by
Piotr Pieranski

Introduction

Scientists tend to think, when a good idea comes to their mind, that they are the first to have it.
How often they are wrong!
Not only because they do not take into consideration that their colleague could have had a similar idea before.
But also because they do not at all take into account the possibility that
an ordinary man could be the first, many, many years ago.
Ordinary people do not publish, but, fortunately, what they do is of interest for artists.
Artists record the life and work of ordinary people.
This happens quite often, in particular when the ordinary man happens to be a beautiful, young girl.
I  am searching the archives for convincing evidence of my claim, and I think I have already found some.
It is the aim of the essay to present results of my search. It is up to you to decide, if I'm right.
Obviously, I focused my attention on the science of knots.
This is more or less the content of Part I.
Having it ready I discovered that there is a lot of other information gathered as a side product of my main research.
Thus I decided to extend the work and step by steps six more parts were born.
Part II deals with the vital question if looking for the ideal knot, thus, first of all, untangling the knots is safe and easy.
Part III is just a warning what a wrong approach to the untangling activity can do to a man.
In Part IV I am trying to present the beauty of knots, in particular those, in their ideal conformations.
Part V tries to answer the touchy question where from the mathematicians take their brilliant ideas.
Part VI presents my discoveries concerning the very beginnings of the knot theory.
In Part VII I present some chilling or funny stories from the history of the knot theory.
I put a lot of effort to illustrate well my discoveries.
Fortunately, as you will see, prophetic Polish painters did this job for me.
Final remarks, acknowledgments and excuses <---- are here