 Being stuck at home with COVID, I've read everything in the house, I've done all sorts of crafting, sort of feeling like I'm at the end of my rope. When we use the word knowledge, there are a few seemingly distinct phenomena that we might be talking about, often characterized by philosophers as knowledge that versus knowledge how. When authors rant about how trivial it is to send and receive information these days via the internet, they're really only talking about one kind of information, knowledge that. Knowledge how is much, much harder to move around. A company might transport thousands of pieces of inventory to a different warehouse, or sell off a factory and build a new one on a different continent. These things are expensive, but doable. Trying to transfer all the valuable industry-specific knowledge how of one group of people to a different group, well, that's much harder. Just about everything that we've done on thunk has been some sort of knowledge that. But while I can't pipe knowledge how directly into your brain the way that I can with some other stuff, I mean, when I'm actually interesting enough to pay attention to, I think that there's a fair amount of knowledge how that fits the channel's aesthetic and would be valuable for fellow nerds. For example, knots are useful, fun to play with, and have a whole branch of mathematics dedicated to their topology. That sounds thunk as hell. Any idiot can probably wrap a rope around itself enough times to secure something in the back of a truck, or keep a dog from running off. But if you happen to know the perfect knot for the situation, you can tie it once, do what you need to do, and untie it without a ton of fiddling around or worrying about it working loose. Sort of a right tool for the job sort of thing. In the interest of conveying some knowledge how for you to add to your mental arsenal, and maybe to have something to do during COVID lockdown, let's cover a small set of knots that are widely respected as the best solutions to recurring problems. The usual rule of thumb for learning knots is that if you can tie it three times without looking at any reference material, you've got it. So pause the video, get yourself a rope or a string of some denomination, even if it's just a shoelace. Unless learn some stuff. The one-handed bowline. The bowline is one of those knots that you just need to know. A loop in the end of a rope could for hooking over things or anchoring securely. There's a whole mnemonic you can learn with a rabbit and a tree, but I have a one-handed version that's a little easier to remember. First, make a U like this, then grab the end of the rope and press it down to wrap the other side around your wrist. Pass the bit that you're holding under the rest of the rope with your fingers, then just pull your wrist out of the loop. It should look a little like a figure eight. Very secure and very easy to untie. This method works surprisingly well when you've got the rope around your waist, too. I don't know the last time you found yourself cast overboard and needing to be rescued, but being able to tie a rope around your waist quickly can also be useful when you're walking the dog or carrying groceries. Over-under cable wrap. Okay, so if you take nothing else away from this video, I want you to join me in my snooty, elitist, principled stance on the proper way to store cables. USB charging cables, extension cords, whatever. Many people learn this sort of around the hand or around the arm wrapping technique, which is quick, sure, but is also twisting the cable. When it gets stored, the cable relaxes into that twisted shape, and when you pull it out again, it'll be kinked like this, wandering instead of lying flat. Instead, we're going to create alternating loops that twist one way, then back the other way over, under, over, under. When you unwind it, it'll lay flat as a pancake. You can control the direction of the loop easily by pointing your thumb down the cable, like this, then up the cable, like that. Down the cable, up the cable, until you're done. Zeppelin Bend. A team of researchers at MIT discovered that this knot produces so little stress that your ropes will break before the knot fails. It's called the Zeppelin Bend, which is cool and all, but I don't know why it's not called the 69 Bend because, well, you'll see. With one end, you're going to make a loop in the shape of a six, with the rope passing over itself. With the other end, you're going to make a loop that looks like a nine, with the rope passing under itself. Nice. Now, if you forget which way is what, remember that we're trying to create a long tunnel to pass the ends through to hold them as tightly as possible. Now, pass the end all the way around the coil and all the way through the tunnel, both sides, and now pull everything caught. There you go. To undo it, you can pull these two little nubbins apart and it'll come apart instantly. The Alpine Butterfly. If you need a loop in the middle of a rope, maybe to make a ladder to hang a lantern or something, the Alpine Butterfly is both very secure and very pretty. Just grab the rope where you want the loop to be, like here, for example, and twist once. And then, again, now you've got these two little openings. Carefully wrap the top back, under, and then through that center opening. Then pull everything top. Now you have a nice secure loop. To undo it, just like the Zeppelin Bend, pull the nubbins away from each other and the thing should fall apart fairly easily. The Ian Shoelace Knot. You probably already know how to tie your shoes, but Ian Figgins' quick-tie bow is faster and less likely to come untied than the bunny ears that you learned as a kid. It's also great for tying apron strings behind your back. Start with your basic overhand knot, the same way that you always do. Now, lay the ends of your laces over your thumbs and fingers and stretch them out a little. One's getting stretched this way, the other's going to get stretched like this. Now, reach over and grab the opposite stretched out bit and pull both loops through. There we go. Watch again. I grab this one here, grab this one here, and pull them through each other. The bow just happens around them. If you practice, you can probably do it in less than a couple of seconds. Trucker's hitch. Whether you're helping someone move or pitching a tent, sometimes you want to pull a rope as tight as possible. What we're going to do here is create a pulley with the rope itself, something that will allow you to cinch it down harder than you'd be able to if you were just pulling it straight down and easily untie it. Right now, we're going to ignore the end of the rope and create a pulley loop a decent distance away from the point that we're going to be tying to so that we have somewhere to tighten. Make a little loop, then reach through it, like this, and pull a section of the end of the rope through it. This is a slip knot, a squirrely little loop that comes undone instantly if you pull on the rope hard enough. You can actually use almost any loop knot you like here, even the alpine butterfly. It's just that the slip knot makes untying everything very easy. We'll be pulling on both the loop and the rope so it doesn't have any reason to come undone. Once the slip knot is secure, run the end of the rope through or around whatever you're tying to. Put it through that sliding loop and start cranking on it. You can see that for every unit of length I pull through that loop, I'm tightening the load by about half that distance, so I'm doubling the force I'm applying. Physics. When we start to get tight, we're going to finish off by using two half hitches so we don't lose our tension. Wrap the end around the whole dang rope pulley apparatus once, passing it through itself in a sort of overhand knot. So long as you're still pulling on the end of the rope, that little loop will hold whatever tension you've got on the main load. Tighten up the rest of the way. Then make another loop like this and snug it up against the first one. Pour yourself a drink, do whatever it was that you needed the trucker's hitch for, then, when you're ready, just back off those two locking loops and the whole thing should come undone easily. Constrictor. Sometimes it's nice to have a knot that wraps securely around something like the top of a bag or a tent pole. The constrictor knot is self-tightening, ratcheting tighter and tighter as it gets jostled about. Grab the rope where you want the knot and twist it. Now you have a loop. Grab the two sides of the loop and you're going to keep twisting in the same direction, pushing one side of the loop over and the other side under. Now you've got this column of loops. Place it over at the top of what you're tying to and pull it taut. If you can't hook it over the top, don't worry, just make the knot this way, then use it as a reference for running the rope around your tree or mast or whatever. Remember, this knot's going to tighten itself over time, so be ready to cut it loose if it gets stuck. Anyways, if you're as bored out of your skull at home as I am these days, might as well get a little string and learn a few useful things, or annoy your housemates by tying everything to everything else. Do you have any favorite knots? Can you come up with a creative way to use these ones? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to blah, blah, subscribe, blah, share. And don't stop thunking.