Materials scientist creates world's toughest fiber by adding slip knot

(Phys.org) —Italian materials scientist Nicola Pugno has realized amazing gains in adding toughness to fibers by twisting them into slip knots resulting in materials that can take far more abuse before breaking than those currently in use. In his paper he's uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, Pugno details how and why adding slip knots to fibers can make them much tougher.