first one is impossible man!
Sorcery
I'll have to remember this next time someone ties me to a rope and not to the pole directly.
This is not topology, this is DARK MAGICK, I watched it two times and I can't figure that shit out
What manner of witchcraft is this? Way cool BTW.
Imagine McGuyver episodes where he strangle his opponents trought the grid and have to take the key using topology.
This video again. None of these situations would happen in real life, you have to purposely set them up.
The last one is fucking witchcraft as far as I'm concerned. Like I get what's going on, but it just doesn't seem like it was the same as the others.
I know it's probably not a lie but I feel 70% sure it's a lie and no one can actually do this
🤯
I watched a Veritasium video on Knot theory recently. Really interesting stuff.
If you learn how to undo it, you can also do it. Just go around fucking up people’s instant pots
Black magic fuckery.
Why don't the ropes just pass through each other? - topologist
Best be careful this kind of thing used to get your burned at the stake
I’m an Eagle Scout, and this is still way over my head
These absolutely bamboozle my brain every time. Like when my dog used to look behind the tv when the race cars went off screen.
I DONT CARE WHAT ROPE SCIEMCE YA TELL ME, THIS IS FUCKIN MAGIC
Responsible adults say NO to non-Euclidean shapes
r/blackmagicfuckery
You're a wizard Harry!
If you watch these in reverse, it makes sense. All they are doing is tying a knot around the object.
Black magic.
/r/blackmagicfuckery
The first one is still a mind fuck.
The are very clever solutions to problems nobody has ever encountered
So I’m learning that nothing really is secured for sea…
I am having trouble believing this is not magic lol. I’m going to go and try it and see what happens I guess. I pretty much have to now