As I have said a thousand ( at least...
) times,
personally, I do nt give a s... about "
seemingly important practical applications" - because I do nt give a s... about what "
seems" like being something, but in fact it is not, I do nt give a s... about the supposed "importance" of something, like practical knots, for example
, when millions of children die out of
thirst (and hunger, of course ), I do nt give a s... about "practical" things when they do not do not save or really improve lives, and I do not give a s... about "applications", without some of which nothing would had been really worse - and many things would be much better !
Imagine that we had not invented explosives, and fire arms, and nuclear bombs... Chemistry and nuclear physics are always great things, while their "applications" are sometimes, well, just massively lethal.
On a more
balanced tone, the number and of the practical applications is not carved in any plates given to us by God, it is not frozen in time. "
The future is not ours to see" (*). Moreover, a knot which offers something more, can wake up evolution, and make a new practical application "emerge" out of nothing - just as new practical applications may make us tie "new" knots. Also, the simple knots should always be examined simply as simple knots, without worrying about any relation they might or they might not have, about any application at all. Just this day, after three and a half YEARS, I have seen in a class of knot I have been tying all this time, something so f... obvious, which I should had seen in three and a half SECONDS !
So, yes, I understand what to examine a knot per se means, and how
stupid you can be, and remain so, if you do not...
I had been in situations where I was not sure about which end goes where, which end should better remain attached somewhere and which end could be used to untie in-the-end a secure bowline... The moment you get the EEL idea, as you did, you should also get the PET-2 idea... If you don't, well, then you are in the same situation as I were, when I had not realize the importance of a TIB knot being EEL as well - and the
pity, the versatility / opportunity lost, of a TIB knot that is not EEL, although it could well have been tied just a little bit differently, and become EEL.
I
know the game which some people want to play in this Forum, for reasons which have nothing to do with knots ! When they meet something they had never thought of ( because their mind is built for
parroting, not
learning ) they draw out one of their concealed weapons, the "practicality", they start mumbling about specific materials, specific loadings, specific knotting environments and "problems", references they do not cite, things they have seen "in the Wild", and so on. In other words, they try to "kill" in its infancy the very idea, the concept itself, by questioning the "importance" of all the "practical applications", in this and in any other possible past or future Universe !
I happen to "see" the importance of a already PET-1 loop, which is EEL, to be PET-2 as well - but I do not expect that everybody else will ! I have seen the importance of the fact that the
Zeppelin bend is a rope-made hinge, and of the fact that the
opposing bights locking mechanism does not depend on the number of times the locked tail passes in between them, and the fact that most PET-1 loops can be untied easily
because they are PET -1 ( that is, because the knot tied on the Standing Part before the eye is topologically equivalent to the unknot, so it is not an overhand or a fig.8 knot ), and most non-PET -1 loops can not be untied easily
because they are not PET-1 ( as the fake, so-called "Zeppelin loop" ). However, I do not expect the knot tyers of this generation, grown up in an environment full of knotting myths, "magic" tying tricks, silly names, and dumb tying recipes, would ever become able to abandon their hobbits and their
beliefs, and question the fact that they were so blind so long...
When I do discover how stupid I have been, as I did today
, I do not attempt to hide this fact under the rug ! On the contrary, I try to utilize it, and examine what was the cause of this stupidity, and what is the cause of the stupidity of people, in general, regarding some things, while they are so clever regarding some other things... I was stupid I had not realized the importance of a loop or a hitch being EEL, and I was stupid when I had not seen in 3 1/2 seconds that the
Helical loops can be tied easily with
zero helical turns first, and then be enhanced with any number of such turns we wish or we want/need, in-the-bight, at an instance ! Well, better later than never !