[dang]

I agree that that would be a good way to shorten it, but the title itself needs to be changed ("Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). "Key to why the universe exists" is linkbaity, and "1800s knot idea" appears misleading, since the intersection between what Kelvin said and what these researchers are saying appears to be just "knots".

Edit: The mention of Kelvin's original idea does make the article more interesting though!