Question 04/98

KNOTTED FIELDS

Field lines of magnetic fields are always closed loops. Does there exist a configuration of currents which creates a KNOTTED line of a magnetic field.







This problem is a reformulation of a problem posed by Stanislaw Ulam in "The Scottish Book" in 1935 (Problem No. 18), where it appears without a solution (see Ref.[*]).

[*]The Scottish Book ed. by R. Daniel Mauldin, Birkhauser, Boston (1981).


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