@yetiinabox FWIW, as someone who knows Dion’s line of work reasonably well, this article is not representing it carefully. The point is not “knitting can be thought of in mathematical terms” (which I agree is superficial and fairly obvious, though I do meet people who are encountering that idea for the first time so it’s worthwhile to repeat occasionally) but rather about identifying a specific set of curves that are useful in predictively modeling yarn paths in knit/purl structures.

@yetiinabox

hmmm. this knitter isn't impressed, because the title seems to be backwards? we aren't learning anything about knitting from theoretical physics, physics is learning from knitting (after ignoring and dismissing it for hundreds of years)

"It's been around for so long, but we don't really know how it works," Niu notes. "We rely on intuition and trial and error, but translating that into precise, predictive science is a challenge."

maybe _the authors_ don't know how it works but to say that no one knows how it works is a bit of a stretch. we have Stitch Maps (https://stitch-maps.com/) for example, which simulates the effects of increases and decreases on a piece of fabric.

I hope the authors learn more about knitting and maybe the next paper will be better.