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You can think of the "topological" knot as an abstraction of the physical knot in the sense that you can take away all the physical properties of the knot and s
by karmakurtisaani 4y ago
You can think of the "topological" knot as an abstraction of the physical knot in the sense that you can take away all the physical properties of the knot and still be left with certain structure that captures the "essence" of the knot. This is what mathematics pretty much is. If you want to keep other properties of the rope, that's all cool, but then you start doing physics more than mathematics.
- padolsey 4y agoAh thanks that makes it a bit clearer. I guess I (falsely) see mathematics as the “purer” manifestation of a thing and thus hold it to account to abstract the complete substance of a thing and its properties. But as you say, the physical is of physics and that is where I should look for a more exhaustive abstraction perhaps.