It's NOT topology, Marissa!

So today at the MURF pizza party our sweet coordinator, Wendy, had six of us kids pair up to play a game.  The game is as follows:

Each partner has a ribbon tying their hands together, hand cuff style.

The ribbons are looped through each other before being tied so that the partners are interlocked

This forms something like a link of arms and ribbons.  The keyword here is *link*.

The goal is for the partners to separate themselves.

As I was watching the three pairs trying to unlink themselves from each other my first thought was, "Is this possible?"  After all, my first instinct is to approach the situation mathematically.  Instantly I'm thinking of knot theory and topology.  Mathematically speaking, I didn't see how it was possible to take a two component link like this one (a Hopf link) and seperate it without slicing the link in any way.  Watching Icon and Gabie I couldn't help but say something, "It's like two donuts linked together.  How is it possible to seperate them without cutting anything?"

The response I got was PRICELESS!  It was like Icon read my mind.  :D

"It's NOT topology, Marissa!  This is real life."  -Icon

That is my new favorite quote.  It turns out that the the so called links weren't actually links because of the space between each person's wrists and the ribbon.  So, despite my confusion, it WAS possible for each team to unlink themselves without destroying everything that I have learned about topology and mathematics up to now.


Edit:  Toby wanted to point out that, "real life is a proper subset of topology", which I completely agree with.  However, I believe that fact adds to the humor immensely since it was the precise cause of my complete confusion.  :D