Physical knot theory

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Physical knot theory is the study of mathematical models of knotting phenomena, often motivated by physical considerations from biology, chemistry, and physics. Traditional knot theory models a knot as a simple closed loop in three dimensional space. Such a knot has no thickness or physical properties such as tension or friction. Physical knot theory incorporates more realistic models. The traditional model is also studied but with an eye toward properties of specific embeddings ("conformations") of the circle. Such properties include ropelength and various knot energies.