Re:Knots Smaller Than Human Hair Make Materials Unusually Tough
by bg46z on Monday March 13, 2023 @09:19AM
(#35135306)
You could probably look at protein folding libraries like pymol. Although not exactly the same, itβs generally close enough to ropes and it has enough knobs where you should be able to run the simulations you want
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Re:Knots Smaller Than Human Hair Make Materials Unusually Tough
by gilleain on Monday March 13, 2023 @09:34AM
(#35135495)
Hmmm. PyMol is molecular viewer, which has a python scripting interface to various libraries ... but is not a folding library I would say.
There is some research into the topology of DNA (especially circular DNA, like plasmids which is a knot) that considers things like writhe and twist. Not sure it would adapt too well to macroscopic systems though.
There is also the excellent KnotPlot for actually drawing the knots. I bought a licence once on a whim, but rarely use it :)
Re:Knots Smaller Than Human Hair Make Materials Unusually Tough
by dekhn on Monday March 13, 2023 @07:14PM
(#35144562)
Wouldn't really be helpful- first, pymol is a visualizer, not a folder. Also, proteins have properties very, very different from typical knots.
That does raise an interesting question- can proteins spontaneously fold into knots? The answer is yes although I was discouraged when I originally asked this question in grad school.