Scientists have tied the strongest knot in history using only 54 atoms
Scientists have tied the smallest and tightest knot in history — their shamrock knot contains only 54 atoms.
In 2020, chemists in China were able to create a chain of 69 atoms that intersected three times to form a shamrock knot with no free ends. Now, researchers from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have joined forces to break this record.
Like many other scientific breakthroughs, this one happened by accident. Chemist Richard Puddefatt of the University of Western Ontario told New Scientist, that he and his colleagues were working on creating metal acetylenides in the lab. When combining gold acetylenide with another carbon structure, the team unexpectedly created a shamrock knot.
“It’s a pretty complicated system, and, frankly, we don’t know how it works,” the scientist says.
Puddefatt and his colleagues hope that their node will motivate other scientists to create similar and more robust nodes in the future. Their discovery brought science closer to creating microscopic knots that naturally form in DNA, RNA, and various proteins in the human body. In addition, understanding the newest forms of microscopic assemblies can help scientists create better plastics and polymers.
