SANJITA SRINATH

The lesson started with a shoe. We were all instructed to untie our shoes and demonstrate the easiest way to tie a shoelace. I personally prefer the bunny ears method. But did you know, you can recreate the bunny ears method in one swift movement without technically knotting the ears? Welcome to the study of topology.

Yesterday was the Online Weekend for my data science course through the North Carolina School of Science and Math Online Program. In the morning, I attended an in-person data science lab where we collected data and analyzed it in a continuation of what we were doing currently in class virtually. Following that, I attended a session on vaccine creation through computer simulation. We were introduced to protein simulation to monitor how a spike protein reacts. But on to twists and tangles.

We entered the classroom and were presented with instructions to untie our shoes. And that was where we learned what topology was.

I was handed a rope and taught dance moves. A twist and a rotation. Four people holding the ends of two ropes. We moved and twisted the ropes and together we worked to untangle our knots mathematically. The classroom was alight with laughter as we learned this.

To make it simple, we equated twisting the rope once to adding 1 to an arbitrary starting number of 0 meaning that the ropes were not caught up in each other. We added the next step, rotation. The four of us rotated clockwise and we puzzled over what mathematical function we could assign to this move. In the end, it was a simple answer: the ropes were now perpendicular. And what are the slopes of perpendicular lines to each other after all? And it was settled, a rotation meant that the arbitrary number would be the opposite reciprocal of the previous number.

It was now time to test this. We confirmed our theory through laughter as we twisted and rotated. It was fascinating to watch our teacher explain the applications of this math, and how it relates to the twisting of DNA, nano-structure, knot theory, and differential equations.

But it wasn’t just the subject matter that was interesting. It was being immersed, head to toe, in joy for learning. We flitted around the classroom, bouncing chalkboard to chalkboard, puzzling over questions that had been poorly erased: in essence, the room was filled with happiness and passion to learn. And that’s what I loved most. I was intrigued by topology and fascinated by differential equations, but what I was most impressed by was the feeling of camaraderie washing over all of us that day. That’s what I want every time I learn something new.