Without directly addressing your question, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_number and https://en.wikipedi

Without directly addressing your question, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_number and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_supercoil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_supercoil Note that math knots are always circular, while DNA is often not.