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[url=http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/12117908.htm]Why Knot?[/url]
Posted on Wed, Jul. 13, 2005
A majesty to every little movement
A Maryland inventors machine can tie a necktie - much more slowly than a man. It's a beautifully impractical piece in a show about art and physics.
By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer
People marveled at the genius of the internal-combustion engine, wondered at the intricacy of the lunar landing module, admired the rugged complexity of the Mars space probe.
But this week they'll have a chance to see something truly impressive: a machine that can tie a necktie.
It's called the "Why Knot" - a delightfully pointless, peerless invention, as much a lively, kinetic artwork as it is a working appliance.
The Why Knot whirs and hums its way through 350 distinct movements to tie a respectable four-in-hand knot, the type commonly worn with button-down dress shirts. Of course, unlike the standard two-handed, 10-fingered human being, who can tie a necktie in about 15 seconds, the Why Knot takes about eight minutes, including time to clap for itself.
"People stare at this thing," says its creator, Seth Goldstein, 65, a retired biomedical engineer who lives in Bethesda, Md. "I mean, people don't even stare at a sunset for eight minutes."
Is the machine marketable? Well, no. Reliable? Usually. Or at least often. Beautiful? Absolutely.
Starting Friday, the public will get a chance to see the Why Knot in action, part of a new Franklin Institute exhibition, "Sir Isaac's Loft: Where Art and Physics Collide."
Some might think art and physics an odd intersection - Edgar Degas and Albert Einstein aren't usually found in the same college classroom. But in fact, art and science can support and enhance each other. The exhibition prods and proves the connection, using painting and sculpture to demonstrate complex principles of motion, light and chain reaction.
Contemporary artist Rosemarie Fiore turned a carnival ride into her paintbrush, hooking sprayers to the cars and creating giant spirographs on 60-by-60-foot canvases. The exhibition also includes interactive pieces, like the one by Trenton artist Rein Triefeldt. His Chaotic Fliers consists of three small bronze acrobats who spin and leap and fall, their wild movements governed by the laws of gravity and motion and the whim of the visitor turning the crank.
"We're looking at the beauty of science - isn't science cool? - and how some artists take advantage of that beauty to do their work," says institute program developer Mike Levad.
Levad heard about Goldstein from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. And he liked the Why Knot immediately. It performed an elaborate engineering task, yet didn't actually do anything that a human couldn't do faster and better.
In a way, the seed of the Why Knot was planted here in Pennsylvania, many years ago. When Goldstein was a boy, he toured the chocolate factory in Hershey, fascinated by the way heavy machines could be made to wrap thin sheets of paper around fragile candy bars.
The adoration of automated machines never left him, even as he grew up to run the mechanical-engineering section at the National Institutes of Health. There he worked on building a new type of MRI magnet and on a device that could capture microscopic cells from glass slides. The work was challenging, he says, but always done to the beat of someone else's drum.
"When I retired," Goldstein says, "I said, I'm going to work on things that are fun, that I like to build and enjoy."
In 1999, nearing the end of his career, he began looking for a project. At breakfast one morning his wife suggested, "Why don't you make a machine that ties a tie?"
Goldstein gave the idea careful deliberation - for about half a second, he says. Then he got to work.
He began by placing a tie on a platform - and staring at it. For two hours, Goldstein sat, imagining the motions, envisioning the lifts and loops necessary to form the knot. It wasn't long before he had built a hand-operated tie-tying machine.
But he wanted the Why Knot - his wife also thought up the name - to operate on its own. When he retired in 2002, Goldstein began working on his machine full time. He added motors. And electronics. He asked a friend, electrical engineer Randall Pursley, to write a computer program to run the device.
Goldstein quickly learned one thing: Fabric is fickle. Fabric creases and folds. It tears and stretches and frays. Working with a strip of fabric is not like working with a chunk of metal or even a chocolate bar.
The Why Knot's intricate, 350-movement routine created an exponential opportunity for things to go wrong. What might be a slight variation at motion 72 could become a full-fledged disaster by motion 200.
Goldstein needed a way for the Why Knot to give itself a second chance. So he added optical sensors, a self-correcting mechanism that allows the machine, much like a human, to realize when it's made a mistake and start over.
Today the latest, greatest model of the Why Knot has 10 motors that power pulleys, levers and other components - look closely and you'll notice a bicycle chain and pedal. They gingerly grasp and tug the knot to completion.
If the Why Knot has a reason for being - other than pure fun - it's to inspire, Goldstein says. To perhaps show a young person that mechanical engineering, with its hard-to-understand principles of friction and voltage, can be fascinating and worthwhile, as a hobby or as a career. And it proves again the wonder of the human body, demonstrating how the most complicated machine can struggle to duplicate the everyday tasks that people take for granted.
Goldstein delivered the Why Knot to the Franklin Institute on Monday, staying on for a few days to iron out last-minute kinks. At the institute, the machine will have to perform not just reliably, but repeatedly. Goldstein figures it will be asked to tie a necktie about 1,000 times a month (or roughly 980 times more than the average businessman).
"It's beautiful to watch, the fluidity of the movement," he says.
Not that you'd want to lend the Why Knot your $70 silk cravat. The result might not be pretty. The machine handles only ties of durable material and standard size, 3 inches wide and 60 inches long. And don't expect to see one for sale at Wal-Mart in a few years.
For all its sophistication, the Why Knot can't complete its job with the simplicity afforded by the human hand. For those who struggle to tie their necktie in the morning, Goldstein has a piece of advice: "Let Jeeves do it."
© 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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