The knots in question, the researchers wrote in their paper, were visible enough in images of the light wave data for them to identify the figure eights and toruses. ... To create the knots, the researchers carefully tuned the up-and-down and side-to-side wave motion (the polarization) of two beams of light, partly using technology not unlike that found in polarized sunglasses. The knots formed around "polarization singularities" where the beams intersected, places where the side-to-side and up-and-down wavelengths were exactly equal, and a number of other wavelengths of light looped around them. At those points, light bent in the way...