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Last updated 25/32025

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This page is being used to collect information about the history of ways of making a Hexagonal Knot from strips of paper, either by using two strips of just one. Please contact me if you know any of this information is incorrect or if you have any other information that should be added. Thank you.

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In Europe and the Americas1682

A description of how to fold a hexagonal knot from two strips of paper appears in the 1682 second edition of 'Trattato Della Sfera' in a section called 'Prattische Astronomonische. Intorno all circoli della Sfera' which was an addition to the original work by Urban d'Aviso and did not appear in the 1656 first edition.

The second paragraph reads, roughly, 'You may also make the hexagon figure by taking two strips of paper of equal width, and with parallel sides, and making a knot, making sure that the points of the curve which you will have made of one strip stick out though the open part of the curve of the other, which, by tightening them appropriately, and so that they always maintain their width, cutting the front of the points, you will have made a perfect hexagon.'

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1924

Both methods of folding a Hexagonal Knot are explained in an article 'A Note on Knots' by F. V. Morley, 1924, which was published in Vol. 31, No. 5 of 'The American Mathematical Monthly' in May 1924.

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