Monster Math - Tumblr Posts

I have a knitting machine like that one and a stack of very stiff old punch cards that might be older than me. The punch cards are great for repeating patterns like that pretty basket-weave diamond design (I think I've actually used a copy of that card), but not so great for long non-repeating series like computer code.

I also weave on an 8-shaft loom, which isn't quite as complex as a Jacquard loom with punch cards, but still is basically using a series of binary switches to encode... pretty designs!

One warp/weft intersection is a lot smaller than a knit stitch with sock yarn at 7 st/in. I think with this yarn I've got about 20 threads per inch.

It might be easier to weave Doom than knit it. Let me do some math. On this loom you could only get 8 bits per weft thread, but at 20 threads per inch that's 160 bits per inch (of length, your width wouldn't matter because you'd just be repeating the same 8 bits all the way across)... Hmm. 12,208 feet (2.3 miles) in length, width anywhere from ½" to 18." It's more information-dense than the 7x7 stitches per sq in of knitted sock-weight, but having only the first ½" of width be relevant means it's a lot longer. A ½" by 2.3 mile ribbon is not terribly useful. Technically it's 509 ft² so it'd be smaller than the 3322 ft² knitted blanket but it'd just be a mess.

So the other night during D&D, I had the sudden thoughts that:

1) Binary files are 1s and 0s

2) Knitting has knit stitches and purl stitches

You could represent binary data in knitting, as a pattern of knits and purls…

You can knit Doom.

However, after crunching some more numbers:

The compressed Doom installer binary is 2.93 MB. Assuming you are using sock weight yarn, with 7 stitches per inch, results in knitted doom being…

3322 square feet

Factoring it out…302 people, each knitting a relatively reasonable 11 square feet, could knit Doom.